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King of the Three Poles dies on Shisha Pangma expedition
16:41 p.m. EDT Oct 1, 2003
The names of the two climbers from the French Shisha Pangma expedition who died tragically in an avalanche on a nearby acclimatization peak have been released – Philippe Renard and Antoine de Choudens.
Antoine is the unofficial King of the Three Poles – he skied the North and South Poles unsupported and also climbed Everest without oxygen. Doing the Three Poles is a spectacular feat, only 14 people have done it, however, doing them the way Antoine did takes it to another level.
Perspective
To put things in perspective, only 88 climbers out of the over 1900 summits of Everest have done it without oxygen. This is a huge accomplishment in itself. What’s even more amazing was that Antoine was able to be a crossover.
It’s pretty well known that Polar farers and mountaineers are in fact almost two different breeds. Those who have excelled in the mountains only last days sometimes on arctic expedition and those who excel in Polar travel aren’t necessarily amazing on 8000m peaks. The crossover is a difficult thing to do.
Three kinds of pain
Antoine is the only person in the world who has endured the three different kinds of suffering associated with the three poles to the highest level: Everest without oxygen; North Pole and South Pole unsupported.
The kind of agony and intense pain experienced at high-altitude without any supplemental oxygen makes the lungs seer out in pain, moreso than the build-up of lactic acid in the legs.
On Antarctica skiers have to deal with the solitude and mind-breaking monotony of the endless white expanse, in addition to the pain of heavy sleds and the bitter cold.
The North Pole takes suffering to another level – almost two months or sometimes more of never crawling in a dry sleeping bag, endless worrying if a polar bear might decide to eat you during the night, lugging 300 lb sleds over 30ft. ice pinnacles, and battling a drift that often wants to take you back to where you started.
Doing the Poles unsupported and climbing Everest without oxygen is an incredible set of accomplishments which Antoine was the only person in the world to have managed.
Not forgotten
Antoine took three of some of the world’s most challenging adventures and completed them to the fullest. He had a wife, Sandrine, whom he climbed Cho Oyu with in 1999. This rather unknown, but truly great adventurer leaves behind an amazing legacy.
His teammate, Philippe Renard, also had a wife and two children. He was born in 1962 and climbed on several 8000m expeditions. Shisha Pangma and that area are notorious for avalanches. In 1999 an avalanche claimed the lives of David Bridges and Alex Lowe. Between the years of 2001 and 2002, 5 people died in avalanche related incidents on Shish too.
Image of Shisha Pangma courtesy of Serac Adventure Films.
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