The 1996 Everest Disaster refers to a single day of the 1996 climbing season, May 11, 1996, when eight people died on Mount Everest during summit attempts. In the entire season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Everest history. The disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest. is the 131st day of the year (132nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... “Everest” redirects here. ...

Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from Outside magazine, was in one of the affected parties, and afterwards published the bestseller Into Thin Air which related his experience. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide who felt impugned by Krakauer's book, co-authored a rebuttal book called The Climb. The storm's impact on climbers on the mountain's other side, the North Ridge, where several climbers also died, was detailed in a first hand account by British filmmaker and writer Matt Dickinson in his book The Other Side of Everest. Jon Krakauer Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954), is an American non-fiction author and mountaineer, well-known for outdoor and mountain-climbing writing. ... Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. ... Anatoli Nikoliavich Boukreev (January 16, 1958 - December 25, 1997) was a Russian climber who made seven ascents of 8,000 metre peaks without supplemental oxygen. ... The Climb is an account by Russian mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev of the May 1996 Mount Everest expeditions, during which five climbers lost their lives. ... Matt Dickinson is a film-maker and writer who specialises in the wild places and people of the world. ...

Adventure Consultants

Adventure Consultants' 1996 Everest expedition consisted of eight clients and three guides (Rob Hall, Mike Groom and Andy Harris). Among the clients was Jon Krakauer, a journalist on assignment from Outside magazine. Hall had brokered a deal with Outside for advertising space in exchange for a story about the growing popularity of commercial expeditions to Everest. Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Rob Hall (1961-1996), New Zealander, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. ... Jon Krakauer Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954), is an American non-fiction author and mountaineer, well-known for outdoor and mountain-climbing writing. ... Outside is a magazine focused on the outdoors. ...

Shortly after midnight on May 10, 1996, the Adventure Consultants expedition began a summit attempt from Camp IV, atop the South Col. They were joined by climbers from Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness company, as well as expeditions sponsored by the governments of Taiwan and India. is the 130th day of the year (131st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... The South Col usually refers to the southern col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the first and fourth highest mountains in the world. ... Scott Fischer (1956 – May 11, 1996) was an American climber and guide. ...

The expeditions quickly encountered delays. Upon reaching the Hillary Step, the climbers discovered that no fixed line had been placed, and they were forced to wait for an hour while the guides installed the ropes. Because some 33 climbers were attempting the summit on the same day, and Hall and Fischer had asked their climbers to stay within 150 m of each other, there were bottlenecks at the single fixed line at the Hillary Step. Many of the climbers had not yet reached the summit by 2:00 pm, the last safe time to turn around in order to reach Camp IV before nightfall. The Hillary Step is a vertical part of upper Mount Everest. ... This page describes terms and jargon related to climbing and mountaineering. ... The Hillary Step is a vertical part of upper Mount Everest. ...

Hall's Sirdar, Ang Dorje Sherpa, and other climbing Sherpas waited at the summit for the clients. Near 3:00 pm, they began their descent. On the way down, Ang Dorje encountered client Doug Hansen above the Hillary Step, and ordered him to descend. Hansen did not respond. When Hall arrived at the scene, he sent the Sherpas down to assist the other clients, and stated that he would remain to help Hansen, who had run out of supplementary oxygen. A Sirdar is a Sherpa mountain guide who manages all the other Sherpas in a climbing expedition or trekking group. ...

At 5:00 pm, a blizzard struck the Southwest Face of Everest, diminishing visibility and obliterating the trail back to Camp IV. Shortly afterwards, Hall radioed for help, saying that Hansen had fallen unconscious but was still alive. Adventure Consultants guide Andy Harris began climbing to the Hillary Step at 5:30 pm with supplementary oxygen and water.

On May 11, at 4:43am, Hall radioed down and said that he was on the South Summit. He reported that Harris had reached the two men, but that Hansen had died of hypothermia sometime during the night and that Harris was missing as well. Hall was not breathing bottled oxygen, because his regulator was too choked with ice. By 9:00 am, Hall had fixed his oxygen mask, but indicated that his frostbitten hands and feet were making it difficult to traverse the fixed ropes. Later in the afternoon, he radioed to Base Camp, asking them to call his wife, Jan Arnold, on the satellite phone. During this last communication, he reassured her that he was reasonably comfortable and told her, "Sleep well my sweetheart. Please don't worry too much." Shortly thereafter, he died, and his body was found on May 23 by mountaineers from the IMAX expedition. is the 131st day of the year (132nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 143rd day of the year (144th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... IMAX theatre at the Melbourne Museum complex, Australia BFI London IMAX by night IMAX dome in Guayaquil, Ecuador IMAX Theater in SM Mall of Asia, Philippines IMAX (short for Image Maximum) is a film format created by Canadas IMAX Corporation that has the capacity to display images of far...

Mountain Madness Expedition

Anatoli Boukreev was the lead climbing guide for the Mountain Madness expedition headed by Scott Fischer. The team included eight clients, each of whom had paid approximately $65,000 USD for a fully-guided summit attempt of Everest: Anatoli Nikoliavich Boukreev (January 16, 1958 - December 25, 1997) was a Russian climber who made seven ascents of 8,000 metre peaks without supplemental oxygen. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Scott Fischer (1956 – May 11, 1996) was an American climber and guide. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ...

