A chilling final photo of a French snowboarder as he attempted snowboarding down Mount Everest has gone viral.
Daredevil snowboarder Marco Siffredi is known as a pioneer of the snow sport after becoming the first person to complete a full descent of Mount Everest in 2001.
But his career began well before that in the 1990s after two successful first-ever snowboard descents both in the Alps and the Himalayas.
And Siffredi well and truly made history some 24 years ago as he completed a continuous descent from the summit of Everest to the advanced base camp via the Norton Couloir without removing his board.
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The snowboarder had planned to conquer the Hornbein Couloir, a more challenging prospect, in 2002 but it went horribly wrong.
On September 8, Siffredi embarked on a final 12-hour ascent in the 'death zone' and managed to reach the summit with the help of three Sherpas.
He reached the summit of Chomolungma, which is considered to be the highest point on Earth at 29,028 feet.
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The chilling photo was taken at the summit and is believed to be the last snap of Siffredi.
Phurba Sherpa, one of the Sherpas on his team, was the first to greet Siffredi at the top, asking: "Where are we?"
According to snowboarder.com, he replied: “At the summit, but tired.
“Tired. Tired. Too much snow. Too much climbing.”
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After just an hour rest at the top, Siffredi ignored how exhausted he was, as Sherpas warned him about the cloudy conditions
The snowboarder had a world record in mind, so started to make his way down with the Sherpas.
The Sherpas say they saw Siffredi make his own way down, but he never returned to base camp.
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No trace of his body was found and his snowboard tracks ended abruptly at 8,600 meters.
Officials looked into the possibility an avalanche could have swept the snowboarder aside, but experts could find no signs.
Professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones told the author of a book about Marco Siffredi, titled See You Tomorrow, that Siffredi 'was a young punk rock kid going and tagging the most serious lines in the Chamonix valley and doing it real freeride style… full on bombing lines that traditionally people were hop turning down'.
Jones added: "Nobody was doing that yet. If he was alive today, he would be this huge name in snowboarding."
Topics: Viral
Callum Jones