Aid in Action – Photo ANSA EPA/NARENDRA SHRESTHA
Noel Hanna – Instagram photo Tamara Lunger
Photo courtesy of Imagine Nepal
Photo courtesy of Imagine Nepal
Mad Ski Project – Photo Oswald Rodrigo Pereira
Instagram photo Anurag Maloo
Photo courtesy of Imagine Nepal
At the top of Annapurna – Photo courtesy of Imagine Nepal
Jonathan Lamy’s message after saving
Sajid Sadpara on top of Annapurna – photo courtesy of Team Ali Sadpara
Anurag Maloo transported to hospital – Photo ANSA EPA/NARENDRA SHRESTHA
Mad Ski Project – Photo Oswald Rodrigo Pereira
Annapurna area of Pokhara (Photo by Tang Wei/Xinhua) (Credit Image: © Tang Wei/Xinhua via ZUMA Press)
On the slopes of Annapurna (8091m), after a start to the week between joys and sorrows, between successes, tragedies and extreme rescues, peace has returned. On the tenth mountain on earth, the deadliest of the 8000, the first summit arrivals of the spring season were recorded between Saturday 15th and Monday 16th April. A series of push peaks that could be followed almost live thanks to updates from the various agencies working on the mountain. Up until Monday morning, only good news came from the deadliest of mountains, of summit arrivals with oxygen, some even without, even one beautiful ski run taken from the summit at 4800 meters from the pole Bartosz Ziemski, protagonist along with his compatriot Oswald Rodrigo Pereira in the MAD Ski project, a project for ascent and descent on skis from 2 eight-thousanders (Annapurna and Dhaulagiri). Suddenly, during the day, in the heights of Annapurna However, the situation seemed to be getting worse.
field problems 3
The first alarming news came from the French Jonathan Lamy, who climbed to the summit on Sunday and spent a first night in camp 4, managed to descend to camp 3 the next day, complaining of frozen feet and the need to get to base camp as soon as possible to avoid having to call the Rescue. The second negative news that arrived during the day was this Disappearance of the Indian Anurag Maloo, fell into a crevasse while descending between Camp 3 and Camp 2 at about 6000 meters above sea level after aborting the summit attempt and reporting him missing. With poor weather preventing an aerial overflight of the area, a team of Sherpas were sent on foot for an initial inspection, but were unable to find him.
Noel Hanna, first casualty of the season
The situation worsened on Tuesday morning. In field 4 the first victim the season, the Irishman Noel HannaHe probably died of altitude sickness that night. Nohel, 56, was an “adventure and endurance athlete,” as he described himself on his website. It wasn’t his first adventure at 8000m. He had scaled Everest ten times (from both sides), twice accompanied by his wife Lynne from the south side. The Roof of the World represented one of the peaks that was the protagonist of his special ascent project, Seven Summits, renamed “7 Summits to Sea Level Challenge”, d ski) to the “next” sea. In 2018 he climbed and became the first Irishman to climb K2. In 2019 he reached the summit of Manaslu.
His body was picked up by helicopter and taken to Kathmandu. Among the mountaineering friends who wanted to remember him on social media, we find Tamara Lunger, reached by the sad news in Iceland. The two were on K2 during the tragic winter of 2020/2021, a season that saw Sergi Mingote, Atanas Georgiev Skatov, Ali Sadpara, John Snorri and Juan Pablo Mohr lose their lives on the mountain. “Dear Noel, I’m sad and can’t believe all of this – Tamara’s message. I will never forget our descent from K2 in winter. You were the one I shared my final moments with on the mountain and I am thankful you were there. Both without lights, looking for base camp and finally eating pasta and pizza at 2am! The 8000 will feel this loss because they felt you were a part of them. RIP and thanks for everything.”
Helicopters in flight for searches and evacuations
Also on Tuesday morning, the Piooner Adventure agency reported a team consisting of Pasang Sherpa, Kami Sherpa and the Indian climber shortly after arriving at the summit Baljeet Kaur (Ascent to the summit without supplemental oxygen) he shared that he lost contact with the latter while descending towards Camp 4. Within a few hours, which fortunately did not miss the news of the presumed death of the climber it came from the same agency news of his discovery.
“Pioneer Adventure sincerely thanks everyone who helped save Baljeet Kaur. We owe a special thanks to Captain Cloudy Martin of Kailash Helicopter Services – the message circulating on social media – whose daring and skillful helicopter flight at high altitudes enabled the rescue. We also want to recognize the important role played by our Director, Mingma Dorchi, who accompanied Captain Cloudy on the quest and helped find Baljeet. When Baljeet was found, communication was difficult and there was no clear information about her condition. However, Pioneer was able to contact her via her Garmin GPS device and coordinate with her to join the longline for the rescue. Baljeet proved remarkable ingenuity and courage in the manufacture of a temporary harnessall alone, at 7600 meters altitude”.
Baljeet’s rescue wasn’t the only one that day, as rescue operations worked non-stop to transport him to base camp by helicopter climbers in trouble, due to frostbite and altitude sickness. Among the evacuated climbers, believed to be at least 6 according to various sources, including Pakistani Shehroze Kashif (The Broadboy) and Naila Kiani, teamed with Sajid Sadpara, who climbed in style without supplemental oxygen on Saturday, is Indian mountaineer Arjun Vajpai and the Nepalese captain Suman Panday. Jonathan Lamy in the end, he found himself in distress to call for help, which intervened in Camp 3 along with ChongBi Sherpa in his recovery. During the day, the search for Anurag Maloo also continued, with hopes of finding him alive increasingly fading.
to witness thatComing and going of helicopters between base camp and high fields, a video shared by Sajid Sadpara thanking the air rescue teams for their work.
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In the end a miracle
News of his recovery from Annapurna arrived on Thursday morning, when hopes of finding Anurag Maloo alive now seemed to have faded. After 3 days hundreds of meters deep in a crevasse at about 6000 meters altitude, the Indian mountaineer was located together with a team of Sherpas Adam Bieleckiwho, along with Mariusz Hatala, has temporarily relinquished the NW flank on which the pair’s joint efforts are expected to focus in the coming weeks Felix Berg (currently on Manaslu, he reached 8000 of them on Monday, as reported by Stefan Nestler). Maloo was pulled out of the crevasse and misplaced in critical condition by helicopter first to the base camp and then to Pokhara to be entrusted to the doctors of the Manipal Hospital.