1996 mt everest disaster ed viesturs biography images

The Mount Everest disaster occurred on 10—11 May when eight climbers caught in a blizzard died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over the entire season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest season on Mount Everest at the time and the third deadliest to date after the 23 fatalities resulting from avalanches caused by the April Nepal earthquake [ 1 ] and the 16 fatalities of the Mount Everest avalanche.

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The disaster received widespread publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest. Numerous climbers were at a high altitude on Everest during the storm including the Adventure Consultants team, led by Rob Hall , and the Mountain Madness team, led by Scott Fischer. While climbers died on both the North Face and South Col approaches, the events on the latter were more widely reported.

Four members of the Adventure Consultants expedition died, including Hall, while Fischer was the sole casualty of the Mountain Madness expedition. Three officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police also died. Following the disaster, several survivors wrote memoirs. Journalist Jon Krakauer , on assignment from Outside magazine and on the Adventure Consultants team, published Into Thin Air [ 3 ] which became a bestseller.

Anatoli Boukreev , a guide in the Mountain Madness team, felt impugned by the book and co-authored a rebuttal called The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest Graham Ratcliffe, who climbed to the South Col of Everest on 10 May, noted in A Day to Die For that weather reports forecasting a major storm developing after 8 May and peaking in intensity on 11 May were delivered to expedition leaders.