Stian Voldmo, Øyvin Thon and Brit Volden stood on Saturday May 14th 2011 – as the first Norwegians ever – on top of Dhaulagiri!
With its 8167m, Dhaulagiri is the seventh highest mountain in the World, and the highest – up until today – not conquered by Norwegians.
Dhaulagiri is a challenging mountain, with climbing on ice all the way from Base camp, except from the sugartop itself, which is about 15 meters of mountain.
The expeditions itself went as planned. They experienced some bad weather at times, latest in Camp 4 when the win was so extreme one of the poles in the other tent broke.
Safety and health has been the number one priority throughout the expedition, and respect for the tough and challenging mountain made Einar Osland, Rune Snaprud og Bård Atle Løvehaug choose to not pursue the top.
Voldmo himself had to turn around at Dhaulagiri during an expedition in 2008 due to too much snow and not enough extra rope.
Dhaulagiri was first discovered by the western world in 1808, and for 30 years it was ranked as the Worlds highest mountain, until they found Kanchenjunga. The mountain was first climbed by an expedition from Austia and Switzerland on May 13th 1960. Almost to the day, 51 years later Stian Voldmo, Øyvin Thon and Brit Volden stands on the same mountaintop.
Stian Voldmo called home from Camp 4, approx 7400m on the evening of May 14th: ”We did everything on our power to make it to the top, and in paid off! 3:30 local time we reached it. Almost everyone had a great time. We wish Einar and the other guys could have been with us up there, but way can you say? We did it! A New Norwegian flag on Dhaulagiri! Funny, funny!”
Helsport congratulates!
