Today I took a helicopter with the team from Samagoan, just
below Manaslu base camp and arrived in Kathmandu. It is always a big contrast going from weeks
at high altitude on an expedition to the busy city of Kathmandu.
At this time I know 1 or 2 teams are still on the mountain
going for their summit “rotation” and pushing to summit between September 29-October
1. We decided to end our expedition as
many teams did after the massive avalanche that claimed the lives of 12
climbers on Sunday, September 23rd. With these unstable conditions present we
cannot justify staying to climb the peak.
Our expedition was successful in that we were able to climb
to Camp 2 on our acclimatization rotation and also practice mountaineering
techniques in the icefall section between camps 1 & 2 which is similar to
terrain on Everest, as this is also a training climb for Everest. Also, all members are well & uninjured
after the avalanche and excited to return to the Himalaya to climb again.
Most of us were probably asleep on Sunday, September 23rd
at 4:30 AM when the avalanche hit. I
recall hearing the sound of a very distant icefall and then some rumbling but
it sounded far off and I wasn’t concerned.
Camp 2 is at about 20,000’ and above us were several very large
crevasses that filled up with the debris from the avalanche, and then we were
hit by the wind blast and some snow & ice that shredded my tent. Everyone was OK but shaken. Another team camped next to us reported one member had a slight concussion from being hit by a piece of ice. There were some boots & other gear items
in our camp that had been blown down from the group camped just above us.
I exited our tent and surveyed the scene and asked if
everyone was OK. I then climbed up just
50’ to the “upper” camp 2 where another team was located above us. When I reached them many members were without
tents as theirs had been destroyed by the wind blast and snow/ice. We brought some of the boots up hoping that
would help these climbers. While I was
speaking with the leader from this team we saw a lone figure coming down in the
dark towards us. He could see our
headlamps on in the dark and was walking down quickly, almost running, with his
sleeping bag hanging loosely in one hand.
When he got to us we saw that he was a Sherpa and was barefoot, only
with his long underwear on. I knew then
that Camp 3 had been badly hit by the avalanche and that someone had to go up
and start helping those who had survived.
I quickly went back down to our camp, saw that everyone was OK, then
asked my friend and lead guide from the IMG group Mike Hamill if he wanted to
go up with me and my co guide Lakpa Rita Sherpa and see if we could provide
assistance. The three of us began climbing
up toward Camp 3.
Lakpa raced ahead and got to the uppermost tent site at Camp
3 and found Glen Plake, who had been with 2 other French climbers in a tent
when the avalanche hit. Glen miracously
survived and ended up in a large crevasse on top of the debris with his
belongings, but his climbing partners disappeared. Lakpa radioed Glen’s base camp (Himalayan
Guides) and began searching for the missing climbers then met up with myself
& Mike lower down where the German team (Amical) and another French (Expes)
group had ended up.
These two groups, along with an Italian team, had been
camped side by side and had been swept downward about 500’ by the
avalanche. When we found them the sun
was up, and some of the injured were being tended to by a few in their group,
as well as some skiers (Greg Hill & team) who were camped nearby but not affected by the slide. We began asking if they knew how many were
accounted for and how many were missing and then started working on an
evacuation plan. The weather at that
time in the morning was perfect, no wind or clouds, and would be perfect for a
helicopter evacuation. The helicopter
company had already been notified, and I knew we needed a helipad built quickly. I took it upon myself to pick out a spot
close to where the injured climbers were located and started shoveling
snow, one activity I've gained a lot of practice with at high altitude. The debris from the avalanche was
easy to shovel and with a few other volunteers we had a suitable landing pad
flattened out in about an hour. We then
marked an “H” in the center of the pad with water mixed
with orange powder.
We had a plan to fly out the seriously injured climbers
first, then start flying out people that were OK but without the proper gear to
descend (most gear had been swept away so people were left without boots,
harnesses, crampons, etc). When the B 3
(helicopter) landed we loaded up a German man into the back seat, the next flight was
a French man. The pilot only wanted to
fly off one person at a time until we got the injured climbers off who would
require laying on the back seat, then we could load two at a time for those who
were OK but without gear to walk down.
The pilot would shuttle these climbers down to base camp or Samagoan
where there were at least some medical facilities, then return to our site at
20,500 feet to pick up more climbers, and then a few of the bodies. When all climbers in need of evacuation were
flown off it was about noon, and we prepared to descend back to our Camp
2. We left a few bodies there because
the weather had changed and it was no longer safe for the helicopter to fly
given the conditions (the helicopter would return the following morning to fly
off these bodies, & as I write now there is talk of a plan to look for the
missing climbers still buried by the debris).
I took a few photos of the avalanche path and the ice cliff
above that likely broke and triggered the massive slab avalanche. The German team thought they were in a safe
location given the slope but this slide was on such a large scale that it
pushed over to their camp. We were very lucky that the debris filled in
several large crevasses and came to a stop before reaching our camp. We had planned to put our Camp 3 at the Col
where hopefully we would be safe in the event of a large avalanche initiated by
icefall from the ridgeline.
We descended to our Camp 2 and packed up our belongings and
began the descent to base camp. We had
an uneventful climb down to base camp, and were very thankful that we returned
to base unscathed. As we reflected on
the situation we considered ourselves lucky, and given the conditions on
Manaslu that produced this massive avalanche, we felt it unsafe to continue the
climb, venturing up again on what would have been our summit rotation. Many other teams also decided to leave the
mountain and climb another day.