• Martin Adams (47)¹ - had climbed Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro
• Charlotte Fox (38) - had climbed all 54 4200 m peaks in Colorado and two 8000 m peaks
• Lene Gammelgaard (35) - accomplished mountaineer
• Dale Kruse (45) - personal friend of Fischer for many years, first to sign up
• Tim Madsen (33) - climbed extensively in Colorado and Canadian Rockies, little experience of 8000 m peaks
• Sandy Hill Pittman (41) - had climbed six of the Seven Summits
• Pete Schoening (68) - one of the first Americans to climb Mount Vinson and Gasherbrum I
• Klev Schoening (38) - Pete's nephew; former US national downhill ski racer, no 8000 m experience

¹All ages given relative to 1996. Cerro Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas. ... Denali redirects here. ... Kilimanjaro is a mountain in northeastern Tanzania. ... Official language(s) English Capital Denver Largest city Denver Largest metro area Denver-Aurora Metro Area Area  Ranked 8th  - Total 104,185 sq mi (269,837 km²)  - Width 280 miles (451 km)  - Length 380 miles (612 km)  - % water 0. ... The Seven Summits on an Elevation World Map. ... Pete Schoening (July 30, 1927 - September 22, 2004) was an American mountaineer. ... Vinson Massif is the highest mountain of Antarctica, located about 1,200 km (750 mi) from the South Pole. ... Gasherbrum I (also known as Hidden Peak or K5) is the eleventh highest peak on Earth. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from...

Pete Schoening had decided not to make the final push to the summit while still at Everest Base Camp. The team began the assault on the summit on May 6, planning to bypass Camp I and stop at Camp II for the night. However, when the guides reached Camp I, they found Kruse suffering from altitude sickness and possible cerebral edema in one of the tents. Kruse returned to Base Camp with Fischer for treatment. High altitude cerebral edema (or HACE) is a severe (frequently fatal) form of altitude sickness. ...

Starting around midnight on May 10, Boukreev, Neil Beidleman, Scott Fischer and a team of Sherpas began guiding the six remaining clients to the summit, starting from Camp IV on the South Col (7,900 m/25,900 ft). Delays at the South Summit, caused by the failure of the climbing Sherpas to set the fixed ropes by the time the team reached that point, cost the team an hour on the ascent. The word Sherpa originally referred to an ethnic group from the most mountainous region of Niple, high into the Himalayas (although many of them now live in India). ...

Climbing without supplementary oxygen, Boukreev reached the summit at 1:07 pm. He began his descent to Camp IV at 2:30 pm. By that time, Adams and Klev Schoening had summitted, but Beidleman and the remaining four clients had not yet arrived. Boukreev recorded that he reached Camp IV by 5:00 pm. The reasons for Boukreev's decision to descend ahead of his clients are disputed.^[1] Boukreev maintained that he wanted to be ready to assist struggling clients farther down the slope, and to retrieve hot tea and extra oxygen if necessary.^[2] Journalist Jon Krakauer, who climbed with the Adventure Consultants expedition, asserts that Boukreev's refusal to use supplementary oxygen and lack of warm clothing made it too dangerous for him to wait at the summit for the remaining clients.^[3] Jon Krakauer Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954), is an American non-fiction author and mountaineer, well-known for outdoor and mountain-climbing writing. ...

A blizzard struck at 4:00 pm, causing difficulties for the descending team members. The snow buried the fixed ropes and obliterated the trail that the team had broken on the ascent, resulting in several climbers getting lost on the South Col. Beidleman, Schoening, Fox, Madsen, Pittman, and Gammelgaard, along with Adventure Consultants' Mike Groom, Beck Weathers, and Yasuko Namba, wandered in the blizzard until midnight. When they could no longer walk, they huddled some 20 m from a dropoff of the Kangshung Face. Beck Weathers is an American pathologist from Texas. ... Yasuko Namba (February 2, 1949–May 10, 1996) was famous in her native Japan for becoming only the second Japanese woman (after Junko Tabei [1]) to summit all of the Seven Summits [2] including Everest. ...

Near midnight, the blizzard cleared enough for the team to see Camp IV, some 200 m away. Beidleman, Groom, Schoening, and Gammelgaard set off to find help. Madsen and Fox remained with the group to shout for the rescuers. Boukreev located the climbers and brought Pittman, Fox, and Madsen to safety. He decided that Weathers and Namba were too close to death to move.

