Attempt to ski Everest

Press, 15 February 1989, Page 49

Attempt to ski Everest

NZPA-AP Lexington, United States An American skier says he might attempt to ski down Mount Everest Steve Mclnney, already the first person to hang-glide off Everest, said he might make the daring attempt later this year if he could get the right financial incentive. "I haven’t made up my mind on the thing yet,” Steve McKinney said from , Vail, Colorado. “I don’t know if I’m up for more misteigfror not I may have had

McKinney, who set five world speed ski-ing records between 1974 and 1983, performed his hang-gliding feat in 1986. Later he made plans for a ski run down the 8847 metre mountain. But it never happened. On October 6, 1987, McKinney was competing in the World Cup Speed Ski-ing Championships in Chile when a helicopter in which he and two other skiers were riding crashed and rolled over three times. McKinney was hurled through the bubble of the'! helicopter.

He suffered facial cuts requiring 120 stitches, multiple fractures of the right arm and a crushed right shoulder. No-one has ever skied Mount Everest from the summit. “But I’m convinced it can be done," McKinney told the “Lexington Herald Leader.” “You’d have to be roped up and ski it properly — short, controlled turns. “It’s not a place to g,o fast. And you’d need luck with the weather, a heavy snowfall for a good surface. You coiildn’t do it on ice.” !