He Rode to His Death

Marco Siffredi stood at the top of the world in his bright yellow suit, strapped into his snowboard and ready for the run of his life. He was at the summit of Mt. Everest. He was about to make the first descent by snowboard of the steepest line on the highest mountain on earth, on a slope that constantly averaged 50 degrees - nearly vertical.

It had been a long slog to get to the top. It was warm. The snow was steep and unstable. Huge slabs were cutting loose and avalanching with a huge 'BOOOM' every few minutes. Siffredi had made the summit with two sherpas; they were the only three people on the mountain, there were no other expeditions during that early September in 2002. They had pushed their way to the summit through waist deep snow, while clinging to previously set ropes like spiders.

Others who were part of Siffredi's team were waiting below in base camp, more than four miles down. Well known mountain guide Olivier Besson, Siffredi's close friend, had a telescope trained on that barely visible spot of yellow on the summit, watching for him to start.

Siffredi was already a legend in his native France. The year before, he had become the first snowboarder to ride down Mt. Everest without stopping, one day after celebrating his 22nd birthday. It was a four-hour run. He had also made numerous first descents in the European Alps and on several other Himalayan peaks over 27,000 feet high.

Now he stood at the edge of the summit of Mt. Everest, so high up at over 29,000 feet that it is called the "death zone," because there is not enough oxygen for cellular activity. A human at that altitude will slowly fade and die.

It is the late afternoon, and clouds are smoking up from below. The sherpas get alarmed, and suggest that Marco postpone his historic ride and climb back down to wait for better weather. But he has already suffered so much to get to this place; raising the money, making the plans, constant headaches as he climbed to the higher camps on the way to the summit -- he wanted to go for it, now.

So the sherpas help him put on his pack and load it with vital emergency supplies. Then he drops in. Through the telescope, Olivier Besson sees the spot of yellow move down the mountain, then stop. The sherpas, who had started down immediately after Siffredi, met up with him where he had paused, trying to catch his breath. Only 15 minutes had passed since the group left the summit. After a few words, Marco rides away towards a steep chute called the Hornbein Couloir, which was his planned route down. He disappears in powdery clouds of snow.

Besson watches this through his telescope. He sees the spot of yellow through billowing white clouds. Then it is gone. Completely gone. No one ever saw Siffredi again.

According to a story about Siffredi's last ride in Transworld Snowboarding, the sherpas had stopped at a lower camp to gather up the leftover supplies when "they look(ed) below to the North Col, nearly 1,300 meters below them, where they are shocked to see what looks like a man stand up, then slide silently down the mountain. But...the highly experienced Sherpas are 100 percent certain there's no one else on the mountain with them..." Yet they each have seen -- something. When the two sherpas climb down to the spot to check it out, there are no snowboard tracks. No tracks at all. At that point, they know the snowboarding adventurer is dead. His body has never been found.

The saddest part of this story is not that Siffredi died; death is unfortunately so common among big mountain climbers that it's almost expected. The saddest part is that Marco was only 23, and had already accomplished so many creative descents on his board that he was on the verge of becoming a worldwide legend. And now we will never know the rest of his story.