Marco Siffredi

Marco Siffredi (22 May 1979 – 2002) was a French snowboarder and mountaineer. Siffredi was the first to descend Mount Everest on a snowboard, completing this feat in 2001 via the Norton Couloir. In 2002, after making his second Everest summit, he disappeared while attempting to descend the mountain by snowboarding down the Hornbein Couloir; his body has never been found.

Life

Siffredi was born in Chamonix, France in 1979 and hailed from a climbing family; his father was a mountain guide, and his older brother Pierre had died in an avalanche in their hometown of Chamonix, France. Originally a skier, Siffredi began snowboarding in 1995. In his early years, Marco Siffredi made several first descents in the Chamonix valley before extending his horizons to bigger peaks. The next year, he made a descent from the Mallory track on the North Face of the Aiguille du Midi, a descent of 1,000 metres (3,300 feet) with passages of more than a 50-degree incline. At the end of the season, he made the first snowboard descent of the Chardonnet. In 1998, he headed to Peru where he summited and successfully descended Tocllaraju (6,032 m) with Philippe Forte and René Robert.

In June 1999, he made the second-ever descent of the Nant-Blanc face on the Aiguille Verte, and the first ever by snowboard, after Jean-Marc Boivin’s ski descent in 1989. Later that season, he headed to the Himalayas and made the first descent of Dorje Lhakpa by snowboard (6,988 meters). Siffredi's descent of the mountain lasted about 3,000 feet, including areas of 55 degrees in steepness. He completed this feat without the use of supplemental oxygen.

In June 2000, he summitted Bolivia's Huayna Potosi (6,088 meters) and that fall, he summitted and snowboarded his first eight-thousander, Cho Oyu.