Olof Sundstrom (born 1980) is a Swedish adventurer, high altitude mountaineer, solo sailor and inspirational speaker.
He is most noted, together with Martin Letzter, as the first person to climb and ski off the Seven Summits. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Sundstrom holds a M.Sc. in Engineering [7] and a M.Sc. in Business Strategy from Lund University, Sweden, and ETH, Switzerland. [8] He is a Managing Director and Partner at Boston Consulting Group. [9] He is also a military officer in the Swedish Marines and a trained Combat diver. [10]
He is married to Petra Sundstrom and has three children.
He is a fellow of The Explorers Club. [11] He lives in the Bay Area, United States. [12]
In 2003 to 2008, Olof climbed and skied down from the highest peaks on each continent, including Mount Elbrus, 5643m, Russia, Denali, 6193m, Alaska, Aconcagua, 6962m, Argentina, Carstensz Pyramid, 4884m, Papua Province, Mount Kosciuszko, 2228m, Australia, Mount Kilimanjaro, 5895m, Tanzania, Vinson Massif, 4892m, Antarctica and Mount Everest, 8848 m, Nepal/Tibet. [3] [4] [5]
In 2004, he also made an attempt to solo climb and ski mt. Cho Oyu, 8201m, Tibet, the sixth highest mountain in the world, but had to abandon the climb due to severe high altitude sickness. Later the same year, he sailed from Sweden to Australia in a 8m/28 ft boat, including a solo crossing of the Pacific Ocean. [13] In 2008, he broke the speed record overland across Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Great Pyramid of Giza 9000 km north (despite having to fly over the border of Sudan and Egypt due to a lack of roads). [14] [15]
In 2010, he made a horseback expedition together with his wife Petra across South America, from the Atlantic Coast south of Bahía Blanca, Argentina, across the Andes to the coast of the Pacific in Chile. [16] In 2012, the couple, together with their then eight month old son, followed the Colorado River, from the source in the Rocky Mountains to the sea in the Gulf of California, Mexico 2330 km away, using a foldable canoe and bikes. [17] In 2013, he successfully raced the Tuareg desert rally in North Africa, along parts of the classic route of the Dakar Rally. [18] In 2016 he sailed a traditional Ngalawa along the east coast of Africa, from southern Tanzania to Zanzibar. [19]
Since 2015, Olof has been chasing the record for the longest vertical line ever skied, including a failed attempt 2015 on Mount Saint Elias, 5489m, Alaska, that had to be abandoned due to snow conditions, and the lack of a constantly skiable line from the summit to the sea. In 2017, he successfully climbed and skied down Mount Logan, 5959m, the highest peak in Canada, but was not able to ski all the way to sea level.
Other notable mountains climbed and skied include Rwenzori Mountains, 5109m, Democratic Republic of the Congo/Uganda, Aoraki / Mount Cook, 3724m, the highest peak in New Zealand, and Mt. Ararat, 5123 m, the highest mountain in Turkey.
In 2022, he finished the Mongol Derby endurance horse race in Mongolia, the world's longest horse back race. [12] . He also finished the Sonora Desert Rally on a Motorcycle.
Olof was the first person together with Martin Letzter, to ski off the peaks of the Seven Summits, as defined by Reinhold Messner. [3] [4] [5] [6] He was also the first Swede to climb the Seven Summits. [3] [4] [5] [6] He holds the speed record overland across Africa, "Cape to Cairo", in 13 days and 18 hours. [14]
Olof caught Pulmonary edema during a climb of mt. Cho Oyu in Tibet 2004 at 7900 m. and was carried down the mountain by yak herders. [5] He later got stuck in the Typhoon "Sonca" during a solo sail across the Pacific 2005. [13] Together with Martin Letzter and two Sherpas, Olof conducted the search on Mt Everest for climber Tomas Olsson, who fell to his death in 2006. They found the body after four days at 6700m below the Hornbein Couloir and carried the body down to the base camp. [20]
Together with Martin Letzter, Olof helped rescue ten climbers that had got stuck in a Bivouac shelter in a Snowstorm after one member took a fall in a Crevasse, halfway up the Vinson Massif in Antarctica in 2006, among them the Swedish climber Fredrik Sträng. [21] [22] [23]
Mount Everest is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation of 8,848.86 m was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.
The Seven Summits are the highest mountains on each of the seven traditional continents. Reaching the peak of these summits is considered a significant achievement amongst many mountaineers, alongside many other such goals and challenges in the mountaineering community. On 30 April 1985, Richard Bass became the first climber to reach the summit of all seven.
Cho Oyu is the sixth-highest mountain in the world at 8,188 metres (26,864 ft) above sea level. Cho Oyu means "Turquoise Goddess" in Tibetan. The mountain is the westernmost major peak of the Khumbu sub-section of the Mahalangur Himalaya 20 km west of Mount Everest. The mountain stands on the China Tibet–Nepal Koshi Pradesh border.
