Ueli Steck- Alpine Climber Dead

[asagaai]

Not sure if there are other climbers here- but the world just lost one of the BEST modern alpine climbers- Ueli Steck a Swiss climber.

He was in the Himalayas and was attempting a rare route up Mount Everest (only been done once before), then he was going to traverse straight over and climb Lhotse (another 8,000 metre peak) and bivy 1 night in the death zone, before attempting adescent, all without oxygen. This has never been done before- two 8,000 metre peaks in 1 push, and he did not know if it was humanely possible but he was going for it.

Unfortunately, he fell over 1,000 metres when climbing alone training in the early hours one morning around camp 2 of Everest acclimatising, and fellow climbers had to pick up his body parts scattered on the lower slopes.

He was an inspirational guy, climbed a new route solo with no oxygen up Annapurna (probably the most dangerous and difficult 8,000 metre mountain in the Himalayas), and did the North Face of the Eiger solo in about 2.5 hours ( takes normal climbers days and killed lots of people climbing it.)

Just goes to show even a superhuman like Ueli is mortal- and makes you realize- live for the moment and experience all you can of life like a sponge.

He was a one in a generation style climber, and brought Olympic games style physical training to mountaineering. Shame he died on a solo training peak- as it would have been interesting to see if a human could ascend two 8,000 metre peaks and then descend and live. Will now have to wait for someone else to find out.....