Disaster Seven climbers dead and two missing on Nepal's Mount Gurja after storm hits camp

https://news.sky.com/story/amp/nine...ls-mount-gurja-after-storm-hits-camp-11524889

Seven climbers are dead and two more are missing after a strong storm swept through a base camp on a Himalayan mountain.

The group, five South Koreans and their four Nepali guides, were trying to ascend Mount Gurja, a 7,193m (23,599ft) peak.

A storm on Friday night destroyed their camp and two rescue helicopters sent early Saturday were unable to land due to bad weather conditions.

Police reports say the group were at their base camp at the time.

Villagers who reached base camp on Saturday afternoon found the bodies of four South Korean climbers, two Nepalese guides and another person yet to be identified.

The search continues for two more people, a Nepalese police official said.

A police team heading to the base camp on foot are likely to reach there on Sunday.

Image:Mount Gurja, in Nepal's Dhaulagiri range
There were inconsistent reports about the suspected cause of the deaths, with some saying a landslide or avalanche swept through the camp.

Helicopter pilot Siddartha Gurung told AFP: "Everything is gone, all the tents are blown apart. The conditions were too icy to continue the search."

One of the South Korean climbers has been identified as Kim Chang-ho, who in 2013 became the fastest person to summit the world's 14 highest mountains without using supplemental oxygen.

Wangchu Sherpa, of the Trekking Camp Nepal agency, which provided support to the climbers, said: "Our rescue operation is continuing and we are trying to find details."

Mount Gurja, also called Gurja Himal, while not famous as one of Nepal's most challenging peaks, is part of the Dhaulagiri range, which is topped by Dhaulagiri I, the seventh-highest mountain in the world.

The incident is the worst to hit climbers in Nepal since 18 people were killed at the Mount Everest base camp in 2015 in an avalanche triggered by a powerful earthquake.

The Dhaulagiri massif, about 130 miles (210km) northwest of Kathmandu, has been responsible for the deaths of dozens of climbers since the first recorded attempt on one of its lower summits in 1954.

Gurja itself was not conquered until as late as 1969 and is said to have a challenging south face.

Nepal is in peak climbing season at present after the end of monsoon season.

 

[neverendingmidi]

Kind of late in the season to be climbing isn’t it? I figured that was more of a May at the earliest through September at the latest type of thing to try and avoid any early fall storms.

 

[Imposter]

Dyatlov Pass 2: Electric Boogaloo

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Dying trying to conquer a hellish rock peak that reaches halfway into space is a pretty badass way to go. No one at those funerals can say they didn't live life to the fullest.

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

If you have to become a permanent resident of a Nepalese mountainside, at least make it Everest.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

If you have to become a permanent resident of a Nepalese mountainside, at least make it Everest.

The whole range is monstrous. Everest is only the most famous name of many.

 

[Box of Shame]

This video tells how Sherpas' lives are endangered or lost for the sake of tourist-climbers, how ignorant some tourists are in thinking they'll climb with very little experience, and how the Nepalese tourism board is OK with Sherpa and tourist deaths as long as the tourists are paying big sums of money.

 

[XYZpdq]

dude mount ganja

 

[Daughter of Cernunnos]

Reading about deaths of people climbing mountains is fascinating. All those bodies on Everest and the many climbing disasters. Mountaineering is not a sport I respect. There is too much hubris in it and I believe the locals who speak of the angry and selective Gods of these mountains are correct. At least do a good offering to the God of the mountain at a local temple before you try to climb. Definitely do not litter as many Everest and other mountain climbers do. Some dumb cunt former Canadian political candidate went there with barely any experience and said to be a "below average climber" and she died. This is the lady: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shriya_Shah-Klorfine

Goddess of Everest: Miyolangsangma

Pokalde Peak is located 12 km south-west of Mount Everest and is less than 4 km from Dingboche, a popular rest spot along the Everest Base Camp Trek. It has the distinction of being the easiest, shortest and most accessible trekking peak in the region. Despite (or perhaps because of) such a label, 10 people have disappeared in the vicinity since the 1990s. While overconfidence, especially among independent trekkers and the resulting altitude related complications, have definitely had a part to play in this, the Sherpas have put an interesting twist on this statistic. They say it has got to do with the existence of a doorway to a Beyul in the vicinity of Pokalde. Beyul, in Tibetan Buddhism, is holy sanctuaries divinely designated as a place of refuge for followers of Tibetan Buddhism during times of crisis. Much like what Mount Sinai was to the Jewish folks who followed Moses, the mythology says it was Guru Rinpoche, the patron saint himself who declared 17 areas along the stretch of the Himalayas as Beyuls. The locals ardently believe that people with ‘clean heart’ who loses his/her way up there are shown the door to the world of higher state of existence. While Tibetan Buddhism does not have explicitly distinctive afterlife destinations like most religions, it has a total of 6 levels realms a sentient being can exist in. At one end of the spectrum are low levels of existence and at other end is the highest level reserved for gods. As euphemistic as it might sound, the Sherpas believe that those that disappeared have migrated from the realm of the human beings to a realm above that.

 

[Slap47]

This video tells how Sherpas' lives are endangered or lost for the sake of tourist-climbers, how ignorant some tourists are in thinking they'll climb with very little experience, and how the Nepalese tourism board is OK with Sherpa and tourist deaths as long as the tourists are paying big sums of money.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tcmH0__c7aw

Heated tents, 5 star meals and people who've never climbed before making the summit.

So Everest is rich people banking on faded glory.

Perhaps Mt Gurja is a mountain for professionals since the victims seem to be badass guys that don't use oxygen tanks.

 

[not william stenchever]

I guess I don't understand the appeal of extreme mountain climbing as I was never a very ambitious sort of guy. I don't want to die scared on a mountainside after the winds have violently shorn my tent from me, leaving me exposed to the elements. Shit, I'd prefer taking a bad tumble down some stairs or some other mundane way to die. I'd even take dying of a giant sucking chest wound from gunfire over that. Trying to put myself in the shoes of those who died there... it really doesn't seem fun. My sympathy goes out to the fallen.

 

[whatever I feel like]

They died doing what they loved...



failing to maintain internal body temperatures.