The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognised by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) as being more than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) in height above sea level, and sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no precise definition of the criteria used to assess independence, and, since 2012, the UIAA has been involved in a process to consider whether the list should be expanded to 20 mountains. All eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits are in the death zone.
Lars Olof Göran Kropp was a Swedish adventurer and mountaineer, the first Scandinavian to climb Mount Everest without oxygen. He made a solo ascent of Mount Everest without bottled oxygen or Sherpa support on 23 May 1996, for which he travelled by bicycle, alone, from Sweden and part-way back.
Alan Hinkes OBE is an English Himalayan high-altitude mountaineer from Northallerton in North Yorkshire. He is the first British mountaineer to claim all 14 Himalayan eight-thousanders, which he did on 30 May 2005.
Peter Habeler is an Austrian mountaineer. He was born in Mayrhofen, Austria. He developed an interest in mountain climbing at age six.
Mark Joseph Inglis is a New Zealand mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker. He holds a degree in Human Biochemistry from Lincoln University, New Zealand, and has conducted research on leukaemia. He is also an accomplished cyclist and, as a double leg amputee, won a silver medal in the 1 km time trial event at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney. He is the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world above sea level.
Ali Nasuh Mahruki is a professional mountain climber, writer, photographer and documentary film producer. He climbed to the summit of Mount Everest and was the first ever Turkish person to climb the Seven Summits.
Tomas Kenneth Olsson was a Swedish adventurer and ski mountaineer. He was born in Kristinehamn but grew up in Borås. He took an engineering degree at Linköping University in 2001, after which he moved to Chamonix in France to focus on skiing. He specialized in skiing down some of the world's highest and steepest mountains. He had gone from the top of Aconcagua in Argentina, Lenin Peak in Kyrgyzstan, Muztagh Ata and Kuksay Peak in China and Cho Oyu in Tibet.
Victor Saunders is a British climber and author. He trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. His first book, Elusive Summits, won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 1991. He became as a UIAGM/IFMGA ski and mountain guide in 1996 and joined the SNGM in 2003. Saunders first reached the summit of Mount Everest in May 2004, and went on to climb it several more times. In 2020 he became president of the Alpine Club.
David Allen Hahn is an American mountaineer, ski patroller and journalist. In May 2013, he reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 15th time—at the time, this was the most summits for a non-Sherpa climber, according to Outside Magazine contributor and climber Alan Arnette. His record was surpassed by Kenton Cool in 2022. Among Hahn’s other notable accomplishments are his 39 summits of Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain. He has reached the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest peak, 25 times over the course of 37 expeditions.
Kílian Jornet is a Spanish professional long-distance trail runner and ski mountaineer. Widely regarded as one of the greatest trail runners of all time, he has won some of the most prestigious ultramarathons, including the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc multiple times, Grand Raid, Western States and Hardrock.
Jean Troillet is a professional mountain climber.
Jordan Romero is an American mountaineer who was 13 years old when he reached the summit of Mount Everest. Romero was accompanied by his father, Paul Romero, his step-mother, Karen Lundgren, and three Sherpas, Ang Pasang Sherpa, Lama Dawa Sherpa, and Lama Karma Sherpa. The previous record for youngest to climb Everest was held by Ming Kipa of Nepal who was 15 years old when she reached the summit on May 22, 2003.
Arjun Vajpai is an Indian mountaineer, who became the world's youngest mountaineer to summit six peaks over 8,000 meters in the year 2018.
Hans Kammerlander is an Italian mountaineer, living in Ahornach, a hamlet nearby Sand in Taufers. He has climbed 11 of the 14 8000m peaks. In 1984, together with Reinhold Messner he was the first climber to traverse two 8000 m peaks before descending to base camp.
Asian Trekking is a Nepal-based adventure company, specializing in mountaineering expeditions and trekking in the Himalayas. Started in December 1981 by UIAA Honorary Member Ang Tshering Sherpa, it is Nepal's oldest mountaineering and trekking company still in operation. In 2008, Tshering's son Dawa Steven Sherpa, an environmentalist and mountaineer, took over the leadership of the company and continues to serve as the managing director to this day.
The Mount Everest climbing season of 2017 began in spring with the first climbers reaching the top on May 11, from the north side. The first team on the south side reached the top on May 15. By early June, reports from Nepal indicated that 445 people had made it to the summit from the Nepali side. Reports indicate 160–200 summits on the north side, with 600–660 summiters overall for early 2017. This year had a roughly 50% success rate on that side for visiting climbers, which was down from other years. By 2018, the figure for the number of summiters of Everest was refined to 648. This includes 449 which summited via Nepal and 120 from Chinese Tibet.