This is Hugo’s account of the avalanche that fell off the Nupste face on April 27th.
I reached C1 in quick time from BC and found Nima (our C2 cook) waiting for me near the tents. He was there to show me which tents were ours and then with a quick shake of the hands he was off, trying to catch up with the other Sherpas (Tendi, Pemba and Karna) who were already walking from C1 to C2. I opened one of the tents, took off my harness and other climbing gear and got into the tent to relax. The sun was shining and inside the tent it must have been around 65f (18c), so it was very nice! I took off my boots and jacket and decided I had time for a 30 minute nap. I opened both the front and rear doors to let some air through and this action probably saved my life.
A few minutes into my nap I heard a large rumble. I would usually hear 15+ avalanches per day, so you will know that this must have been a very loud rumble to make me sit up and take a look. As I looked out of the tent I saw the most enormous avalanche I’ve ever seen in my life thundering down the Nuptse face. It is almost impossible to overestimate the size of this thing. You could have fit 3 empire state buildings on top of each other into the space it was coming from. The powder cloud of the avalanche would have swallowed a small village. My first thought was “Oh my god, that’s heading straight for the route from C1 to C2. Its going to be carnage”. My second thought was “Oh crap, its heading straight towards me.” I only had a couple of seconds to act, so I thought I’d close the tent door. As absurd as that action may seem, my next act was even funnier. The zip stuck on the tent door, so I knealt and held the tent door closed as thousands of tons of ice and snow barrelled towards me.
When the avalanche hit it blew me backwards, off my feet and slammed me to the tent floor. Avalanche powder was pouring into the tent with such force that I could not breathe. I opened my mouth and it filled with snow, I opened my eyes and everything was white. The noise was intense, a rushing, roaring, tearing loud, loud noise. I struggled to get myself up onto my hands and knees, still being pummelled. I thought “I’m going to die because I can’t breathe”. I was fighting to get to the back of the tent, because I thought if I got out I could roll into the crevasse behind my tent and take shelter.
Then it began to pass. If the backdoor of the tent had not been open the snow would have completly filled the tent and suffocated me and the force of the avalanche would have picked up the tent and thrown it into a crevasse. The roar of the avalanche was replaced by the hissing of snow blowing across the ice and I finally emerged from my tent. I felt like a survivour climbing out of the rubble of an bombed building. I was bootless, jacketless, gloveless, hatless and had snow packed into my ears, nose, down my shirt, everywhere. I could hear people moaning and crying nearby and the occasional yell to someone of “are you OK?” I looked to my right and the tent next to mine was gone. Completly gone, as if it was never there. The tent on the other side was wrecked, just like my own. The both had multiple broken poles. If you know modern tents you know that poles dont break. They bend and then pop out of their grommets. These two tents both had 4 or 5 poles that were just snapped in half. It was then that I thought of the climbers on their way from C1 to C2 and specifically Nima. I got on the radio and started calling Nima, over and over, with no reply. Then Karna and Tendi replied that they were safe with Pemba, that it had just missed them. I told them that they had to look for Nima, there was no way it missed him. Before I could join the search I had to dig out my tent to find clothes, boots and climbing equipment.
This is a long blog post, so I’ll finish the avalanche story in another post. Stay tuned….