Everest North Face, records and ascents

On 23/05 Juanito Oyarzabal and Ivan Vallejo of the TVE Expedition reached the summit of Everest via the North Face, as did Sergio Mingute and the 15 year old Sherpa Temba Tscheri; Bertrand Roche paraglides off the summit using a tandem paraglider

Manuel Lugli

May 2001

Traduci in

TVE Expedition
Juanito Oyarzabal and Ivan Vallejo, two members of the Spanish TVE expedition - Al Filo de lo Imposible (Focus World Expeditions) successfully reached the summit of Everest on 23 May. In doing so Oyarzabal, who had already climbed Everest in May 1993 using supplementary oxygen and who had sealed his quest for the world’s fourteen 8000m peaks in March 1999 by climbing Annapurna, managed to climb all 8000ers without using supplementary oxygen. He encountered difficulties during the descent due to temporary snow blindness, but was helped to ABC by a Sherpa.

Records
Everest continues to generate plenty of news, but two feats in particular are worth reflecting upon. The first concerns the young Sherpa Temba Tscheri, whom we mentioned in early April. On 23 May the fifteen year old Nepali reached the summit of Everest from the North without using supplementary oxygen, together with the Spanish expedition leader Sergio Mingute and another Sherpa. In doing so Tscheri becomes the youngest person of all times to have climbed Everest. The previous record had been set by the Frenchman Bertrand Roche, who on 7 October 1990 reached the summit at the age of seventeen 1/2.

Bertrand Roche himself established a new record this year by becoming the first person, together with his companion, to paraglide from the summit in a tandem paraglider. The flight time to ABC took a mere eight minutes! By launching himself off the summit of Everest Roche has also become the first person to have paraglided from the famous "Seven Summits", ie the highest mountains on each of the seven continents.

by Manuel Lugli
Focus World Expeditions

Everest, Lhotse and Makalu - photo F. Tremolada