Slovenian Skis Mt. Everest Summit

A 38-year-old Slovenian on Saturday became the first person to ski nonstop down the world’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest.

“I feel only absolute happiness and absolute fatigue,” Davo Karnicar said by satellite phone after the descent from the 29,035-foot peak.

He said about 2 1/2 miles of skiing on his custom-made skis took 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 arriving at the base camp at 17,519 feet.

Karnicar said he came across a frozen body of a climber during his descent. The identity of the 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.

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