Until now, three flights had been recorded from the roof of the world, all carried out without government authorization.
Le Monde with AFP
Twenty minutes breathing. “It was a magnificent flight. Above, then through and below the clouds”: Pierre Carter rushed last week for the first time legally near the Summit of Everest, the highest mountain in the world , for a extremely rare flight.
The 55-year-old South African paraglider flew from the south pass of Everest, around 8,000 meters above sea level, said the expedition organizer on Tuesday 24 May. In total, only twenty minutes were necessary for him to reach the village of Gorakshep, located 5,164 meters.
The weather conditions dissuaded him from getting started from the Everest summit, 8,849 meters above sea level. “The higher you are, the more difficult the takeoff, because the air pressure becomes more important, and your veil no longer flies so easily,” Peter Carter explained to the France-Presse agency (AFP).
This performance is remarkable, according to Dawa Steven Sherpa, by Asian Trekking, an expedition company based in Nepal, interviewed by AFP: “This is the first time that Nepal has issued a flight permit on its Mountains “. According to him, this experience should inspire more than one mountaineer next season now that the Nepalese authorities seem open to authorize flights from the Himalayas. In fact, so far, only three flights had been recorded from Everest, all carried out without government authorization.
a regular in exploits
The first, the French mountaineer and pilot Jean-Marc Boivin, had descended the summit in paragliding in 1988. In 2001 a French couple had imitated him in tandem, a feat repeated ten years later by two Nepalese mountaineers.
“The authorities now see that this can stimulate the tourism industry in Nepal, especially after the COVID,” said Dawa Steven Sherpa. The country only reopened its peaks to mountaineers last year, after the pandemic of COVID-19.
Carter is not at his first try. He started climbing in adolescence and quickly became interested in paragliding, a discipline in which he later multiplied the exploits. Since 2005, he flew from five of the seven highest peaks of the various continents, starting with Mount Elbrus in Russia.
In 2016, Carter reached the Denali summit in Alaska, but was not allowed to fly. His next goal would be to repeat the feat at the top of Mount Vinson in Antarctica. Since the start of the season, at least three mountaineers, including a Russian and two Nepalese, have died while trying to climb Everest.