In 1995, a crazy Swedish mountaineer decided to cycle from Sweden to the foot of Mount Everest and then climb it. A total of 26 000 km and a summit on the meter !
A crazy idea!
His name was Goran Kropp and he was a true adventurer. He left Jonkoping, Sweden, in 1995 on his bike. He carried with him more than 130 kilos of material and travelled more than 13,000 kilometres from there: to Mount Everest. He reached the bottom of the mountain the following May, and when he got there he witnessed the worst mountaineering tragedy ever.
He was nicknamed the Mad Swede because he tried to climb Everest solo, without a rope. He thought that the ropes were too slow to use and that he was afraid of getting stuck in the dark at night, alone, so he climbed solo without a safety rope. On May 3, he climbed Everest solo less than 100 metres from the summit before being forced to turn back through waist-deep snow. He was resting at the base camp when the infamous disaster occurred that killed eight people caught in a blizzard one night.
An incredible feat!
One might have thought that this tragedy could have changed Goran’s plans, but nothing could frighten this slightly crazy adventurer. He climbed the mountain to the top of the world, all alone, on May 23, 1996. Of course, he then got back on his bike and rode home. With all his equipment.
And the madness doesn’t even stop there. This tough-as-nails mountaineer got his supplies from Kathmandu. He didn’t use any equipment manufacturer or sherpa. He climbed the mountain with all the weight of his equipment, and he didn’t even use oxygen tanks to reach the summit. Let’s not forget that he even went back there in 1999 with his girlfriend and they climbed the summit together, as a couple, always without oxygen.
His adventures have suddenly stopped
His love of the mountains was born at a very early age, at the age of six, when he and his father climbed Norway’s highest mountain, Galdhopiggen. Then, as a skydiver, he continued to train hard to improve his overall strength. When he took up cycling for the Everest expedition, he was already a very accomplished climber.
Kropp had climbed five of the world’s 8,000 metres, so he had a company called Kropp and Eventyr to finance his adventures. Unfortunately, Kropp’s exploits came to an abrupt end when he died at the age of 35. He was climbing a fairly common route in eastern Washington State; his protection line had come loose from a rock. Who knows what other feats he would have accomplished had he not had that unfortunate accident that cost him his life.