Fredrik Sträng
Encyclopedia
Fredrik Sträng, is a Swedish
mountain climber, adventurer and documentary
film maker.
Sträng was born in Laxå
in Örebro County
and learned to climb in the Kilsbergen
mountains. He currently lives in Gävle
.
expedition which consisted of six Swedes altogether (Joakim Ahlin, Magnus Flock, Martin Emanuelsson, Fredrik Jönsson and Fredrik Sträng). Sträng claims to have reached the summit, together with Kami Sherpa, who was also part of the expedition.
Fredrik Sträng has also participated as a member and photographer in several of Ola Skinnarmo's expeditions. In 2003 an expedition was conducted, In the Footprints of Shackleton, with the purpose of repeating some of the stretches which Sir Ernest Shackleton
made in 1916 when he sailed to South Georgia Island in a 6 m long wooden boat (James Caird) and then traversed the island on foot in order to reach Stommnes. The expedition used a steel boat named Searcher and then crossed South Georgia on skis. A documentary was later released on the expedition, "I Shackletons spår", which was shown in Swedish TV4 during Christmas 2004 and also a book, Skinnarmo i Shackletons spår (Skinnarmo in Shackleton's Footprints) which was published in 2005.
In 2004 Fredrik Sträng took part in an expedition together with Ola Skinnarmo to Mongolia
with the purpose of horseriding, paddling and attempting to locate the world's largest salmoloid, viz. Taimen
in the remote river Onon
. A documentary, I Djingis Kahns fotspår (In the Footprints of Genghis Khan) about the trip was shown on TV4 during Christmas 2005.
In 2005, in a commercial expedition led by Ryan Waters, with 6 climbers and 6 high-altitude porters, Fredrik Sträng attempted to climb the north wall of Mount Everest
via the northeast ridge. He turned back only 240 m from the summit because the oxygen did not work and because of an outbreak of a throat infection. Sträng reasoned that reaching the summit was not worth risking freezing some of his fingers. It has been asserted by other mountaineers
that turning back – with the reason given in this case – constitutes a greater achievement than reaching the summit and suffering exposure. All porters and two clients summited, including a Swede Magnus Flock. Flock became the first Swede to have climbed the northeast ridge of Mount Everest. Sträng and Flock also participated in a medical experiment conducted by Uppsala University Hospital
under the supervision of researcher Stefan Branth and medical student Fredrik Wallin. The purpose was to investigate how the body is affected by hypoxia
. The study found among other results that the two lost basically no fat; that at high altitudes almost all metabolism was fuelled by muscle tissue.
During the spring of 2006, in another commercial expedition guided by Scott Woolums and Jamie McGuinness, Fredrik Sträng climbed Mount Everest. He used oxygen starting at Camp 2, and reached the summit with 8 of the 8 high altitude porters, and 5 of 12 fellow clients, including fellow Swede Johan Frankelius.
He participated in Jamie McGuinness' international expedition. He was also on the mountain and shot film for two documentaries. One of these documentaries was shown on TV4 in March 2007 and was called Fredrik Sträng och mysteriet på Everest (Fredrik Sträng and the Everest mystery) and was about the theory that George Mallory
theoretically could have climbed the mountain as early as June 8, 1924. The other documentary was called 7 Summits and was about Fredrik Sträng's climb of the tallest mountains on each continent on the planet. Fredrik Sträng was even on Mount Everest to look for a Kodak Vest pocket camera which George Mallory's climbing partner Andrew Irvine
would have carried and which hypothetically could contain a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit.
During the autumn of 2005 Fredrik Sträng climbed to the central peak of Shishapangma
at an altitude of 8013 m.
In 2006 Sträng finished his 7+7+7 project, the object of which was to climb ”The 7 Summits
”, the highest mountains on each continent of the planet. He succeeded in doing this in 191 days and was awarded a Guinness World Record for officially being the fastest climber in the world. However, the website 7summits.com writes: "Fredrik climbed the 7+1 summits in 191 days, thinking he had the speed record, however, Daniel Griffith started later and finished before Fredrik, taking the record at this time." He was also the first Swede to have climbed the official 7 Summits. Sträng's 7 Summits adventure was also turned into a book, 7 berg 7 kontinenter 7 månader (7 Mountains 7 Continents 7 Months), which was published in the autumn of 2007. He was also presented with the award "Adventurer of the Year" following his 7 Summits mountain climb.
