On the 25th of April 2015, as the sun bathed the Himalayan expanse in its warm, golden embrace, the sky painted itself in a flawless shade of blue. Only the gentlest wisp of clouds dared to mar its perfection.
Although thin at this lofty altitude, the air felt remarkably crisp, as if it had been freshly plucked from the lips of celestial beings. Everything seemed to align, heralding the perfect opportunity for a summit attempt— a window of hope amidst the towering challenges of Mount Everest.
But as fate would have it, the serenity of that moment was about to be shattered. Suddenly, the very ground beneath us began to quiver and shake as though a stampede of a hundred fully laden yaks bore down upon us. I lifted my gaze toward the glacier, my eyes widening in disbelief. What had once been a serene, glistening expanse had transformed into a monstrous juggernaut, a titanic wall of white, thundering toward us with terrifying velocity. It was a tidal wave of destruction, a torrent of snow, ice, and rock, a behemoth of nature’s fury unleashed, hurtling at a breakneck speed, perhaps eighty feet high, or even more. It was an avalanche, an explosive force born of a cataclysmic event—a 7.8-magnitude earthquake that had struck Nepal and its neighbouring lands.
As the avalanche bore down upon Everest Base Camp, I was torn between knowing and not wanting to believe. A sense of powerlessness overcame me. The monstrous avalanche devoured the mountain and everything in its path, from the tents to the people who had been upon it. It felt like the very earth had opened up, swallowed everything whole, and closed its gaping maw, leaving only devastation and despair behind.
I felt my heart plummet within my chest. With a heavy heart, I knew the avalanche would have devoured everyone and everything that stood in its way. Two expeditions had been on the mountain, their members residing around Camp 2. My thoughts raced to the grim reality of the situation-people had most likely lost their lives. Avalanches had visited this sacred peak before, but this one, I feared, would be the most merciless of them all.
As the chaos unfolded around me, Everest Base Camp, the place I had come to know so well, was irrevocably altered. Familiar landmarks that once provided a sense of orientation were now conspicuously absent.
The Norwegian trekking company, Jagged Globe, with its distinctive blue and white banner, the well-trodden trail leading to Crampon Point-gone. A nightmarish landscape of rock and ice debris lay in their place, shrouded in a dense, eerie fog that clung to the camp like a ghostly shroud. The snow began falling as if Nature wept for the horrors she had unleashed.
As I took in the surreal, post-apocalyptic scene, the memory of another tragedy struck me just a year prior, in 2014, sixteen Sherpas had perished in the Khumbu Icefall. How could such a calamity repeat itself?
Was it the mountain’s way of reminding us of our fragility, of our audacity in intruding upon its sacred domain?
Step by Step is the biography of Pemba Gelje Sherpa, written by Mark Powell. The book will take you on an incredible journey of a village boy who conquered Everest and became a renowned guide and environmentalist. Get a copy to read his captivating story.
