원정 개요

Before attempting to climb Everest, the team went to Lobuche East and all members reached the summit on various dates between 10 and 17 April. But one of these members, Ms. Ghizlane Aakar, injured her leg during her descent, and she therefore was unable to go to Everest.

On 17 April, six members moved up from BC to C1 in their routine rotation up and back in the acclimatization phase. They were Battelli, Bunce, Clement, Fredinburg, Merle, Nagl and Saikaly.

Then the massive avalanche came off Everest's West Shoulder and struck 16 Sherpas in the Icefall on the 18th at 6:45 am, killing 16 men. The only damage done to any Sherpa with this team were contusions on the leg of Kami (Ang Kami) Sherpa from Kerung, Solu.

These members and a party 16 of Sherpas moved up to C2 on the 19th as per their rotation program: "We believed we were still climbing Everest," Vernovage explained. They stayed there for two nights and then descended to BC on the 21st.

Meanwhile a meeting of all team leaders was scheduled for the 18th at 10:00 am at BC to discuss a plan for fixing ropes up to the summit. But because of the disastrous avalanche early that morning, the meeting was cancelled and never took place.

The expedition's climb of Everest was abandoned by a decision by Vernovage announced at a meeting of the team's members on 23 April. He had told his Sherpas to go home to their families (they lived in villages not far from BC) to discuss their resuming the attempt on Everest, and, according to him, 95% of these Sherpas were ready to return to the climb. But in the meantime he had been hearing about the possibility of injury to anyone who went back, and he did not want his people to be in harm's way. So he had decided to cancel the climb.

Members began leaving BC on the 24th and 25th. Sherpas and team leaders on this expedition cleared all 400 kg of gear they had at C1 and consolidated it with gear at C2 (considered a safer storage site) belonging to the IMG expedition along with gear from Himalayan Experience (Russell Brice), Jagged Globe, Alpine Ascents, the Benegas Brothers, Rainier Mountaineering Institute, Peak Freaks (Tim Rippel) and Adventure Consultants. Their hope is to return and use the gear next spring.