Bene Boehm (r.) and Basti Haag

The clock is ticking. The German ski mountaineers Benedikt Boehm and Sebastian Haag started in Tibet their attempt to set a speed record on the two eight-thousanders Shishapangma and Cho Oyu. “The only thing I can think of is that it’s gonna be the hardest seven days of my life. That’s for sure,” says Benedict in the video, which you can watch below. Sebastian is even more clearly: “This is the start button for seven days of torture, for seven days of suffering, seven days of bleeding and sweating.” Within a week, Bene and Basti want to climb the 8027-meter-high Shishapangma, ski down, cycle with their mountain bikes to Cho Oyu, climb up and ski down this eight-thousander too.

Steck: “A cool idea”

Boehm and Haag started today at 2.00 p.m. local time from Advanced Base Camp (ABC) at 5600 meters. Later their Italian friend Andrea Zambaldi and Norbu Sherpa will join the two Germans at Camp 3 at 7300 meters. If everything goes well, the team will reach the summit of Shishapangma early in the morning on Thursday. Over the past few days, the team had trained with ski touring up to 7000 meters. In ABC they got tips from top climber Ueli Steck. This fall, the Swiss wants to climb Shishapangma together with his wife Nicole. Steck is taken with the speed project “Double8 Expedition”. “That’s a cool idea”, says Ueli. “Right now, climbing an 8000-meter-peak on a normal route is not something outstanding, it’s like commercial expeditions. But doing it in this style, trying to climb from basecamp to summit without resting in a high camp, is a really good challenge.”

P. S. Watching the video of the ski run down Shishapangma, I am itching to do it like them. Do you feel the same way?