It is a public funeral, so everybody is welcome. Afterwards there will be time to talk about and remember Tomas. To
participate in the gathering, contact www.lenbergs.se

Tomas’ body has been flown to Kathmandu by a helicopter from Nepal. The fact that he was found (at 6700 m right below the Great Couloir where he fell) and that his body is on the way home is a positive thing among all the sadness about his loss. A helicopter evacuation from the North side of Everest has never been accomplished before. His family, close friends, teammates, Nepalese trekking agency and the Swedish embassy have all played an incredible positive role in making this happen, giving Tomas the honor he deserves.

Fri Flyt (Norwegian)
Student.se (Swedish)

Student.se
Follow the link to student.se/tomas, which leads to a credit card form.

Thank you.

Fredrik, Tormod, Martin and OIof

They didn't start the descent until 1.20 pm, when they got off the top pyramid and down to the balcony. Tormod started to trevers to the skiers left on the balcony, about 200 meters, Tomas skied second. They got to a gully, narrow and steep, skied down to a snowpatch above the rockband that is above the Norton couloir. Tormod skied first and when Tomas came down they saw that Tomas left ski was broken behind the binding. Bad new on Mt Everest North side. According to Tormod, Tomas got a bit stressed about this and they tried to fix it with climbing gear and ducktejp.

Well, they got to get down so they started to look for belay points for the abseil. Not easy, the rock was very solid and there was no ice under the snow patch. The solution was 2 snowsticks and one ice axe as anchor for the abseil rope. Tomas had the broken ski so he abseiled first (cause he would be the slower one in the Norton couloir). After 30 meter abseil, the anchor snapped and Tomas fell the 10-15 meter left down to the Norton couloir. This was about at 5 pm. Tormod tried to catch the anchor after it snapped, but of course for no use. Tormod did not see Tomas fall cause of bad weather and the rock was slab.

A few minutes after this accident Tormod broke his oxygen mask, so from now on Tormod was with out O2. Tormod down climbed the rockband with an abseil rope he didn't trust. Then he skied down the Norton couloir, and found Tomas ice axe and crampons. We think Tomas lost consiouness when he hit the ground after the fall from the abseil, cause Tormod did not see any trace of Tomas trying to stop his fall in the Norton, no trace what so ever in the snow. So, Tomas probably fell 2500 vertical metersdown to the mid Rongbuk glaciar.

Tormod skied down to the North Col. This was a sad day for us, and we are still very, very sad, but we must not forget that Tormod still did something no skier ever has done.

Here follows a message by Viviane Seigneur, Tomas' girlfriend:

I am asking to people on the North side of Everest to consider helping to find Tomas. I'm an alpinist and I know the attraction of the summit, but isn't trying to save someone more noble that to reach the summit? For the moment, I know that a lot of people are high on the mountain, but even just a few people helping would be very valuable. From the North col, people can help by following the "Messner road" and search the area with binoculars, because there is a chance that Tomas' fall was stopped there. If you need more information, or have more information, please contact me via the messages on this blog, or email to team@everytrail.net Thank you, Viviane Seigneur

Tormod and Fredrik Schenholm are now heading towards the foot of the North Face to look for Tomas.

I am very sorry to have to report this sad news, and I am extremely sad that the information I received yesterday turned out to be incorrect. Let's hope for the best. I am now going to make phone calls to Everest Army basecamp, that is located near the foot of the North Face, to see if they can be of any help.

Here is an English transcript of his Swedish voice call:

Hello, this is Tomas Olsson! I am on the top of Mount Everest, together with Tormod Granheim, Jamabo Sherpa and Sering Fandepote. It has been incredible tough climbing this night. There has been snowstorm all the way. We begun to climb at approximately ten at night and reached the top at noon. Hopefully, we have sufficient forces to do a ski descent down the North Face of Mount Everest. I will report again later

Let's hope they have a successful and safe descent. More news is expected in a couple of hours.

The audio file is here, but beware, it's in Swedish :)
Listen to Tomas' audioblog from the summit of Mount Everest! (mp3)

Listen to Tomas' audioblog from his camp at 7900 meter (mp3)

Tomas, good luck and be safe!

Their tentative schedule is:

May 14: North Col
May 15: Camp at 7900
May 16: Summit attempt

We'll keep you posted with their progress.

But you can never know for sure. Most of the big group are getting tactical since they don't want to head up at the same day as everyone else risking crowds that could mean traffic jams in the technical and exposed passages (like the second step) high up, and maybe even trying to avoid having to take part in potential rescue actions of other climbers and thereby risking there own lifes. You are on your own as you enter the death zone aboue 8000 metres is the general attitude.

We on the other hand are waiting for stomach, knee and foot problems to be solved. We are focused on pills against diarea and Tiger Balm...

