원정 개요

The team arrived at BC on 10 April and were joined there three days later by the Himalayan Experience team for Lhotse. On the 14th all members of both groups first went to climb nearby Lobuche East, which they summited on the 24th and 25th, they returned to Everest BC on the 26th.

Meanwhile the fatal avalanche had struck Sherpas in the Icefall on the 18th. No Himalayan Experience members set food in the Icefall. Their Sherpas had carried loads to C2 on the 14th, 16th and 18th; their loads were packed up on the 26th to await next year's climbers.

Brice put off the decision to cancel this year's climb until 1 May. He had hoped that most Sherpas, including his, the majority of whom who were from Phortse in Khumbu, would resume their climbs, but when it was clear that intimidation was making his men too fearful to go back, he reluctantly agreed to call it off.

Brice says that these angry young men from Rolwaling and Makalu were at the base of Manaslu in the autumn of 2012 following the fatal avalanche there and urged people to leave immediately, and they joined the fight by some Sherpas against three foreign climbers on Everest the next spring.

Members of this team started leaving BC on 2 May (Brice ahd already returned to Kathmandu on 30 April to meet officials in an attempt to save the climb).

One of his members, Jing Wang from China, was determined to climb Everest. Brice suggested she go to the north side, but that didn't materialize; Brice and all of his Sherpas refused to help her to return to the south side. She is a wealthy businesswoman and eventually found another agency to help her. They provided her with seven Sherpas and a flight by helicopter to C2, thus avoiding trips through the Icefall.