원정 개요

Swedish Everest (North Col) team (Sundstrom & Letzter) - Spring 2006

Information from Olof Sundstrom in his email letters dated 10, 12 & 17 July, 2006:

Sundstrom, Letzter and Lobsang (Tibetan) summited together on 16 May, and the Swedes descended to C1 the same day. Like Hans Kammerlander in the spring of 1996, Sundstrom and Letzter skied their descent, they took off their skis at sections of bare rock. What percentage of this descent was made on skis? "Hmm, a bit higher lengthwise than heightwise (the parts we climbed were logically very steep) but I would estimate about 90 percent."

"I and Mr Letzter skied from the summit to ABC, although we had to take the skis off as previously explained. We pretty much followed the same route we climbed up the North Ridge, which is the same route Mr. Kammerlander climbed (and skied)," but Sundstrom does not know precisely the line taken by Kammerlander.

On the 17th "we heard that a countryman of ours, Mr. Tomas Olsson (on another team making a ski descent), had fallen from about 8500m and was most likely dead. Martin Letzter therefore went straight to Chinese base camp (5400m) to help arranging a search party and I followed the next day after having arranged with our gear in ABC (6400m). We searched for Mr. Olsson until the 21st when his body could be recovered from 6700m. The body was sopped by Mr. Tsering Sherpa (Tshering Pande Bhote) Martin (Letzer), myself and Mr. Schenholm (Tomas's photographer) on May 21st. We (Sundstrom's party) left Chinese base camp on May 23rd.

Health problem: "Mr Lopshong (Lobsang) got frostbite on his fingers during the summit bid and as a result of this hit his head on the way down due to a fall around 8000m. He had to stitch his head in ABC and was later treated for frostbite in Lhasa. He is recovering fully, except from two joints on a finger of his left hand that had to be amputated."

Oxygen: Sundstrom and Letzter from about 7700m to the summit and back to about 7700m. Lobsang from 8300m to the summit and down probably all the way back to 7000m although he is not sure about this because "we split high on the mountain due to his frostbite and he descended before us."

Lobsang/Lopshong/Lorchun/Luo Qong/etc., Tibetan, 27/10/84 in Mamu, now in Lhasa as student at mountaineering school