Race gathers pace to ski world's highest mountains
KATHMANDU (AFP) — Climbing all 14 of the world's 8,000-metre peaks is old hat, so a new generation of adventurers is gearing up for what could be mountaineering's next great challenge -- getting down them on skis.
Heading into Nepal's Himalayan mountains this month is Fredrik Ericsson, a 32-year-old extreme skier from Sweden, who will be trying to get a head start in what he predicts will become a race to take his sport to new heights.
"There are not that many people trying to ski all 14 8,000s (26,400-feet mountains), but I think in a few years there will be," he told AFP before heading off to attempt the first ski descent of Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh-highest peak.
"I hope to finish all of them before I am 40," said Ericsson, who has already chalked up one "8000er" -- Gasherbrum II in northern Pakistan -- and has skied down from just below the summit of another, Shisha Pangma in Chinese Tibet.
"Skiing all the 8,000s is one of my big goals. I am not sure if I am going to make it. So far I have done one and a half... and if I am going to do all 14 I'll have to go back and do that one again," he said.
The first to make it up and down all 14 8,000ers on foot was Italy's Reinhold Messner, who completed the challenge in 1986. He was closely followed by Poland's Jerzy Kukuczka, who used no oxygen, and put up several new routes.
Since then a steady stream of climbers have completed the challenge or have died in the process. Several sporadic ski and snowboard descents have been made, with several fatalities also recorded.
"In Europe there is anywhere between 50 and 100 doing extreme skiing. I myself know about 20," said the Swede, who skied cross-country to school as a child in the icy Scandinavian north and has been extreme skiing professionally for five years.
"It's not that big but its growing," he said of the sport, which essentially consists of descending hair-raisingly steep slopes, sometimes on sheet ice, where the slightest error can result in a very long fall and possible death.
At 8,000 metres there is also just one third of the oxygen there is at sea level and even the simplest task -- let alone performing a jump turn -- in the so-called "death zone" can be incredibly difficult.
"Avalanches are the thing you can do the least about, because you can never be 100 per cent sure," said Ericsson, who will not be using supplementary oxygen but will spend around a month acclimatising at the mountain's base camp.
If all goes to plan, it will be four days walking up -- and then the first ever ski descent of the 8,167 metre Dhaulagiri.
"I'll get back down in around five hours," Ericsson said.
