With a forecast of weaker winds, the recovery team on Makalu will make a new attempt to retrieve the body of Phurba Ongel Sherpa and find client Abofazl Gozali of Iran, missing since last Thursday.
Phurba Ongel fell to his death on a high plateau near Camp 4. Gozali was last seen crossing that same plateau.
Makalu. Photo: Mingma Dorchi Sherpa
Meanwhile, sources from 8K Expeditions have corrected initial reports about the four-member team from the new company, AltiPro Adventures. They are not there to take part in the rescue, but to climb the mountain. According to their tracker, they are now at Camp 2.
Second recovery attempt
The search team remains at Base Camp, waiting for the weather to improve. Additional oxygen, food, and fuel were flown in yesterday.
“The weather forecast suggests the wind will decrease on Wednesday and Thursday…The team will then resume searching for Abofazl, and will also attempt to recover Phurba Sherpa from near Camp 3,” Makalu Adventure reported today.
As they explained, the search team is currently at Base Camp. The outfitter shared a screenshot of Mountainforecast’s chart:
Weather forecast by multimodel Mountainforecast.com for Makalu at summit altitude.
The outfitter is in close touch with Phurba’s family, but “communication with Abofazl’s family is difficult due to the ongoing situation in Iran,” Makalu Adventure said. “We are liaising with the [Iranian] Embassy in India, which is also difficult.”
8K Expeditions
Lakpa Sherpa of 8K Expeditions has confirmed the new recovery attempt on Thursday and his company’s participation in the effort. He noted that conditions prevented them from recovering Phuba’s remains on the first attempt.
Sanu Sherpa on Makalu some days ago. Photo: Makalu Adventure
“We have since mobilized a team of five guides, and on January 22, our team will make another attempt to retrieve the body of Phurba Ongel,” Lakpa added. “Please note that the body of Gozali has not yet been located.”
Lakpa also wanted to correct some previous information. “AltiPro Adventures has not provided any support for this rescue effort,” he said. “They just recently reached Base Camp. Despite a request for assistance from Mr. Sanu [Sherpa], they declined to participate.”
New summit push?
We have tried to contact the members of the AltiPro Adventures team — Lakpa Gyaljen Sherpa, Mingma Dorchi Sherpa, and Dawa Lama Sherpa — about their plans on Makalu and their position on the Makalu recovery operation.
They have understandably not replied, as their expedition tracker shows they are already climbing the mountain. They stopped for the night at 6,600m, around the altitude of Camp 2, after leaving from Advanced Base Camp at 5,600m.
Tracker of Dawa Lama of the AltiPro Adventures team, locating him at 6,700m on Makalu on January 20.
What could have happened?
Previous reports said that Phurba Ongel Sherpa fell at 7,400m or 7,500m, near Camp 4. Sanu Sherpa insisted they were in a flatish, straightforward area. He then added that, after an hour searching, they spotted the body 700m below where he fell — certainly confusing. Looking at the upper sections of Makalu (see photo below), it is not clear whether Phurba Ongel fell or was found around 7,500m.
Route topo by Saulius Damulevicius. Note that the final ridge and the summit is not shown in the picture.
In ExplorersWeb’s Makalu Climbers’ Guide, we noted that the section between Camp 3 and Camp 4 (7,400m) goes up a wide glacial plateau, not difficult but exposed to the wind. It is wide and often not fixed with ropes; the route is marked with bamboo poles. In a whiteout or if the poles are blown away, climbers can get lost easily, especially on the way down, trying to find Camp 3.
This is what happened to a joint Imagine Nepal and Elite Exped team last year.
“We spent three hours or so to find the way to Camp 3,” member Naila Kiani recalls. “When we got down from the French Couloir [located at 8,200m and leading to the summit ridge], the bamboo poles with flags were not there anymore. There were no fixed ropes either, because the section was easy.”
Climbers at around 7,600m, trying to find their way back to Camp 3 in a whiteout on Makalu. Photo: Naila Kiani
Not completely flat
“The plateau is easy but not completely flat,” Kiani told ExplorersWeb. “It has some inclination, and there were some crevasses. With the mountain icy and dry in winter, a climber could fall, slide, and fall into a crevasse in that area.” That is where Abofazl Gozali went missing.
Saulius Damulevicius of Lithuania also climbed Makalu last year and attempted the mountain in 2017.
“From what I understand from the reports, the body was located around 7,500m, but he fell from 700m above that point,” Damulevicius suggested.
That means that Phurba Ongel might have fallen from the bottom of the French Couloir or slightly below. Damulevicious shared a photo of that area from 2017, a little below 8,000m:
Normal route of Makalu shortly below 8,000m. Photo: Saulius Damulevicius
The climber in the image is clipped to fixed ropes, consistent with surviving Lakpa Rinji Sherpa’s report stating that ropes were at the section where Phurba Ongel fell. However, as they later observed, he had not clipped into the ropes.
We will continue to check for updates and try to clarify what happened.
