Everest Avalanche

[JERRY_SANCHEZ]

 

Everest avalanche injures U.S. and Canadian climbers, Sherpa guides

 

By BINAJ GURUBACHARYA

 

The Associated Press

 

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KATMANDU, Nepal — Four American and Canadian climbers and two Sherpa guides were injured in an avalanche on Mount Everest and were being treated Friday in a makeshift tent hospital as treacherous weather kept them from being evacuated.

 

Thursday's avalanche swept through the first of four camps set up between Everest's base camp and its 29,035-foot summit, days after an American and a Canadian climber died in separate incidents on the mountain.

 

The six climbers, including two Americans, two Canadians and two Nepalese Sherpa guides, received injuries ranging from bruises to a possible broken back, reports from the mountain said.

 

The Americans were identified as James Fadrick Bach and Jason John Barilla and the Canadians were John Dahu Gauthier and Pierre Bourdeau, according to the Parvir Trekking agency which outfitted the mountaineers. Hometowns were not immediately available.

 

They were being treated at a hospital run by the Himalayan Rescue Association in a tent at the base camp, at an elevation of 17,400 feet.

 

Bourdeau said on his Web site that the avalanche hit about 5:30 a.m.

 

Information

 

 

 

 

Everest expeditions: www.everestnews.com/

 

(click on "Today's news")

"I was awakened by the sound of thunder from very high above me on the west shoulder of Everest, probably from near the top of the shoulder. Then, I felt the ground beneath me shaking and rumbling as if we were in an earthquake," he wrote.

 

He said they reached the hospital tent after a four-trek down from the first camp, where flattened orange tents and climbing equipment were scattered on the snow. Other photos showed a bearded Barilla wearing a smashed white helmet, his face covered with scrapes and bruises, and a sherpa who apparently had to be carried down in a stretcher.

 

Climbers estimated about 40 tents were destroyed by the avalanche, which buried food, supplies and oxygen supplies.

 

There are no roads to the base camp and the only ways out are to hike for a week to the nearest airstrip or by helicopter.

 

Rescuers will try again Saturday to evacuate the injured climbers, a mountaineering official said Friday.

 

"Continuing bad weather prevented helicopters from reaching the Everest region. Rescuers waited all day to bring them back to Katmandu," said Purna Bhakta Tandulkar, chief of Mountaineering Department in Katmandu.

 

In the past few days, strong winds and snowfall have slowed climbers on the mountain and created treacherous conditions. The weather is expected to worsen this weekend, with the wind picking up speed, forecasters said.

 

Twenty-three expeditions were attempting to scale the peak this spring, but the climbers have yet to reach the final, most difficult section on Everest, known as the "death zone."

 

Michael O'Brien, 39, of Seattle fell to his death on Sunday as he and his brother Chris, 32, were returning to their base camp and were crossing the Khumbu Icefall, a dreaded section of the route that has claimed the lives of many climbers.

 

Canadian Sean Egan, 63, died on April 29 after an apparent heart attack on Everest's slopes.

 

Since New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered Everest on May 29, 1953, more than 1,400 people have scaled the mountain. About 180 have died on its unpredictable slopes.

[BreezyD]

John Gauthier? Any relation to Rainier's own Mike Gauthier?

 

I hope not.

 

Best wishes to all involved.