Two climbers who were trapped more than 17,000 feet up a Himalayan mountain without food or shelter for three days before being rescued, have said they survived thanks to “lots of spooning and cuddling”.
Fay Manners, who is British, and her American climbing partner, Michelle Dvorak, were trekking up the Chaukhamba mountain in the Garhwal region of the Himalayan range in northern India when they ran into difficulties.
Speaking to Sky’s Kay Burley on Tuesday, Ms Manners, 37, said their equipment fell “a long way down” following the mishap, leaving them stranded.
Asked how they survived, Ms Dvorak, 31, put it down to “lots of spooning and cuddling”.
While they had one sleeping bag, she explained they “didn’t have a tent or, a stove or much food”.
Naturally, given the location, they were fearful of bad weather, and she said “when it was very snowy, it did become a little bit scary with how cold and wet it was”.
The experienced mountaineers had managed to send a distress signal down to their base camp, 17,400ft (5,300m) below, but it took three days for rescuers to reach them.
Ms Dvorak explained that visibility was the problem, as in the clear mornings, the helicopters could not see them, but at around 11am or 12pm, “the clouds would come and fog would engulf us, and it was too snowy for them to fly. And certainly, they couldn’t see us”.
The British and US climbers posing with rescuers in Joshimath, Uttarakhand. Pic: Indian Air Force/Reuters
The climbers are rescued. Pic: Indian Air Force/ Reuters
It took 80 hours for a team made up of the Indian Air Force, local disaster response forces, the army, and the local administration to complete the rescue, Indian News Agency IANS said.
A French climbing party played a key role in rescuing the duo, Explorers Web reported, after they were initially stranded at 6,500m (21,325ft) but the group helped them descend to the altitude where they were eventually airlifted from.
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Despite their scare, the determined pair said they may give it another go, Ms Manners said, possibly with the French climbers as scaling that mountain was one of their objectives but they “missed the weather window”.
Right now though, they said they are “exhausted” and plan to “rest up”, and then think about trying again “next year and invite the French climbers to come back and climb with us”.
