Nepal quake: Washington Everest team loses medic as result of avalanche

SEATTLE – A member of a Seattle-based climbing group’s Everest team died yesterday (April 25) as a result of an avalanche that hit the mountain following the Nepal earthquake, but several other climbing organisations reported that their teams were safe.

Seattle-based Madison Mountaineering said that Dr Marisa Eve Girawong died in the aftermath of the avalanche that struck the climbers’ base camp.

The group’s website described Dr Girawong as a physician’s assistant who was serving as the team’s camp doctor.

Madison co-founder Kurt Hunter confirmed the death on the group’s website but did not elaborate, saying more information would be provided later. The website did not specify Dr Girawong’s hometown.

About a half-dozen other Washington outfits — including Alpine Ascents, International Mountain Guides and Rainier Mountaineering Inc — had expeditions on or near Mount Everest when the earthquake struck, killing hundreds. The avalanche claimed more than a dozen lives.

By yesterday afternoon, most other companies reported everyone in their parties was safe.

The parties led by the Washington firms total dozens of climbers, Sherpas and porters. Guide Dave Hahn wrote on the website of Ashford-based Rainier Mountaineering that he was in a camp above the base camp when the avalanche struck, but others in his team, including guide Mark Tucker, were down below and had worked feverishly to help the injured.

“We got dusted” by the avalanche, he wrote, but added: “We are hearing reports of some pretty destructive action down there, injuries and loss of life. ... We’re hearing the strenuous efforts that our Sherpa team and Mark Tucker are going through down there trying to help with the injured and those who haven’t fared so well.”

Director of programs for Alpine Ascents International Gordon Janow said from Seattle that his team had come through the avalanche unscathed. Their first goal was to deal with the devastation at base camp, he said, and they would then try to create new routes to help climbers stuck above the treacherous Khumbu Icefall. The icefall, which is just above base camp, is a key route up the lower part of Everest.

“Everybody’s pretty much in rescue mode, but this is different from some independent climbing accident where people can be rescued and taken somewhere else,” Mr Janow said. Given the widespread damage in Kathmandu, he added, “I don’t know where ‘somewhere else’ is.”

Mountain Madness, another prominent Seattle guiding company, didn’t have anybody at base camp, but they had a team of about 40 people — including 19 paying clients — in Namche Bazaar, a village at above 11,000 feet, on the way there. Two of the clients were to be married when they reached base camp, said Mr Steve Guthrie, the company’s international program director.

Damage in the village included fallen masonry and collapsed walls, but nobody in the team was injured, he said.

Some Sherpas and porters had family members who may have been injured in their own villages and planned to return: “We want them to be able to be with their families,” he said.

The team moved into a one-story teahouse to spend the night and planned to re-evaluate in the morning as to whether they could be of any assistance. But Mr Guthrie noted that the village is about four days by foot from base camp, and even if they were to go it’s not clear how they could help. AP