(a 100 m tall overarching wall of ice) and which caused the majority of the deaths.
where the purpose is for his adventures and lectures to contribute money to the "Rewrite the Future" project.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
mountain climber, adventurer and documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
film maker.
Sträng was born in Laxå
Laxå
Laxå is a locality and the seat of Laxå Municipality, Örebro County, Sweden with 3,307 inhabitants in 2005.-History:The town was founded in the mid-19th century when the main line railway between Gothenburg and Stockholm was built in 1883. Laxå is situated exactly 226 km from both those...
in Örebro County
Örebro County
Örebro County is a county or län in central Sweden. It borders the counties of Västra Götaland, Värmland, Dalarna, Västmanland, Södermanland and Östergötland.- Province :...
and learned to climb in the Kilsbergen
Kilsbergen
Kilsbergen is a low mountainous ridge that separates Närke from Värmland. It is the southernmost extension of the taiga in Scandinavia and shows a flora and fauna that are unusual for the latitude. There are several skiing and hiking facilities in Kilsbergen. Kilsbergen is especially known for its...
mountains. He currently lives in Gävle
Gävle
Gävle is a city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 71,033 inhabitants in 12/31 2010. It is the oldest city in the historical Norrland , having received its charter in 1446 from Christopher of Bavaria.-History:It is believed that the name Gävle...
.
Mountain climbing
In 2003 Fredrik Sträng participated in the Swedish DhaulagiriDhaulagiri
Dhaulagiri is Earth's seventh highest mountain at ; one of fourteen over eight thousand metres. Dhaulagiri was first climbed May 13, 1960 by a Swiss/Austrian expedition....
expedition which consisted of six Swedes altogether (Joakim Ahlin, Magnus Flock, Martin Emanuelsson, Fredrik Jönsson and Fredrik Sträng). Sträng claims to have reached the summit, together with Kami Sherpa, who was also part of the expedition.
Fredrik Sträng has also participated as a member and photographer in several of Ola Skinnarmo's expeditions. In 2003 an expedition was conducted, In the Footprints of Shackleton, with the purpose of repeating some of the stretches which Sir Ernest Shackleton
Ernest Shackleton
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...
made in 1916 when he sailed to South Georgia Island in a 6 m long wooden boat (James Caird) and then traversed the island on foot in order to reach Stommnes. The expedition used a steel boat named Searcher and then crossed South Georgia on skis. A documentary was later released on the expedition, "I Shackletons spår", which was shown in Swedish TV4 during Christmas 2004 and also a book, Skinnarmo i Shackletons spår (Skinnarmo in Shackleton's Footprints) which was published in 2005.
In 2004 Fredrik Sträng took part in an expedition together with Ola Skinnarmo to Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
with the purpose of horseriding, paddling and attempting to locate the world's largest salmoloid, viz. Taimen
Hucho taimen
The taimen , also known as Siberian taimen and Siberian salmon, is a species of fish in the salmon family of order Salmoniformes.-Habits and range:...
in the remote river Onon
Onon River
The Onon is a river in Mongolia and Russia of length 818 km and watershed 94,010 km². It originates at the eastern slope of the Khentii Mountains. For 298 km it flows within Mongolia...
. A documentary, I Djingis Kahns fotspår (In the Footprints of Genghis Khan) about the trip was shown on TV4 during Christmas 2005.
In 2005, in a commercial expedition led by Ryan Waters, with 6 climbers and 6 high-altitude porters, Fredrik Sträng attempted to climb the north wall of Mount Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
via the northeast ridge. He turned back only 240 m from the summit because the oxygen did not work and because of an outbreak of a throat infection. Sträng reasoned that reaching the summit was not worth risking freezing some of his fingers. It has been asserted by other mountaineers
Mountaineering
Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...
that turning back – with the reason given in this case – constitutes a greater achievement than reaching the summit and suffering exposure. All porters and two clients summited, including a Swede Magnus Flock. Flock became the first Swede to have climbed the northeast ridge of Mount Everest. Sträng and Flock also participated in a medical experiment conducted by Uppsala University Hospital
Uppsala University Hospital
Uppsala University Hospital in Uppsala, Sweden is a teaching hospital for the Uppsala University Faculty of Medicine and the Nursing School. Uppsala University Hospital is owned and operated by the Uppsala County Council in cooperation with the university and serves, together with Enköping...
under the supervision of researcher Stefan Branth and medical student Fredrik Wallin. The purpose was to investigate how the body is affected by hypoxia
Hypoxia (medical)
Hypoxia, or hypoxiation, is a pathological condition in which the body as a whole or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply. Variations in arterial oxygen concentrations can be part of the normal physiology, for example, during strenuous physical exercise...
