His trace is lost somewhere in the immensity of the north face of Everest. On September 8, 2002, just 20 years ago, Marco Siffredi disappeared while trying to descend the mythical Hornbein corridor, this perfect line of snow that lines the highest mountain on the planet. The previous year, in the spring of 2001, the then 22-year-old Chamoniard had already stood on the Roof of the World, at an altitude of 8,848 meters, before making the first full descent on a snowboard.
A feat hailed by the news of the time. Marco Siffredi had taken the Norton corridor; a descent made with mastery by this genius of sliding.
The Nant Blanc in 1999
The kid from Chamonix had only adopted the surfboard a few years earlier. A board that he will very quickly handle with dexterity, chaining descents on the steepest faces of the Mont-Blanc massif. “The Aiguille du Midi cable car was his carousel! underlines the journalist of Dauphine Libere Antoine Chandellier, author of his biography published by Guérin-Paulsen (“The Trace of the Angel”). It gave an image of enjoyment and ease in a universe where a priori one perceives only danger and risk.
Bertrand Delapierre, the director friend author of the very beautiful film “Marco Shooting Star” (SevenDoc), remembers his “touch of snow” inimitable. Because Marco Siffredi was an outstanding technician. A mastery that allowed him in June 1999 to make the first snowboard descent of Nant Blanc, the North-West side of the Aiguille Verte, at more than 4,000 meters above sea level. Its ascent, with ice axes and crampons, is already a serious adventure. So what about his downhill snowboarding? With this feat, the young Marco had made a name for himself in the history of the mountain, 10 years after the first ski descent carried out by Jean-Marc Boivin – a model for Siffredi. Several expeditions will follow, in the Andes and in the Himalayas.
First descent by snowboard from Everest in 2001
Journalist Jean-Marc Porte, who was working at the time for Mountains Magazine, crossed his path not far from the summit of Everest on May 23, 2001, during the first descent on a snowboard. It was he who took the photos of Marco Siffredi executing his first turns at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters. He recounts this meeting in the third episode of Season 3 of the “Madness of the heights” podcast dedicated to Everest.
What remains today of this young mountain man with blond hair? A documentary, books, and even a fiction film, “All Up There”, directed by Serge Hazanavicius and inspired by the character of Marco Siffredi. For Antoine Chandellier, he embodies this imagination of a “youth who are not afraid to go after their dreams even if it means burning their wings”. Young people continue to be inspired by it – “it restores balm to the heart” says Bertrand Delapierre. “We talk about a shooting star, but there is that, emphasizes Jean-Marc Porte. A brief light – in any case on the scale of a human life – but so intense…”
LISTEN to the podcast “Marco Siffredi, the Everest surfer”
The Madness of the Heights is a podcast of France Bleu Isère in partnership with Alpine Mag