Today, while descending from Camp1 to Base Camp, Simone Denis and Cory got caught in an avalanche.
I think the morale of the day is, as Simone said, that it truly is not over as long as you are not in BC.
Cory Richards about the summit day
“Well… … that day we just got up and we just started moving and you hit that 8,000m ceiling and every step above there gets harder and harder and harder. And being on top, I still don’t believe it happened. You just need time to process those things, but I know that it did, so it feels good.
The weather on summit day was actually quite mild in terms of going up. When we got to the summit at 11.38 it started to close out and the clouds started to come in . And then as we went down and we traversed across the plateau underneath the summit pyramid, that is when the weather really got bad. That is when it got to be full on winter at 8,000m in the Karakorum. It just became almost unmanageable. It was one of those days when everything is ok, but you always know you are right on the very edge of smoething going completely sideways.“
Cory Richards about the Avalanche of February 4, on the way down from Camp 1 to Base Camp, underneath Gasherbrum V
“yeah… it was a big day, I am likely to celebrate February 4 as my birthday today.
We were walking underneath Gasherbrum V and a massive massive avalanche hit us.
All three of us, and knoked us about 150 meters… and launched over one crevasse.
And we all ended up on top, mostly on top. I was mostly buried, but my face was out. Denis was mostly buried, but his face was out, and Simone was able to get out of the snow and come dig us out…
Everything just went sideways today. We are all very happy and lucky and I think very grateful to be alive. Period.
Today was about the most fucked up day I had in the mountain.
“
Cory Richards about winter climbing in Karakorum
“Something forever changed in my view of these mountains”
Cory Richards, After the Avalanche
Simone Moro about the avalanche on February 4, on the way down from Camp 1 to Base Camp, below Gasherbrum V
“It happened what can happen in winter in stormy days, when you are tired and you do not do the normal things. It’s not that we took too many risks, the conditions were just bad.
The problem has been that normally to cross the dangerous zone underneath Gasherbrum V it takes 15-20 minutes, with all the snow, since we had to break trail, we spent a lot of time there. A serac fell and all the snow accumulated from the wind came down.
As the avalanche stopped, I realized I was almost out of the snow. I immediately unroped and I saw Cory’s orange suit. I dug him out with my hands and then I went to dig out Denis.
After 20 minutes, with visibility down to 1 meter, Cory fell into a crevasse, we maneuvered with the jumars and we pulled him out.
Today has been very hard, the trail markers saved our life. We broke trail one after the others, we worked as a team. It has been a long day, it took us 8 hours to climb down from Camp 1 to BC, it normally takes 3 hours; after 6 days on the mountains, we did not have many energies left.
As long as you are back to base camp, it is not over.
Today luck was on our side. In my backpack I was also carrying down a big bag of rubbish, maybe the mountain appreciated and graced us.
