Tomas Olsson

Tomas Olsson
Born	(1976-03-18)18 March 1976 Kristinehamn Sweden
Died	16 May 2006(2006-05-16) (aged 30) Everest, Nepal
Occupation	Ski mountaineer

Tomas Kenneth Olsson (March 18, 1976 – May 16, 2006) was a Swedish adventurer and extreme skier. He was born in Kristinehamn but grew up in Borås. He took an engineering degree at Linköping University in 2001, after which he moved to Chamonix in France to focus on skiing. He specialized in skiing down some of the world's highest and steepest mountains. He has gone from the top of Aconcagua in Argentina (6960 m), Lenin Peak in Kyrgyzstan (7134 m), Muztagh Ata (7546 m) and Kuksay Peak (7134 m) in China and Cho Oyu in Tibet ( 8201 m).

Biography

Tomas Olsson lived in Chamonix in France where he worked as a professional extreme skier.

Birth and early life

He was born in Kristinehamn and raised in Borås. From the beginning he was just an ordinary lad but during high school became aware of action sports. Over the years, interest grew and MSc studies in Linköping was devoted every spare moment to skiing and climbing. After completing graduation in 2001, he moved to Chamonix in France to pursue the life of an adventurous skier.

Life in Chamonix

Steep skiing and climbing was his everyday life. The base is Chamonix in the French Alps and a couple of times a year he went to exotic locations to explore new environments and his own limits. With skis on his feet, Tomas have skied from the summit of Aconcagua (6960m) in Argentina, Peak Lenin (7134m) in Kirigizistan, Muztagh Ata (7546m) & Kuksay Peak (7134m) in China, Cho Oyu (8201m) in Tibet and a Volcano in Kamchatka in the far away in Siberia. Besides skiing he has hold lectures and work with product development and promotional issues with Bergans of Norway & Silva Sweden.

Desire to ski down Everest

Tomas's ultimate goal, which was scheduled for spring 2006, was to once again stand on the summit of Everest and from the top of the world's highest mountain directing the skis toward Tibet and become the first skier in the world to ski down Everest's steep north side of the mountain. At the end of March 2006, he set of to go to Everest. The goal together with Norwegian Tormod Graneheim was to be the first in the world to ski from the top and down the mountain's north side. During October and November, he was in Sweden to tie a couple of new partners to the office and work out optimum communication- & logistics solutions. Then it was off to Chamonix in France, to fine-tune the shape during the winter. As training for the Everest Expedition in the summer of 2005, he cycled alone from Stockholm to Chamonix in France, climbed the Mont Blanc (4810m) and then rode back to Sweden. He was an adventurer full-time and his goal was to in May 2006, becoming the first in the world to ski down the north side of Everest, the world's highest mountain.

Adventures

In June 2005, he went off on something he called a training expedition, where he was on a bicycle came from Stockholm down to Chamonix in France to climb Mont Blanc. Olsson cycled the 2500 km long tour down to Chamonix of 17 days and 4 July he climbed Mont Blanc. Then he took his bicycle and cycled the 2500 km back to Sweden and Stockholm again. He started the ride on Monday 13 June 2005, could see the expedition which ended on Friday, 22 July 2005. In the media, he has mentioned that this bike ride, he made partly in honor of the now deceased adventurer Göran Kropp who in October 1995 embarked on his legendary adventure on the bike to Mount Everest for a clean solo ascent.

Tomas Olsson was a Swedish adventurer and ski mountaineer who attempted to be the first to make a complete ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest down the Norton Couloir (via North Col), with partner Tormod Granheim, in Spring 2006. In early April 2006 gave Olsson set off on an expedition to Mount Everest together with the Norwegian extreme skier Tormod Graneheim. The goal of the expedition was to try to become the first in the world to ski down the steep north side of the mountain.

Tomas Olsson, his Norwegian partner Tormod Granheim and photographer Fredrik Schenholm approached Everest from the Tibetan side in Spring 2006. Olsson climbed the mountain from Advanced Base Camp, 6400 meters above sea level, to the summit (8848 m) in a 2 days effort. The route he follows known as the Mallory route normally takes climbers five days to complete.

Olsson and Graneheim reached Everest's peak on 16 May 2006. The pair then skied into the North Face by the Norton Couloir, a 55 degree steep and nearly 3000 meter high mountain face. North Col (North Face) Route is one of the most difficult of all the difficult routes to the top of the mountain. On May 16, 2006, after a full day of climbing, the two met up on the mountain and reached the summit. Exhausted, they wondered if they had the strength to ski down. Undeterred by their fatigue, they set off on skis down the North Face via the Norton Couloir at angles as steep as 60 degrees and a shear 3,000 meter drop. Unfortunately, just as they set off, and after only skiing down the North Face approximately 1,500 feet, one of Olsson’s skis broke, adding extra tension to the already complex task. They tried to repair the ski with tape. A cliff intersecting the couloir forced the two to make an abseil. A snow anchor failed and Olsson fell an estimated 2500 meters to his death. Granheim skied alone to the North Col.

