The North Col Snowriders’ team has today postponed the ski and snowboarding Everest expedition due to the threat of SARS.

The border between Tibet and Nepal has now been closed and subsequently, with less than a week to go, the team have had to postpone the expedition until 2004.

This event was one of many expeditions celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay’s historic first ascent of Mt Everest.

After this extremely disappointing setback due to SARS, the team will continue to train and work towards the original goal to close the divide between skiers and snowboarders and unite the ski codes next year on Everest.

“We have always put into place the highest levels of safety so the team is protected,” said expedition leader Toby Garland. “It would be foolish to believe that there was no risk or danger in what we had set out to achieve. It is without question that our top priority is the safety of our team, as well as the Sherpas and porters involved in the expedition. For this reason no unnecessary or uncalculated risks will be taken.”

The team of two English, Abigail Pickett and Zoe Smalley (a skier and snowboarder), and two New Zealanders, Toby Garland and Jonny Huges (also a skier and snowboarder) were planning to climb to 7,030 metres, 1,820 metres (almost 2 kilometres) below the 8,850 metre summit.

There was never any proposition to ski or snowboard from the summit due to the number of high risks involved, including high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) and high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), the cause of most fatalities at on the mountain.

The team’s chosen path to the North Col on the Tibetan side of Everest is technically safer than the more popular and more easily accessible commercially guided route through the Khumbu Icefall on the Nepalese side of Everest. The Khumbu glacier is well known to be one of the most
unpredictable and dangerous sections of the mountain.

The team was also confident for the safety of the journey in the hands of internationally acclaimed and highly experienced Himalayan mountain guide, Russell Brice, who was scheduled to lead the team.

The team had been training and preparing their minds, bodies and spirits for the expedition for over 8 months with trial climbs and descents around their home mountain region of Chamonix in France.

Funds raised to this date will still be donated to the Everest Memorial Trust. Pens, pencils and other school materials will also be sent to the local mountain primary school in the remote village of Tzombuk in Tibet.

[Press Release]

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