Paul narrowly missed being caught in an avalanche on Friday and this report was written by Alan Arnette on the topic. For the rest of the world, weekends are times for fun and relaxing. On Everest it is time for work. Today, several teams are climbing towards Camp 3 on the Lhotse Face.
The avalanche reported yesterday seems to have shaken the climbers up a bit. This was a somewhat rare event in that it came off Nuptse, which is to the climber’s right as you enter the Western CWM. Most avalanches have come off Everest’s West Shoulder, to the left.
As with most avalanches of this nature it is not the actual debris that causes harm or damage (unless you take a direct hit) but rather the hurricane force wind blast that accompany the avalanche.
In this case, one person was blown down and his expedition cook literally blown into a crevasse. A man hunt ensued resulting in pulling him out. His injuries were deemed serious enough that the Fishtail B3 Helicopter was summoned to evacuate him back to Kathmandu. This is now common to call the helicopter in for rescues whereas 3 years ago, it would have taken 20 Sherpas a full day to hand carry him back to base camp for helicopter evacuation. I understand he is OK
Paul missed this because he was at C2 and the snow hit C1, a lucky escape!
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