Tomas Olsson was not the only one to attempt skiing down Mount Everest this year he was part of the "The Vikings are back: Climb + Sky-ski Everest expedition 2006" with the ambition to ski down the North Col route of Mount Everest. As part of an ongoing project to ski the Seven summits, the Swedish expedition were involved in a project of climbing and sky-skiing down the Seven Summits. The expedition consisted of Tomas Olsson, Tormod Granheim from Norway and Fredrik Schenholm. The guys successfully skied down Cho Oyu in fall, 2004. However, logistical problems prevented the pair from attempting a similar feat on Shisha Pangma. Olsson and Granheim had been training hard all winter in Chamonix, French Alps, for the upcoming Everest challenge. Fredrik Schenholm would join the expedition as a photographer.

Another expedition, Swedish Everest Ski expedition (Martin Letzter and Olof Sundstrom), also skied down Everest the same day as Tomas Olsson using an easier route.

They had already skied Elbrus, Denali, Aconcagua, Kosciuszko, and Kilimanjaro during the last three years. To reach Mount Everest the team reached Tibet after driving 12 000 kilometers from Stockholm to Kathmandu, through such countries as Russia, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India, in a 13-year-old Land Rover Defender.

The team would have skied the Antarctica the coming winter if they would have been successful in completing their series by skiing Mt. Vinson during the Antarctic summer 2006/2007.

During the expedition in May 2006, Olsson, while rappelling down a 150-meter rock cliff at 8,500 meters up, fell to his death when his snow anchor broke, which knocked him unconscious and sent him sliding down the wall to his death, dying the day after David Sharp froze to death in Green Boots Cave.

No help from Swedish authorities

The Foreign Ministry of Sweden did not put any pressure on the Chinese authorities to act in the search for Tomas.

This could have been done either by arranging a helicopter that could search a much larger area from the air than men from the ground can, or allow rescue permission to enter Chinese (Tibetan) territory from Nepal, where such rescues are common.

Instead Olof Sundström, Martin Letzter, Frederick Schenholm and Tormod Graneheim had to arrange a manual search the day after the accident.

To find Olsson, Tormod Graneheim initiated a rescue operation. Two collections, one Swedish and one Norwegian started with the hope of finding Olsson alive and bring him home to Sweden. The Swedish collection was initiated by Andreas Swahn and now Abovo and the Norwegian magazine Free Float. The accident led the team to arrange the first helicopter rescue on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest and the collections went to fund the rescue helicopter from China to Nepal and made possible the repatriation of Olsson's body to Borås, where he was buried.

Mountain skiing by Tomas

2002 – Aconcagua – 6962 m
2002 – Pik Lenin – 7134 m
2003 – Kuksay Peak – 7186 m
2003 – Muztagh Ata – 7546 m
2004 – Cho Oyu – 8201 m
2006 – Mount Everest – 8848 m

Successful alpine descents on Mount Everest

In 1996 Hans Kammerlander set his sights on Mount Everest. He wanted to be the first to ski down the mountain. To warm up he climbed Shisma Pangma and skied down the mountain. Then he went to Everest. The ascent was made in record time, 23.5 hours from the base camp to the top and back. The descent down the mountain was partially done on skis making him the first man to actually ski down Mount Everest. Kammerlander, however, claim that he did not intend to set a speed record. The reason that he was travelling so fast was rather, he says, that he was afraid of his first bivouac and why he chose to pack up their things and continue to climb during the night.

Marco Siffredi a French snowboarder and mountaineer was the first to descend Mount Everest on a snowboard in 2001 using the Norton Couloir. The goal of Marco Siffredi was simple – become the first person to snowboard down Mount Everest. At the age of 22 in May 2001 Marco summited Mount Everest with the plan to snowboard the Hornbein Couloir. But there was not enough snow that spring for him to snowboard that route. Instead he went to plan B and set off on his snowboard down the North Col Route. On the way down one of the bindings on his snowboard broke but he and a Sherpa were able to repair it. He eventually snowboarded all the way down to Advanced Base Camp, becoming the first person to successfully snowboard, continuously, down Everest. It took him four hours to do it. But in 2002, he disappeared after making his second successful Everest summit, while attempting to snowboard the Hornbein Couloir. The Hornbein Couloir is a notable narrow and steep couloir high to the west on the north face of Mount Everest in Tibet, that extends from about 8000 m to 8500 m elevation, 350 metres below the summit. For the first 400 m vertical, the couloir inclines at about 47 degrees. The last 100 m is more narrow and steep with about a 60 degree average incline.

Swedish Martin Letzter, became the youngest Swedish climber to summit Mount Everest in 2006. Martin climbed unguided, together with Olof Sundström. Both climbers skied down parts of the normal route, in their project to telemark down the Seven Summits.

References

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