DEHRADUN: A day after she was rescued from the Garhwal Himalayas along with fellow climber Michelle Theresa Dvorak, British alpinist Fay Jane Manners recounted the harrowing experience that left them stranded for four nights at 20,997 feet (6,400m), reports Gaurav Talwar. Fay and Michelle were trying to summit the unclimbed southeast buttress of the Chaukhamba-III peak when they lost their gear and essential supplies, leaving them vulnerable to freezing temperatures.
Manners, 37, told a London newspaper: “We would have either frozen to death or attempted to cross the steep glaciers without the right equipment and slipped to our peril.” She and Michelle, 31, lost almost all their equipment, food and water in a rockfall on Wednesday as they tried to become the first team to summit the 6,995-metre peak. They were stranded in temperatures as low as minus 15°C, surviving for three nights with nothing but a sleeping bag.
The pair had been climbing for five days when the rockfall severed a rope they were using to haul a rucksack behind them. In a social media post, Fay said, “I watched the bag tumble down the mountain and I immediately knew the consequence of what was to come.” The loss of gear forced them to abandon their summit attempt and battle the extreme conditions for survival.
“Losing the bag devastated us, knowing we had to deal with this crisis in an exhausted state,” she added. Without their tent, stove and crampons, they were left exposed to freezing conditions and at risk of hypothermia.
Reflecting on the critical moment, Fay said: “Nothing can describe the sinking feeling when we saw our bag with essential supplies tumble down the mountain.” Without proper equipment, they faced the danger of freezing or starving. That night, they found a small ledge to shelter on and crawled into a double sleeping bag they luckily still had. “I was freezing; my down trousers, thicker socks, and all the warmer clothes I had in my bag for the evenings were no longer accessible,” Fay told Telegraph (London).
The climbers had set off from their base camp on the Satopanth Glacier on Sept 27 to attempt the unclimbed route but faced increasingly hazardous conditions.
Despite sending out an SOS, the pair felt hopeless when a rescue helicopter flew by twice without spotting them. “I felt hypothermic, constantly shaking, and with the lack of food, my body was running out of energy to keep warm,” Fay was quoted by the UK paper as saying. By Saturday, they had barely survived another night. “We were destroyed and we were losing faith,” she admitted. It was only after a team of three French mountaineers, who were in the area for their own summit attempt, spotted them that their ordeal came to an end. “It was a small miracle,” Fay said. “As we were abseiling down on Saturday, we could see a team of climbers coming up the mountain towards us.”
The French climbers provided the much-needed support, helping Fay and Michelle cross the steep glacier and giving them food and water. “They gave us their tent and sleeping bags and finally told the helicopter where to come and collect us,” Fay said. In fact, the French climbers abandoned their ascent to the peak to help the stranded duo.
On Sunday, an Indian Air Force helicopter landed at 5,300 metres above sea level on the Panpatia Bank Glacier and airlifted the pair to safety in Joshimath. Col Madan Gurung, who coordinated the rescue operation for the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, said that the women were “exhausted” but otherwise “perfectly fine”.