Featured Image Credit: Antoine Chandelier
Topics: Community, Extreme Sports, Sport, Mount Everest
Anish Vij
Topics: Community, Extreme Sports, Sport, Mount Everest
The last ever photo taken of a French snowboarder before he was never seen again shows what sort of challenge he was up against.
Daredevil snowboarder Marco Siffredi is known as a pioneer of the snow sport after becoming the first person to complete a full descent of Mount Everest in 2001.
His career kicked off in the late 90s after two successful first-ever snowboard descents both in the Alps and the Himalayas.
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Siffredi made history for completing a continuous descent from the summit of Everest to the advanced base camp via the Norton Couloir without removing his board.
In 2002, however, his desire to conquer the Hornbein Couloir, a more challenging prospect, was ultimately his last dance.
On 8 September, Siffredi embarked on a final 12-hour ascent in the 'death zone' and managed to reach the summit, with the help of three Sherpas.
He incredibly reached what's considered to be the highest point on Earth at 29,028 feet, the summit of Chomolungma.
Check out his last ever picture, believed to be at the summit:
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Phurba Sherpa, one of the Sherpas on his team, was the first to greet Siffredi at the top, asking: "Where are we?"
According to snowboarder.com, he replied: “At the summit, but tired.
“Tired. Tired. Too much snow. Too much climbing.”
After just a rest hour at the top, Siffredi ignored how exhausted he was, as Sherpas warned him about the cloudy conditions, urging him not to go.
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The snowboarder still had the world-record-3,000 meters in his sights and started to make his way down with the Sherpas.
They said that they saw him make his way down, but he never returned to the base camp.
No trace of his body was found and his snowboard tracks ended abruptly at 8,600 meters.
There were no signs of an avalanche and his disappearance has remained a mystery ever since.
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A memorial service was held at Everest Base Camp, attended by his family, friends, and Sherpas.
Professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones told the author of a book about Marco Siffredi, titled See You Tomorrow, that Siffredi 'was a young punk rock kid going and tagging the most serious lines in the Chamonix valley and doing it real freeride style… full on bombing lines that traditionally people were hop turning down'.
"Nobody was doing that yet. If he was alive today, he would be this huge name in snowboarding," he added.