Science World: March 2, 2015

MARCH 2, 2015

Death on Everest
How a trek up Mount Everest turned fatal as ice came crashing down on climbers

BY JACQUELINE ADAMS

Last April, tragedy struck on the slopes of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak. A group of Sherpas—
expedition guides native to Central Asia’s Himalayan mountains—was in a treacherous area covered in
blocks of fallen ice. They were working to prepare the route for hundreds of international climbers
waiting below. They laid aluminum ladders over gaping cracks in the ice so the climbers could edge over
them, and they placed ropes in strategic locations to aid their ascent.

Suddenly, the Sherpas heard a deep, terrifying rumble. Huge chunks of ice hurtled downhill toward
them. A blast of frigid air hit the guides just before an avalanche of ice and snow swept over them.
Sixteen climbers died that fateful day, making it the worst disaster in the history of the mountain.
Mount Everest and its neighboring peaks make up the Himalayas—a mountain range separating Nepal
and China (see map, p. 8). In 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and a Sherpa named Tenzing Norgay
became the first people known to reach Mount Everest’s towering summit. Since then, about 4,000
climbers have conquered the peak—despite its dangers.

Climbers tackling the world’s tallest peaks aren’t the only ones who risk getting swept up in an
avalanche. Over the past 10 years, avalanches have killed an average of 28 people annually in the U.S.
alone. Just this January, two members of the U.S. Ski Team—both Olympic hopefuls—died when an
avalanche in Austria buried them under 4.5 meters (15 feet) of cement-like snow.

These staggering stats have led experts to look for ways to keep climbers, skiers, and others safer on
mountainsides.

TYPES OF AVALANCHES

There are two kinds of avalanches: ice avalanches like the one that swept down Everest last April, and
snow avalanches like the one that took the lives of the two U.S. Ski Team members this year. Most
deadly avalanches are snow avalanches, which strike on open slopes—areas that are popular with
skiers, snowboarders, and snowmobilers.

To form, a snow avalanche needs a steep slope and an unstable snowpack, which can form when snow
accumulates in a mix of loosely packed and densely packed layers.

“Every snowstorm is a little different,” says Karl Birkeland, an avalanche scientist at the U.S. Forest
Service National Avalanche Center. “Each storm creates its own unique layer.”

When a stronger, cohesive layer of snow rests on top of a weak, loose layer, the weaker layer can
collapse, and a slab of the upper layer breaks away (see The Making of a Snow Avalanche, right).

“It can fracture just like a pane of glass in a snap,” says Ethan Greene, an avalanche scientist at the
Colorado Avalanche Information Center. The slab slides downhill, picking up speed and pushing more
snow along with it.

Under the right conditions, it doesn’t take much to prompt a snow avalanche. “Just the weight of a
person on the slope can push it over the edge and produce an avalanche,” says Greene. Most avalanche
victims in the U.S. either triggered the disaster themselves or were with someone who did. Last April’s
fatal ice avalanche on Everest, on the other hand, had a different trigger.

DEADLY ICE AVALANCHE

Sometimes, rivers of ice called glaciers creep down mountains and valleys. As a glacier inches over a cliff,
its edge hangs until pieces of ice break off. Last April, a huge chunk of glacial ice tumbled from a cliff in a
notoriously dangerous section of Everest known as the Khumbu Icefall, causing the deadly avalanche.
Using before-and-after satellite photos of the glacier, a National Geographic cartographer calculated the
size of the ice chunk that fell. It weighed as much as 14.3 million kilograms (31.5 million pounds)—about
the weight of 657 fully loaded buses.

Peter Athans, a climber who has reached the summit of Mount Everest seven times, knows firsthand
how quickly ice avalanches can strike. In 1991, he and a friend were passing through the Khumbu Icefall
when they got caught up in one.

“We heard a big crack and collapse, and a whumpf type sound,” he says. A blast of air enveloped the
two in an icy cloud. “I could only see him for another couple of seconds, and then the air went totally
white.” Both managed to survive—shaken but uninjured.

PREDICTING DANGER

Ice avalanches strike without warning, so people have almost no time to react. “We don’t know how to
predict exactly when one of those blocks might fall,” says Birkeland. “You just have to try and minimize
your time there, and hope it doesn’t happen while you’re there.”

There’s no quick way through the spot where the 16 Sherpas died last April. Athans likens the stretch to
an obstacle course. Sherpas may make dozens of trips through the treacherous area as they set up the
route for international climbers and transport all of their supplies. Following the recent tragedy, people
began to suggest ways to reduce the amount of time Sherpas spend there. Ideas include eliminating
unnecessary comfort supplies like espresso machines and dining tables and only accepting clients who
are experienced climbers, since novices need extra equipment.

REDUCING THE RISK

Unlike the unpredictable ice avalanche on Everest, snow avalanches often give warning signs. If a snow
avalanche occurs, the snowpack on similar slopes nearby may be unstable too—so stay clear.

Other red flags: cracks that shoot across the snow and a whumpf sound as the weaker snow layer
collapses. “If you see something like that on a flat slope,” says Greene, “then you can be pretty
confident that if you went up to a steeper slope, that would produce an avalanche.”

There are efforts to help keep people safe. Local avalanche centers monitor snowpack and post
advisories online. And manufacturers have developed emergency equipment, like beacons that help
rescuers locate buried victims and inflatable avalanche bags that keep victims near the surface.

Still, no one can fully eliminate risk. If you’re headed into potential avalanche terrain, get training, note
warning signs, carry rescue equipment—and hope you’re not in the wrong place at the wrong time