A Nepalese guide gave up taking a client to the summit of Everest as they were about to reach it in order to save a Malaysian mountaineer in distress in "the death zone", at the end of the winter season. particularly lethal mountaineering.
Gelje Sherpa, 30, was guiding a Chinese client to the top of the world's tallest mountain - 8,849 meters - and planned to help him down by paraglider.
But a few hundred meters from the summit, they discovered at an altitude of more than 8,000 m a man all alone, shivering with cold, clinging to a rope, in the famous "death zone", a technically difficult passage where the thin air and freezing temperatures increase the risk of suffering from altitude sickness.
"When I found him in this state, I didn't have the heart to leave him there," Gelje Sherpa told AFP.
That day, other climbers before him had passed in front of the Malaysian climber in difficulty without seeing fit to help him, but the guide refused to judge them.
"It's a place where you have to think about your survival first," he explained. However, Gelje Sherpa did not hesitate to announce to his client whose Everest expedition had cost at least 45,000 dollars that they would not go to the top.
"When I decided to go down, my client didn't agree at first", he said, "obviously he had arrived there after spending a lot of money, he had been dreaming of it since years, he had to make time to come and climb here".
"He got mad and said he wanted to get to the top," he continued, "I had to scold him and remind him he had to come down because he was my responsibility, that he couldn't climb without me to the top. He got angry".
The Nepalese insisted on the need to help the Malaysian to come down.
"Then he realized that 'rescue' meant I wanted to save him. He understood and apologized later," he added.
The guide placed the Malaysian on his oxygen supply helping to improve his condition but it was very difficult for him to walk. The Nepalese, who is about 1.60m tall and weighs 55kg, had to carry the sufferer through some of the toughest sections of the mountain.
"It's a very difficult mission to bring someone down from there carrying him. But some sections are very rocky, it was impossible to drag him," argues Gelje Sherpa, "he would have broken his bones, he didn't was already not well..."
It took him nearly six hours to get it to Camp 4.
“I participated in many search and rescue missions, but it was very difficult,” he admitted.
At Camp 4, another guide helped him continue his descent with the ailing climber wrapped in sleeping bags held down by ropes. So they were able to drag it up the snowy slopes and carry it when needed.
When they finally reached Camp 3 at 7,162 meters, a helicopter took over and transported them to base camp. Gelje Sherpa has not seen the Malaysian mountaineer since his rescue but he received a thank you message.
"He wrote to me 'You saved my life, you are a god for me'", confided the guide.
The mountaineering industry in the Himalayas relies on the experience of Sherpas, usually from the valleys of Everest.
They pay a heavy price to accompany hundreds of mountaineers each year. A third of the dead on Everest are Nepali climbers.
"As a guide, you feel responsible for others on the mountain and you have to make difficult decisions," notes Ang Norbu Sherpa, president of the National Association of Mountain Guides of Nepal, "what he has done is honourable".
For the 2023 mountaineering season, Nepal issued a record 478 permits to foreign mountaineers to climb Everest and about 600 mountaineers and guides reached the summit.
But the death of twelve mountaineers is to be deplored, while five are still missing.
Gelje Sherpa, who has reached the top of the world's tallest mountain six times, has no regrets about her decision to turn back that day.
"People just focus on the top, but anyone can do it," he said. On the other hand, "to descend someone to more than 8,000 meters of altitude, it is much harder".
04/06/2023 14:43:12 - Kathmandu (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
