The Himalaya by the Numbers: A Statistical Analysis - Himalayan ...

Periodically, massive storms fueled by large cyclones in the Bay of Bengal strike
Bangledesh and then move up into the Himalaya and cause much havoc with
expeditions. One such storm that occurred in November 1995 is described next.
The Epic Storm of November 1995
From The Seasonal Stories of Elizabeth Hawley – Autumn 1995
Ama Dablam had enjoyed an exceptional season. 67 climbers from 17 teams gained the
summit of Ama Dablam by its usual route on the southwest ridge. Leaders returning from
Ama Dablam commented on how smooth relations were amongst the large international
community on their mountain, a situation that was a very pleasant surprise for many of
them, including Russell Brice, who amazed others by his ascent that began from camp 1 at
5200m at 6:00 a.m., just after an early breakfast, put him on the top at 9:20 a.m., and got
him safely back to base camp at 4600m in time for lunch at 1:00 p.m. “It was just a nice
day out for me, a half-day holiday” from his work as leader of a small team.
Brice’s summit day, 8 November, was the final day on which anyone got to the summit of
Ama Dablam. The last teams to arrive in Nepal to attempt any peak in the autumn season,
which officially ends on the 15th of November, were three for Ama Dablam, and they paid
a price for coming so late and therefore not having time to spare to wait out bad weather.
One of them, six Italians and an Austrian, had come to base camp two days before and had
pitched their first high camp that day but returned to base to sleep. Another, a Spanish
party, arrived at base camp the next day, the 9th, to start their climb, and the third, a
French group, had a summit-attack party in their highest camp, poised for a push to the top
on the 9th.
But on the 9th an unusually large snowstorm began about noon and by the time it ended
in the night of the 10th, it had dumped a remarkable two meters of fresh snow at base.
Brice knew how much had fallen because only the top of his toilet tent was visible above it.
He suddenly found himself hard at work during these days shoveling snow off his team’s
tents and taking hours to dig out a path to the start of the ridge so other climbers could get
safely down to base. Everyone who was in base camp remained snowbound there until the
morning of the 11th, when the Italian-Austrian group, the Spaniards and some of Brice’s
own members plowed their way out to the village of Pangboche.
Up on the mountain on the 9th were eight Frenchmen who had planned to attack the summit
that day. Brice, an experienced Himalayan climber, advised them by radio to descend
immediately, and down they struggled with difficulty for 12 hours through half a meter
of snow on the ridge to their first high camp, a descent that would normally take perhaps
seven hours. Then they were stuck in camp 1 on the 10th; their leader, Michel Cormier,
spent two hours to go to the Italians’ tent not far away to fetch food and return to his camp.
On the 11th they managed to reach an intermediate camp, but could go no farther in the
very deep snow. Finally by the 12th, Brice, his teammate who was still in base camp and
two of Cormier’s members who had summited on the 8th and had safely descended to base
before the height of the storm, had dug out a trail up from base and were able to rescue
Cormier and his party. These Frenchmen, who came down the last part of the ridge on their
backsides or crawling while dragging their sacks of belongings to the point where they met
Brice’s party and the trail, suffered no frostbite from their ordeal, but Cormier felt that if
they had spent one more night above base camp, they would have had frostbitten feet.
The French team left base on the 13th for Pangboche on their trek down to an airfield for
a flight to Kathmandu. The Italians went back to base camp that day from Pangboche to
retrieve their tents and gear left at camp 1 but made no attempt to go higher. The Spaniards
also returned to base on the 13th; they established their own camp 1 on the 14th with
38 Analysis of Climbing Activity