Searchers have finally retrieved five bodies from the slopes of Yalung Ri, a 5,630m trekking peak in Nepal, after an avalanche buried them on November 3, 2025.
Locals spotted the bodies near the base of the mountain in Rolwaling last week and called authorities. Despite the monsoon, warm summer temperatures had melted the snow under which they had been buried.
Bad weather thwarted a first attempt to send a helicopter with a recovery team, but a second attempt last Sunday succeeded, The Kathmandu Post reported. However, searchers needed seven attempts to get the bodies off the mountain in quickly worsening weather and hazardous conditions. The helicopter only managed to transport them to the nearby Na village that evening, and then resumed the flight to Kathmandu on Monday.
File image of climbers on a snow-loaded Yalung Ri. Photo: All Nepal Hiking
Seven victims in all
The deceased climbers are Padang Tamang and Mer Karki, both of Nepal, and Marco Di Marcello of Canada, Markus Kerchler of Italy, and Jakob Schreiber of Germany.
They were five of the seven victims of a deadly avalanche that hit as they climbed the mountain last fall. The two others were retrieved from the mountain during the initial rescue. Four other climbers were also injured.
Some of the victims were acclimatizing on Yalung Ri before climbing the higher Dolma Khang. Others were apparently trekkers on the peak, which is below 6,000m and so only requires a trekking permit.
Avalanche-swept terrain on Yalung Ri in November, 2025. Photo: The Tourism Times
The 2025 disaster
The circumstances of that accident were never detailed. Cyclone Montha had wrapped Nepal’s mountains in heavy snow for more than five days, likely creating unstable or excessive snow on the slopes. In addition, there was another deadly avalanche in Nepal that week: Two Italian climbers died in an avalanche that hit them when they were in Camp 1 on Pambari, a 6,887m peak northwest of Manaslu.
A two-day delay in aerial assistance after the accident due to administrative hurdles made the case particularly controversial.
“The emergency response was immediately snared in red tape because the Rolwaling Valley is designated a restricted zone, requiring multiple layers of permission for rescue flights,” The Tourism Times reported at the time. Injured climbers had to wait a further 24 hours to be airlifted to the hospital.
French long-distance hiker Carole Fuchs was in the area doing the 1,700km Great Himalaya Trail and helped an injured climber as much as she could. In a later report, she described the “red-tape nightmare” she went through to get help. IFMGA guide Mingma G, a native of Rolwaling, wrote bluntly, “The seven climbers were killed by the government, not the avalanche.”
Easy does not mean safe
Yalung Ri is a straightforward peak, but the normal snowy route passes under a potentially dangerous serac. In addition, slab avalanches are possible, as the upper part of the climb goes up steep ramps of snow and ice.
