suze kelly - survival on everest
Being caught in an avalanche is not something anyone would like to experience, however being caught in an avalanche on the highest mountain in the world is beyond terrifying. On 25th April, 2015, Wanaka based Kiwi, and General Manager of Adventure Consultants, Suze Kelly, was in Camp 1 when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the mountain killing 9000 people in Nepal and causing a huge avalanche that ran straight through base camp. The avalanche claimed the lives of at least 22 people.
Suze takes up the story...
We had climbed up to Camp 1 from Basecamp for the first time on the expedition, arriving the day before. It wasn’t my first time going up into the Western Cwm as I’d been on Lhotse in 2013 but for most of our team it was their first time. We had decided not to go for an acclimatisation hike that morning from Camp 1 towards Camp 2 as everyone was pretty tired from the efforts getting to Camp 1 the day prior, so we were in our tents under low cloud.
I’m sure I felt the fault line ‘slip’, as the ground moved sideways over a metre in our tent with a huge glacial sized creaking sound, before all the real shaking started. Camp 1 is not the place you want to be when an earthquake happens as it is exposed to falling serac avalanche hazard from very high up on the mountain walls that loom above. When the shaking stopped Guy and I remarked ’that’s gotta be a big one’ and quickly started pulling on layers of clothes and boots. He made it out of tent in time to yell ’avalanche’ to everyone else as he could see an avalanche coming but the air blast wasn’t too bad, and we could soon all emerge from our tents.
During the shaking I had been able to speak on the radio to Anthea, our Base Camp Manager, where she had asked if we were OK and I said, ‘its rocking and rolling up here’. After about 10 minutes Anthea called again, and she said ‘ Basecamp has been obliterated, I expect mass casualties’. We didn’t’ hear from her again that day as her radio stopped working and it took all of her effort to perform triage at Basecamp with our 20 staff based there.
At Basecamp they had low cloud also, so they could hear an avalanche coming after the shaking stopped, but they couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. Once it was apparent
that it was coming from the direction of Pumori they had only seconds to dive behind what cover they could find. Some of our Sherpas didn’t make it to cover and the avalanche air blast that swept through camp flattened everything. Five Sherpa were killed and the rest all had injuries, with another Sherpa dying in Kathmandu from his injuries a few days later.
Most of our team were on the mountain, in fact we had 32 people spread between Camps 1 and 2 and many other teams were the same – they actually had most of their personnel on the mountain rather than in Basecamp. All groups quickly met at our camp and we ascertained what resources we all had as the route back to Basecamp through the icefall was now cut off. We were able to speak by sat phone to our team at the office in Wanaka so we mainly got news of what was going on this way. At Basecamp our injured Sherpas were all helped down to a makeshift hospital set up in a part of Basecamp that wasn’t affected by the avalanche, and at some point in the evening Anthea found a working sat phone and called New Zealand so we at last had some news of our team. Low cloud prevented any injured people being flown out all day.
The following morning it cleared so helicopters were able to come and pick up the injured from Basecamp for transport to Kathmandu and once this was done they then flew up into the Cwm. By now we knew we had a lot of carnage in our camp so we managed to get Guy on a flight from Camp 1 to Basecamp, and then some of us followed a couple of hours later in more flights. Arriving into Basecamp was like arriving onto the scene of M.A.S.H. ad when we went up to our camp site, the place was flattened and everything was smashed or blown away hundreds of metres. After one night staying in someone else’s camp, we then moved back on to our site. There was a lot of looting going
"Camp 1 is not the place you want to be when an earthquake happens as it is exposed to falling serac avalanche hazard from very high up on the mountain walls that loom above. "
on and I also felt the need to protect the space where people had just died – it was a strong feeling. We managed to salvage some basics and within a couple of days most of team were able to leave and trek down valley. Guy and I stayed a further 8 days along with two other westerners and quite a few of our Sherpa and we managed bit by bit to clean up and leave the site in a reasonable state considering what had just happened.
At our office in NZ they were amazing, working round the clock to track everyone on our trips in Nepal as we had trekkers and climbers throughout the Kumbu on various trips. On our trek out, we visited with the families of those who had died, which was heart wrenching. We made it to Kathmandu and were able to check in with injured Sherpas and then experienced the second big earthquake, the 7.2 on May 12. We watched all the Kathmandu residents leave their buildings in panic but there wasn’t as much damage in Kathmandu from the second earthquake. After that I was ready to leave.
We came home to a lot of soul searching but in the end, we decided to carry on, urged on by our Sherpa staff who said ‘please come back and bring trips and people, as we want the work’.
AC returned to Everest in 2016 with a very successful expedition and we have had similar results in 2017 and 2018. We started the Sherpa Future Fund which helped the AC Sherpas re-build their homes and recover from their injuries and it also pays for the education of the children who lost their fathers, the main bread winner in the family.
288 people have died on Everset. Of those, 71 died on the decent after they reached the summit. Most of those bodies remain on the mountain...