Omar Di Felice: A bicycle and a video camera to get to Everest Base Camp.
Everest is a mountain located in the heart of Nepal, and due to its size, shape and history, it has become one of the purest gifts that the Earth and nature have given us. This is why reaching the summit is among the most desired destinations by adventurers and explorers of the world. Traveling to Nepal, touring the Himalayas and feeling that you are stepping where the most iconic athletes in history have stepped is a unique and special experience.
In today's post we are going to talk about Omar Di Felice, a rare cyclist who has managed to reach the top of this imposing mountain during the winter and after having crossed the Gobi desert a few months before.
Who is Omar Di Felice?
Omar Di Felice was born in 1981 in Rome and since he was a child he was a faithful lover of cycling. In 2006 he turned professional and began to compete, especially in ultracycling events. Today he has many awards to his credit, including cycling across Italy from West to East, or first place in the Raid Provence Extreme.
Omar trains and goes through all his adventures alone, he does not have coaches or companions in his experiences. The Italian covers about 40,000 kilometers a year and accumulates a total of more than 500,000 meters in height.
In addition to being an exceptional athlete due to his skills and his capacity for sacrifice, the Italian has proven to stand out as adventurer and traveler, taking his bike to impressive places accompanied by a camera video with which he has filmed his experiences and has been able to show the world what he sees and move his followers to the places he visits.
One of the most surprising things about Omar is that throughout his career he has developed a passion for covering terrain that requires a temperature challenge. It was around 2000 when Omar fell in love with the cold, on a trip to Iceland. When he returned, he decided that he would explore the world in the harsh winter with his bicycle.
Omar Di Felice crowns Everest Base Camp
Di Felice's most recent challenge has been to climb Everest Base Camp in 19 days, in the dead of winter. Party from the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu. Almost 1,300 kilometers of journey crossing the coldest and driest region of Asia, Mustang, where the temperature of the wind gusts reached 17 degrees below zero, through the Himalayas and Thorung La, one of the most imposing mountain passes in the world, to reach the mythical Everest base camp.
"Everest is a mythical mountain steeped in history, where the world's greatest expeditions have been completed, and where you can gasp at the huge Khumbu icefall on the north face." Omar DiFelice
The thermal differences that Omar faced during his adventure were very extreme. At some points on their route, temperatures reached 20 degrees below zero, and at others, the thermometer reached 35 degrees. In order to adapt to these climatic changes, a technical sportswear brand developed special equipment for Di Felice. Each garment could be configured in three thermal modes, and it was regulated according to the needs of the cyclist and the conditions of the environment.
The idea of reaching Everest had already crossed his mind on numerous occasions. In 2017 he participated in his first "Everesting", a challenge that consists of climbing peaks and summits in several stages and in a limited time until reaching the height equivalent to that of Everest. But it was after touring the Gobi desert, when he remembered how much he enjoyed solitary experiences, extreme terrain and harsh weather conditions, that he decided to add a modification to his Gobi adventure: he wanted to beat his next challenge in vertical. So, he went to the capital of Nepal, where he began his tour and pedaled in the direction of the Kora La Pass, reaching a drop of more than four thousand meters and then crossed the Thorung La Pass, the highest of the world. After passing through the country's capital again, he went up to base camp.
Omar Di Felice has become the first cyclist in the world to reach Everest Base Camp in winter.
Omar Di Felice in the Gobi Desert
In December 2020, Omar decided to immerse himself in an adventure that few have been able to enjoy, and after overcoming a car accident and facing all the restrictions and postponements of his adventure due to COVID-19, he was finally able to get on his bike, take your video camera and cross, in 17 days, the Gobi desert. He traveled a circular route with origin and destination in the main square of Ulan Bator, the coldest city in the world. It took him four months of study and physical and mental preparation to start the Winter Transmongolia route, and just over two weeks to complete it.
The first days he spent passing through the cities that would lead him to the gate of the desert. On day three of the route, when he had covered almost 500 kilometers, he reached the East Gate of the Gobi desert, which was located in the city of Saynshand. This was when the truly lonely adventure began, for he suddenly found himself in the middle of a completely wild, uninhabited and empty terrain, where the only thing alive around him were completely wild animals that ran through the unlimited space of the desert. Sometimes, the Italian was even scared of the enormity of the world and the smallness of the human being in comparison.
“The route is very lonely, but you feel a natural presence that accompanies you and makes your fatigue less.”
She spent more than half her nights sleeping in freezing cold inside her tent, and the rest in small hotel rooms with no heat or hot water. One of Omar's favorite things about that trip is that on his penultimate night he met a nomadic family who offered him to spend the night at their “home”.
During his journey he encountered some difficulties in the terrain, which was mainly made up of sand and dunes that made it impossible for him to pedal and he had to carry his bike on his back. On the other hand, the weather also limited him, since it normally brought strong gusts of wind and loaded with sand that did not allow him to move forward. The temperature, for his part, shocked even him, who, accustomed to radical cold and heat, was confused when he saw that, even though the sun was shining and the sky was blue, he lived at almost 20 degrees below zero.
“Sometimes I seem to be on the Moon, other times on Mars. I'm rolling over all the planets here in the Gobi Desert."
The best thing about Omar's trip is that he filmed it all, from start to finish. Every stage, every sensation. He moved us to the desert too. We crossed frozen rivers, we met the local people, we shuddered to see such a large and empty space at the same time and we were impressed to learn that there are still places that are not populated or brutally manipulated by human beings.
Omar arrived again at the main square of Ulan Bator on the night of the seventeenth day. Having accomplished his goal and wanting to take a hot shower.
Another adventurer who set foot on Everest Base Camp
Göran Kropp (1966- 2002)
This mountaineer is known in addition to reaching the top of K2, high peaks in the Andes, Pakistan or Nepal, and for leading explorations to the North and South Pole, for crowning the Roof of the World, also by bicycle, in the year 1996.
In October 1995 he undertook his trip to Everest, and he did it on his bicycle from the door of his house in Stockholm, and, loaded with saddlebags and more than one hundred kilos of technical equipment and food, he began his way to the Everest base camp. He traveled more than ten thousand kilometers. At the end of May 1996 he reached his goal. When he got down, he made the way back home again on his bike.
Three years later he returned to Everest, this time accompanied by his wife, Renata Chlumska with the aim of carrying out an awareness campaign and action for the conservation of the mountain and the environment.
Unfortunately, the climber passed away in 2002 while climbing in an area of Washington due to a technical accident.
Although we believe that everything is done, that there is nothing innovative left to think about, to discover or to invent, there are still completely unknown terrains for us, places that human beings do not contemplate visiting and challenges that have not yet been achieved . The top of Everest has been crowned many times, right? But there will always be someone who manages to do it in a way never seen before and surprises the world. The next to achieve something that is already considered achieved can be you. What are you waiting for!