Regards, Tomas Olsson in BC

Regards, tomas

I work extremely slow so I am very happy to be joined by Tormod, Tshering and Lam Babo. The power of our 2 Sherpa helpers really kicks in and we are soo sitting in our tents melting snow.

The night is everything but perfect. Headache due to the altitude and snow fall inside the tent due to a hard wind that forces snow into the ventilation openings...

Wednesday 3 May
Skiing from 7500 metres
I wake up with a messed up stomach after a night with very little sleep. And it does not get better as I puke 4 times first thing as I zip open the tent. I fall back into the tent and lay motionless for about an hour before I slowly try to get back in business.

As the others head up the mountain I first get a zip of water down and then manage to eat some noodles. I start to feel a bit better and get my gear together and head up.

It's very windy and I'm happy that there are fixed ropes to clip into, the risk of beeing blown off the mountain feels very present!

I fight my way all the way up to 7500 m where I manage to hide behind a big rock to get my skis on. It's very tricky in the hard conditions and I am very close of loosing a glove in the process.

I move fast as I am in motion and it doesn't take many minutes as I ski more or less using climbers going up as gates to get back to the north col. Almost 500 vertical metres on hard and fast wind blown snow, and it feels great!

I then continue down towards ABC together with Tormod. The conditions are very varied; the steeps are sometimes in powder for joy and sometimes in ice to test our abilities. We are both very tired as we get back to ABC.

Thursday 4 May
Restday in ABC
I feel like as if I was brutally beaten up by a mean machine yesterday when I wake up. I take the entire dag to rest and recover as good as possible.

Friday 5 May
Going from ABC to the north col
Still very slow from going to 7500 on Wednesday but I get going towards north col around two o'clock in the afternoon. I move slower then before but get there in about three and a half hour.

One very disturbing thing is that my left foot start aching about half way up. I rip off my boot as soon as I get to my tent as it's getting really painful. I eat some anti inflammatory pills and pray that it will wear off during the night.

The night is not perfect but ten times better then my first night at the north col so I am happy of the progress.

Saturday 6 May
Skiing on the north face
We melt snow, eat breakfast and get our gear together and then at about 11.30 point our skis down the "wrong" side of the north col, towards the north face of Everest.

It starts with a quite tricky slope with a lot of rock and ice... We traverse far out on the north face but have to stop once we hit a ridge only consisting of blue ice. We traverse back a bit before finding a gully filled with a bit of lightly wind packed snow.

Finally some decent skiing on the north face of Everest! And the scenery is incredible. The spectacular south face of Changtse on the right, Pumori in front and the immense north face of Everest to the left.

We rip our little couloir apart as we head straight down into the enormous mid Rongbuk glacier bassin. We take great care in where we put our turns as there are huge ice fields both to our left and right.

The couloir ends with a massive bergschrund and we hesitate quite a bit before we find a snow bridge that we ski across with our fingers crossed. The run now turns into a very spectacular glacier descent.

We find our way through a vast maze of crevasses. I feel crazy butterflies in my stomach as I aim straight over a bottom less crevasse. We try to negotiate over way back to safety as quick as possible as we have the luring south face of Changtse just behind our backs. It's quite obvious that there is a potential risk for rock or ice coming banging down in our heads from the steep face filled up with steep glaciers and snow fields.

But the mountains seems to like us today so about an hour later we find ourselves slide into camp 1 of The Royal British Army expedition (www.armyoneverest.com) with big smiles on our faces!

We get some cups of hot the in our hands before we head on down the valley. No time to loose, we have a anniversary party waiting in BC, our photographer Fredrik Schenholm is turning 28 years!

We do about 20 kilometres of hiking to get back which is not really good for my left foot that keep aching all day, but then again we get chocolate cake as we arrive in BC at about 9 in the evening...

Sunday 7 May
From base camp to New Tingri
We are very worn out as we enter the jeep to go down the valley to rest for a couple of days. My left foot is really not in good shape from yesterday's endeavor.

Monday 8 May
Resting in New Tingri
I spend as much time as possible in the hotel bed resting my body, especially my left foot that still is very sore. Big electricity problems in New Tingri and Tormod gets a stomach problem and throws up all night...

Tuesday 9 May
Resting in New Tingri
A day very similar to yesterday accept that the electricity problems in New Tingri gets even bigger and Tormod goes from throwing up to diarea...

Most likely heading up to BC tomorrow. Regards, Tomas Olsson

As computer (and MP3-player) hard drives can't cope well with altitude, we've already (hopefully temporarily) lost one out of three computers to the thin air, we won't risk taking our functioning computers another 1200 meters above sea level. That might just jeopardise our means of communications for the duration of the expedition. Not to mention coping with the never-ending flow of digital images that needs to get off the memory cards that fill up on a daily basis.

We'll report again as soon as possible, for the mean time it's hard work and good fun at the same time from the Vikings on Everest.

Regards,
Tormod