Ascent of Meru Peak, 6479m
and the first earthquake.
Forty five minutes past
midnight is a good time to start the final push for the summit from High Camp.
Yesterday we were at base camp and the day before at the last tea house. High
camp is perched on the side of a rocky shelf with seracs to one side, a cliff
behind and a long drop on the other. If you took the wrong turn at night when
going for a pee it would be your last.
The climb was hard work due
to having to break trail through fresh snow. As dawn broke there were no views
at all due to low cloud. We summited and set off down as a white out set in.
As we descended our rope team
stopped to check our location. As we discussed our location using a map and
compass the snow and glacier we were on moved, it felt like it dropped beneath
our feet. One of us shouted avalanche! We "ran". Well as close as we
could when wearing crampons, double skinned mountain boots, harnesses with gear
and being roped together. Avalanches are not good
Essentially chaos resulted,
kit being temporarily mislaid and the rope getting in a bit of a tangle and
random footprints in the snow recording our escape bid.
It was no avalanche, it was
the first of the earthquakes to hit Nepal
We laughed a lot at our
escape and the ridiculous efforts to
save ourselves.
Later we started to learn of
the true scale of what we had experienced.
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