. The study found among other results that the two lost basically no fat; that at high altitudes almost all metabolism was fuelled by muscle tissue.
During the spring of 2006, in another commercial expedition guided by Scott Woolums and Jamie McGuinness, Fredrik Sträng climbed Mount Everest. He used oxygen starting at Camp 2, and reached the summit with 8 of the 8 high altitude porters, and 5 of 12 fellow clients, including fellow Swede Johan Frankelius.
He participated in Jamie McGuinness' international expedition. He was also on the mountain and shot film for two documentaries. One of these documentaries was shown on TV4 in March 2007 and was called Fredrik Sträng och mysteriet på Everest (Fredrik Sträng and the Everest mystery) and was about the theory that George Mallory
George Mallory
George Herbert Leigh Mallory was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s....
theoretically could have climbed the mountain as early as June 8, 1924. The other documentary was called 7 Summits and was about Fredrik Sträng's climb of the tallest mountains on each continent on the planet. Fredrik Sträng was even on Mount Everest to look for a Kodak Vest pocket camera which George Mallory's climbing partner Andrew Irvine
Andrew Irvine (mountaineer)
Andrew "Sandy" Comyn Irvine was an English mountaineer who took part in 1924 British Everest Expedition, the third British expedition to the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest....
would have carried and which hypothetically could contain a photograph of Mallory and Irvine on the summit.
During the autumn of 2005 Fredrik Sträng climbed to the central peak of Shishapangma
Shishapangma
Xixabangma, frequently spelled Shishapangma or Shisha Pangma , also called Gosainthān , is the fourteenth-highest mountain in the world and, at 8,013 m , the lowest of the eight-thousanders...
at an altitude of 8013 m.
In 2006 Sträng finished his 7+7+7 project, the object of which was to climb ”The 7 Summits
Seven Summits
The Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the seven continents. Summiting all of them is regarded as a mountaineering challenge, first postulated as such and achieved on April 30, 1985 by Richard Bass .-Definition:...
”, the highest mountains on each continent of the planet. He succeeded in doing this in 191 days and was awarded a Guinness World Record for officially being the fastest climber in the world. However, the website 7summits.com writes: "Fredrik climbed the 7+1 summits in 191 days, thinking he had the speed record, however, Daniel Griffith started later and finished before Fredrik, taking the record at this time." He was also the first Swede to have climbed the official 7 Summits. Sträng's 7 Summits adventure was also turned into a book, 7 berg 7 kontinenter 7 månader (7 Mountains 7 Continents 7 Months), which was published in the autumn of 2007. He was also presented with the award "Adventurer of the Year" following his 7 Summits mountain climb.
Participation in disastrous 2008 K2 expedition
In 2008 Fredrik Sträng took part in the International K2 expedition, a commercial guided climb, with 8 members (Mike Farris, Chris Klinke, Tim Horvath, Dr Eric Meyer, Chirring Dorje Sherpa, Chris Warner, Paul Walker and Sträng himself). Of the group's members Chirring Dorje Sherpa was the one who reached the summit. Fredrik Sträng and Dr Eric Meyer turned back at 8000 m early in the morning of August 1 when they concluded that the conditions for safely reaching the summit were not satisfied. During August 1 and August 2 the second most devastating accident in the history of K2 occurred. 11 people died. The main reason was falling ice in the area called the bottleneckBottleneck (K2)
The Bottleneck is a location along the South-East Spur, known also as Abruzzi Spur - the most used route to the top of K2, the second-highest mountain in the world in the Karakoram on the Pakistan/China border....
(a 100 m tall overarching wall of ice) and which caused the majority of the deaths.
Dependent activities
Fredrik Sträng makes his living as a lecturer, documentary film maker and by writing books. He cooperates with the Swedish Save the ChildrenSave the Children
Save the Children is an internationally active non-governmental organization that enforces children's rights, provides relief and helps support children in developing countries...
where the purpose is for his adventures and lectures to contribute money to the "Rewrite the Future" project.