Four teams of mountaineer started their expedition on April 8 to scale Mt. Makalu. This was Arjun’s third attempt to summit Makalu after two consecutive failed attempts.
About 38 mountaineers, including Noida boy, Arjun Vajpai, the only mountaineer from India, are stranded at the high base camp of Mount Makalu, the fifth highest peak of the world. When the massive earthquake shook Nepal, 21-year old Arjun was with his team of about 18 members at the base camp and were putting up the communication tents.
“It was a deafening sound, when tremors were first felt and everyone was stunned after that,” his father told iamin, as explained by Arjun.
“All his team members are well experienced; one of them has even climbed 10 out of 14 highest mountains of the world. But they all are shaken after the sudden avalanche and constant tremors,” Arjun's father said. “The fear is there. Since they sleep on floors, they could hear the tremors and could feel the ice breaking beneath, but they all have right frame of mind,” added his father.
However, at the time of earthquake, Arjun was quick to call his mother through satellite phone as he knows that she panics quickly says his father, Capt Sanjeev Vajpai.
“I was at home when the tremors were felt in NCR and his mother was in a market. Within five minutes Priya received a call from him informing about his safety,” his father told iamin.
Moreover, the mountaineer has been posting selfie videos on his FB page to inform everybody about the situation. One of the videos has already crossed over 2 lakh views.
Four teams of mountaineer started their expedition on April 8 to scale Mt. Makalu. This was Arjun’s third attempt to summit Makalu after two consecutive failed attempts, including the time when he was just short of 100m from the top.
When asked about his team’s next move as they wait at 19,000 feet, his father says there is no option of going up as the tremors would have created fresh crevasses. “Due to continuous tremors it is difficult to cross the crevasses while going up to complete the summit. The descend towards the Hilary camp is also not an easy one, as they don’t know what awaits on their way down. Also, when they will reach Hilary they will assess the route from there,” Capt. Vajpai said.
On a brighter side the team has enough food and water for another 30 days as they were supposed to complete the climb by mid of May and then reach back by the end of May.
Moreover, the high base camp where the team is currently stranded is an open area and has valleys on all the sides. Arjun has even shared through a video that there have been few small avalanches but since the region is open it didn’t have much of an impact on the camp area.
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Captain Vajpai says that his son is strong-willed and has already been through a lot during his adventures. Arjun is also the third youngest Indian to climb Mount Everest at 16. Later on Tuesday, Arjun interviewed one of the three climbers, Hans from Austria, who had moved beyond the camp before the quake and were caught in the tremors on May 25. They had a fall of about 100 meters but luckily came back safe 24 hours later. In the video, Austrian climber Hans said, “It was air quick, I saw big ice falling down and we were in the middle of this disaster. I thought it is my last minute and would die now. I fell down more than 100 meters due to sudden avalanche”
When asked whether he would continue his climb, Hans replied it was too early to say now as he is not sure.
The article was originally published on iamin.in. For more stories from across India, visit their website.
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