SKI WORLD NEWS:

FIRST TO SKI DOWN EVEREST

By REUTERS

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - A 38-year-old Slovenian became the first person ever to ski non-stop down the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest, on Saturday.

"I feel only absolute happiness and absolute fatigue," Davo Karnicar told Reuters by satellite phone after the descent from the 8,850-meter (29,035-feet) peak. He said some four kilometers of skiing on his custom-made skis took him nearly five hours and went without any major problems.

"At some sections I had to ski very fast to escape from the breaking ice," the exhausted ski instructor said immediately after arrival at the base camp at 5,340 meters.

Karnicar said he came across a frozen body of a dead climber during his descent. The identity of the dead climber was not known. "This mountain is always full of surprises, seeing a dead man out there was a really shocking experience for me," he said.

Karnicar's descent was captured on video by cameras set up along the way and on his helmet and was broadcast on the Internet (www.everest.simobil.si).

The father of three has already skied down Mont Blanc and Annapurna in the Himalayas, but lost two fingers to frostbite when skiing down Everest in a failed attempt in 1996.