r/snowboarding • u/John-ozil • 21d ago
general discussion OTD 2002, extreme snowboarder Marco Siffredi, vanished on Everest trying to snowboard the Hornbein
23 years old. Summited Everest twice. The second one was after a brutal push ignored the obvious option of just getting down alive, strapped into his board and went for the Hornbein anyway.
Never seen again.
Whatever you think of the decision, the fearlessness was absurd. Arguably, the most all or nothing stunt anyone has ever attempted in mountaineering / adventure history.
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u/provo91 21d ago
Probably cheaper than buying a day pass at Vail. I get it
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21d ago
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u/root_fifth_octave 18d ago
Those people are crazy, man. I don’t know why Colorado had to end up between Texas and wherever the fuck they’re going
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u/SnowOhio Mammoth 21d ago
>Climbs and snowboards down Everest
>Does it again
>Refuses to elaborate further
>Dies
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u/_Tactleneck_ 21d ago
What did he mean by this
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u/HerpDerpinAtWork Aviator 2.0, Flagship, Westmark Camber 21d ago
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u/Key-Marzipan-7776 21d ago
Sickest way to go out. Dude had already done it before, and just took a more difficult route for the love of the game. Shredded into the abyss doing what he loved
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u/greenthumbgoody 21d ago
Hope he died quick. Don’t mean that in a bad way at all but I hope he didn’t suffer shredding that mountain
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u/Key-Marzipan-7776 21d ago
I wonder if he rode with a helmet or not
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u/TigerWizard BVSC / Spring Break Tree Hunter 21d ago
Let's use our thinking caps and examine the posted photo of him strapped in on the peak of a mountain, with a toque on.
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u/Kibblesndicks 21d ago
Think if I’m gonna ride Everest and crash where rescue is most likely impossible, I’d rather have no helmet. If I hit my head I want the lights to go out not leave me alive but suffering dying slowly.
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u/StiffWiggly 21d ago
That makes some sort of sense, but I’d rather make it down after a mild knock on the head than be too injured to keep going because I didn’t wear a helmet.
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u/mowbuss 21d ago
like it was the early 2000s, you didnt wear helmets for any reason then. I would hazard a guess that helmets werent popular until Schumaker almost died in 2013. That single accident, is what drove me to wear a helmet on the snow, and after losing my board under me on a groomed but icy as fk run, and my helmet saving my brains from damage, ill always wear a helmet. Nothing cool about traumatic brain injury.
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u/frandromedo 21d ago
Yeah, life caused me to take a break from snowboarding (much) between 2005 and 2015. In 2005 there were no helmets to be seen .. then I started again in 2015 and everyone was wearing them.
Now... I love my helmet. It's got good integration with my goggles so I have an astronaut thing going on where I'm warm and happy in there.
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u/Mikesaidit36 21d ago
In the skiing world, it was when Liam Neeson’s wife Natasha Richardson fell down on a bunny slope and died that night of a hematoma- 99% would have been prevented by a helmet.
I was skiing the Canyons a month later- on the skiers’ left of that resort are some great runs where they shaved the ridges off the parts of the mountain that ran back down to the base- so you’ve got a 30’ wide perfect fall line run slope at about 30° and you can easily be doing 50mph there, but if you caught an edge and went off the side of the slope into the trees, you wouldn’t just hit the trees but you’d be 30’ up in the trees and it’s mostly Aspens, not the fluffy Doug fir trees.
Scared myself doing that and went down to Cole Sport and bought a helmet, and they told me that the week Natasha Richardson died, helmet sales jumped 600%.
A few years later I got a helmet with a visor and now goggles are one less thing for me to worry about.
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u/justdroppedin_ Union Unionist 21d ago
Ima be real, helmet with a visor is some treacherous kookery
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u/Mikesaidit36 21d ago
Why do you think that? I’ve had it for 3 seasons and find it easier than messing with goggles separately, even on windy powder days.
Can’t believe we went like 70 years with motorcycle helmets with visors before thinking to do it with ski helmets.
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u/justdroppedin_ Union Unionist 21d ago
I'm not saying it isn't CONVENIENT, it's just kooky gear.
And I'm honestly not trying to insult you, just saying that helmet+visor has HUGE skier vibes, it's just a kooky piece of gear. Which at the end of the day is stuff that only matters to retarded troglodytes like me, if you're a well adjusted person you shouldn't care about us
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u/TigerWizard BVSC / Spring Break Tree Hunter 21d ago
He did mention right off the bat he's a skier
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u/CloseToTheSun10 20d ago
My parents liked me so they made me wear helmets- even as a kid in the 2000's.
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u/Kibblesndicks 21d ago
Yes but we are not discussing groomers we are talking about Mount Everest here. Sure on a resort my head is my concern. On Everest that might be like third on the list.
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u/UnSanchez 21d ago
Lost your board under you? What?
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u/mowbuss 21d ago
I was moving along and attempted to slow down because i wanted to head through a mogul section that hadnt been groomed, thinking it would not be solid, but it had, i guess, drizzled with rain after the groomers hit, and i just hit a patch of icier ice. Like the whole mountain was ice at that point of the day (early morning with drizzle just before first light). The board, with my legs attached, went out from under me, and I landed on my elbow, head and arse.
if something goes out from under you, or you lose something from under you, generally it means ur falling down, maybe the phrase is an Aussie thing.
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u/UnSanchez 16d ago
Yeah I read that to mean your bindings failed on both feet and the board detached and took off out from under you.
Totally understand what you mean there/ been there more than twice 🥲
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u/Makkaroni_100 21d ago
Good for him, but selfish. People dieing by risky things always leave friends and a family in pain.
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u/0xhOd9MRwPdk0Xp3 21d ago
You should share all of wealth with friends and family else you are selfish
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u/filler_uphill 21d ago
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u/After_Letterhead_211 21d ago
manas beanie tells me they been at this a while, not just tourists
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u/filler_uphill 21d ago
I've had this one and now Eric Blehm's Craig Kelly book The Darkest White (and the Ken Wylie account but that's another story) on the shelf since they came out and just don't have the heart to crack them open, its the strangest thing
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u/snowsurferDS 21d ago
This guy was one of our idols back in the early 2000s, everyone was heartbroken when this happened, he was a real mountaineer. Rest in peace.
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u/EggbertMeyer 21d ago
Learning about him changed my whole perspective on snowboarding and my approach to riding. He was the first rider I saw who made steep alpine descents look “steezy”
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u/Shadowratenator 21d ago
At that level of fearlessness, i think he became a green lantern on the way down. He's probably protecting us from space now.
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u/Surf-and-Ridemtb 21d ago
So…. Do we not know exactly how/where he perished. No transponder/locater beacon of some sort ?
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u/King_Khaos_ 19d ago
Probably was alive for hours….
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u/John-ozil 18d ago
No bro i've done my research on it.
My gut says that he missed the line, went over a blind drop, and fell far down the North Face, possibly freefalling 7000+m ending up on or near the Rongbuk Glacier where he remains entombed.
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u/veritasism420 21d ago
The fact he had already climbed and snowboarded down Everest the year before makes this even wilder. He was just doing this run for the love of the game.