Marco Siffredi

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Marco Siffredi (* 22. May 1979 in Chamonix , † 8. September 2002 on Mount Everest , Tibet ) was a French mountaineer and extreme - snowboarders . He became famous for the first full snowboard descent from Mount Everest in May 2001. When trying to repeat this feat, he had an accident a year later.

Life

Marco Siffredi grew up as the son of a mountain guide in Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc . His older brother was killed in an avalanche when Marco was three years old. In the course of his youth he obtained three professional diplomas and worked in his home town as a bricklayer, carpenter and plumber. Unlike most extreme athletes, the young Frenchman did without sponsorship money throughout his career and largely financed his expeditions himself.

The snowboarding learned Siffredi only at the age of 15 years. Just one year later, it hit the headlines for the first time in 1996 when it left the Aiguille du Midi on the Mallory route, which is up to 55 ° steep . The teenager had numerous other runs in the Mont-Blanc massif , including the first snowboard run and a second descent on the up to 60 ° steep Nant-Blanc route from the Aiguille Verte . These achievements, achieved in the company of his friend Philippe Forte and the photographer René Robert, cemented his reputation as one of the best extreme boarders worldwide. Soon, the Frenchman dared to higher mountains and defeated among others, the Andean Summit Tocllaraju and Huayna Potosi .

Mount Everest (2001)

The Cho Oyu , the sixth highest mountain in the world, sailed Siffredi 2000th
Everest north side: Siffredi mastered the Norton couloir (red) in 2001, the Hornbein couloir (dark blue) was his undoing in 2002.

After a descent from Dorje Lhakpa in the autumn of 1999, Marco Siffredi had the idea of ​​a visit to Everest and he informed expedition entrepreneur Russell Brice about his plans. In the autumn of 2000 he tried his record attempt on Cho Oyu , the sixth highest mountain on earth, before setting off again six months later for the Khumbu region . He reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 23, 2001, one day after his 22nd birthday, from the north side. He had to discard his original plan to drive through the Hornbein Couloir due to the insufficient snow conditions. Instead, he chose the variant through the Norton Couloir and reached the advanced base camp after a descent of 2,400 m after just under four hours. After the Slovenian Davo Karničar , who had conquered Everest on skis the year before, Siffredi became the first snowboarder to succeed in this endeavor. Although the Austrian Stefan Gatt had completed the descent with a snowboard around 24 hours earlier - in contrast to Siffredi without Sherpas or additional oxygen - he overcame the most difficult passages by climbing.

Mount Everest (2002)

After strong winds prevented a departure from Shishapangma in autumn 2001 , Siffredi traveled to Tibet again in August 2002 . As a result of the monsoon, he hoped for the snow security necessary to navigate the Hornbein Couloir. After extensive acclimatization in the base camp, he and three Sherpas approached the summit via the seasonally extinct, advanced base camp. Daily satellite phone calls in Chamonix kept him in touch with his family and the meteorologist he trusted. On September 8th, the team reached the summit shortly after 2 p.m. after a twelve-hour climb through partly chest-high snow. Although the Sherpas advised the exhausted Siffredi against his plan, he started after a short break, equipped with a backpack with an oxygen bottle and abseiling equipment. At 3:15 p.m. he disappeared into the clouds.

The Sherpas stated that a little later they had sighted a person at the North Col , a good 1,300 meters above sea level. Because no one was on the mountain except Siffredi and them, they were convinced that they had seen the Frenchman who had fallen. Meanwhile, the mountain guide friend Olivier Besson had watched Siffredi's journey with binoculars from the forward base camp until he was out of sight. His track was lost at around 8500  m . One theory about his disappearance is that Marco Siffredi was hit by an avalanche in the 45 to 50 ° steep couloir . Or he could have lost his footing and fell into the kilometer-long bergschrund at the foot of the wall. A large-scale search was stopped after six days.

A month after his disappearance, a memorial ceremony was held in the Tibetan base camp, in which Siffredi's friends and family were attended by some Sherpas. Its trail, 3500 m higher, was still visible at this point. His body has not yet been found.

Journeys

literature

  • Antoine Chandellier: La trace de l'ange: La vie de Marco Siffredi. Éditions Guérin, Chamonix 2005, 400 pp. ISBN 9782911755835 .
  • Laurent Davier, René Robert & Laurent Molitor: Marco Siffredi - Dernier Everest. Press Time 2003, 96 pp. ISBN 978-2952133807 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ François Carrel: Marco Siffredi perdu dans l'Everest. September 13, 2002, accessed August 16, 2017 (French).
  2. ↑ a b Abandoned search for extreme snowboarders on Mount Everest. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 16, 2002, accessed on August 16, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e Trey Cook: The Disappearance Of Marco Siffredi. snowboarding.transworld.net, September 8, 2013, accessed on August 16, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Trey Cook: STEEP: Marco Siffredi's disappearance. Red Bull , November 23, 2014, accessed August 16, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Manuel Lugli: Marco Siffredi reported missing on Everest. planetmountain.com, September 19, 2002, accessed August 16, 2017 .
  6. ^ Brendan Leonard: Snowboarder Marco Siffredi. Adventure Journal, April 17, 2013, accessed August 16, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Siffredi, Marco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French extreme snowboarder
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1979
PLACE OF BIRTH Chamonix
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 2002
Place of death Mount Everest