Himalayan expeditions hunker down as monsoon storm approaches

Autumn climbing season is in full swing but difficult weather conditions due to a deep depression from the Bay of Bengal heading towards Nepal From 24-27 September poses a danger to more than 1,000 climbers and guides below the world’s eighth-highest mountain.

Despite the catastrophic flood last month in an adjacent valley in the Nepal Himalaya, a record number of international climbers are on Mt Manaslu (8,163m) which is an ‘autumn peak’ that expeditions use to prepare and acclimatise for spring ascents on Mt Everest.

However, the season has not begun well. On 20 September, an avalanche at Camp III killed two climbers, German national Dhruba Jyoti Guha and his Nepali guide Phursemba Sherpa. Last week, 50-year-old Singaporean died during an acclimatisation descent at 6,000m, and Nepali guide Tashi Sherpa, 20, was asphyxiated by generator exhaust in his tent at base camp.

“Strong winds and relentless snowfall have forced climbers to reassess summit plans and return from Camps I and II to base camp,” writes Miles Sherpa, from the Summit Force team at Manaslu. Indeed, the incoming late monsoon storm system is expected to dump even more snow on a mountain which is already avalanche-prone.