Ueli Steck, the legendary Swiss climber, died near Mount Everest on April 30. He was 40 years old. He slipped from a slope and fell into a crevasse at an altitude of around 6,600 meters on the nearby Mount Nuptse, according to the organizers of his latest solo expedition, as he was getting acclimatized in an active mode for another challenge. Steck had already reached the summit of the world's highest mountain in 2012, without an oxygen mask, but this time he wanted to climb it and the slightly lower Lhotse in the same occasion. He had already tried to do so four years ago together with two other climbers, but they reportedly didn't succeed because of a fight with sherpa guides. Bernd Kullmann, the former boss of Deuter who climbed Mount Everest and stood on its summit wearing jeans, speculated that Steck probably fell because he insisted, in order to go faster, on standing on the front points of his crampons on steep ice instead of using ice equipment. As quoted on ispo.com, Kullmann said that Steck fully earned his nickname, “The Swiss Machine.” Steck broke many speed records in his former ascents. He won the Piolet d'Or in 2009 and 2014. According to his website, he counted Karpos and Vibram among his official sponsors lately. He had a long list of suppliers including Julbo, Leki, Mountain Hardwear, MSR, Petzl, Scarpa and Suunto. Sandro Parisotto, the chief executive of Scarpa, praised Steck for his spirit of investigation and his multiple suggestions in terms of technology and quality, and said that he was involved in all the stages of the company's product development process.

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