ad hoc rocks

Climbing the Seven Summits – the highest mountain in each and every one of the seven continents on the planet – is something most climbers dream about. Many have attempted this, few have succeeded. In Ad Hoc Rocks, Martin Letzter and Olof Sundström tell us, in words and pictures, how they succeeded in setting a new Swedish record and a world record in mountain climbing at the same time.

How hard can it be to climb the world’s highest mountains? And once you reached the top, then you can take the opportunity to ski down – just think, what slopes! If you don’t concentrate too much on the difficulties, and solve the problems as they crop up, mountain climbing doesn’t feel completely impossible – and it is much more fun. With just such an attitude, Martin Letzter and Olof Sundström decided to make the effort to become the first Swedes to manage the Seven Summits.

In the summer of 2003, they set off to start with Mount McKinley in the Denali National Park in Alaska. In January, 2007, they skied down from the top of Puncak Jaya (the Cartensz Pyramid) in New Guinea and had then done the peaks in Denali in North America, Aconcagua in South America, Elbrus in Europe, Everest in Asia, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Kosciuszko in Australia, Vinson in the Antarctic and finally Cartensz in Oceania.

The Swedes did what nobody else has managed – they skied down from all the peaks that they climbed.

In text and pictures, Martin Letzter and Olof Sundström describe their expeditions which stretched from the silent white glistening frost of the Antarctic to the explosively hot lushness of the Rain Forest in Oceania.

Martin Letzter is a climber and worked in the IT-sector before the bubble burst. He is the youngest Swede to have climbed Mount Everest.

Olof Sundström is a climber with a background as a graduate engineer and economist specialising in risk management and strategy. He was the first man in the world to ski down from the summit of Mount Everest on Telemark skis.