Fischer, meanwhile, had not reached the summit until 3:45 pm. He was ill, possibly suffering from HACE, and exhausted from the ascent. Fischer was unable to descend below the South Summit (8350 m/ 27395 ft) in the storm. The following day, the climbing Sherpas located Fischer, but his condition had deteriorated so much that they were only able to give palliative care. Boukreev made a subsequent rescue attempt, but found Fischer's frozen body at around 7pm.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police

The Everest disaster of 1996 is well known in the mountaineering circles for the deaths of eight climbers on a single day, May 11, 1996. Thanks to Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and two movies made out of the book, the names of Rob Hall, Scott Fischer, Yasuko Namba, Doug Hansen and Andy Harris are well known. What is not too well known are the other three fatalities of the day, who were the climbers from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition from India. The expedition was led by Commandant (equiv to Lt. Col) Mohinder Singh, and is credited as being the first Indian ascent of Everest from the North side^[4]. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. ... Rob Hall (1961-1996), New Zealander, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. ... Scott Fischer (1956 – May 11, 1996) was an American climber and guide. ... Yasuko Namba (February 2, 1949–May 10, 1996) was famous in her native Japan for becoming only the second Japanese woman (after Junko Tabei [1]) to summit all of the Seven Summits [2] including Everest. ... The Indo-Tibetan Border Police is a police force conceived on October 24, 1962 for the security along the Indo-Tibetan Border covering 2115 km. ...

On May 10, 1996 by Subedar Tsewang Samanla, Lance Naik (equiv to Lance Corporal) Dorje Morup and Head Constable Tsewang Paljor were part of a six man summit attempt from the North Side. The team had six members and were the first team of the season to go up the North Face. It would also be their responsibilities to fix the ropes during ascent and break the trail to the top, a task that has its own share of difficulties. The team was caught in the blizzard above Camp IV. While three of the six members turned down, Samanla, Paljor and Morup decided to go for the summit^[5]. Being a traditional type of an expedition, the summit team did not have any sherpas to guide them in their ascent.

At around 6.00pm (3.45pm Nepal Time)^[6], the three climbers radioed to their expedition leader that they had arrived at the summit. While the Indian Camp was jubilant in their celebrations, some of the other mountaineers at base camp already expressed their reservations about the timing, which was quite late in the day to be on the summit. There is also a dispute whether the three actually reached the summit or not. Krakauer claims that the climbers were at 28,550 feet, roughly 500 feet short of the top most point. This is based on the interview given by a later Japanese team to Richard Cowpens of the London Financial Express. Due to bad visibility and thick clouds which obscured the summit, the climbers believed they had reached the top. This also explained why the climbers did not run into the teams that summitted from the South Side. The Financial Express is a newspaper daily by the Indian Express group. ...

The three climbers left an offering of prayer flags, katas and pitons . Here the leader Samanla decided to spend extra time for religious ceremonies and instructed the other two to move down. There was no radio contact after that. Back at the camps below, anxious team members saw two headlamps moving slightly above the second step - at 8570 meters. None of the three managed to come back to high camp at 8320 meters.

The next day, two Japanese climbers, Hiroshi Hanada and Eisuke Shigekawa, of the Fukuoka Mountaineering Club, aided by three Sherpas, making the summit attempt found one of the climbers shortly above First Step. The climber, (whom Krauker believes to be Paljor) was still moaning and frostbitten from exposure over the night. The Japanese climbers left him and sent for the summit. After they climbed the second step, they ran into the other two climbers, probably Samanla and Morup. Krakauer notes "No words were passed, No water, food or oxygen exchanged hands. The Japanese moved on ...".

The apparent indifference of the Japanese climbers was inexplicable as the Indian expedition leader told later, "The Japanese had initially pledged to help the search for the missing Indians. But hours later, they pressed on with their attempt to reach the summit, despite bad weather." ^[7]. The Japanese team pressed on and summitted at 11.45am (Nepal Time). By the time the Japanese climbers descended, one of the two climbers was already dead. The other near death. They could not find any trace of the third climber farther down.

Much discussion ensued on why the Japanese did not help the Indian climbers. While the consensus suggests a rescue mission at such a high altitude was out of scope, it is not understood why the Japanese did not offer any succor to the dying Indians.

List of fatalities^[8]

Yasuko Namba (February 2, 1949–May 10, 1996) was famous in her native Japan for becoming only the second Japanese woman (after Junko Tabei [1]) to summit all of the Seven Summits [2] including Everest. ... Rob Hall (1961-1996), New Zealander, was a mountaineer best known for being head guide of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition in which he, a fellow guide, and two clients perished. ... Scott Fischer (1956 – May 11, 1996) was an American climber and guide. ... Green Boots is the name given to the dead body of an Indian climber on the North face route of Mount Everest. ...

See also

• Highest mountains of the world
• North Col
• South Col
• Rongbuk Glacier
• Rongbuk Monastery
• Kangshung Face, Mount Everest
• Geography of China
• Sagarmatha National Park
• Geology of the Himalaya
• List of deaths on eight-thousanders

Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Mount Everest, the worlds highest mountain The following is a list of the worlds 100+ highest mountains per height above sea level, all of which are located in Asia. ... The North Col refers to the pass or col connecting Mount Everest and Changtse to its North. ... The South Col usually refers to the southern col between Mount Everest and Lhotse, the first and fourth highest mountains in the world. ... Rongbuk Glacier and the Mount Everest as seen from the International Space Station. ... Mount Everest as seen from the Rongbuk Monastery. ... The Kangshung Face, is the East Face of Mount Everest, located upon the side of the mountain that lies in Tibet. ... NASA composite satellite photo The geography of China stretches some 5,026 kilometers across the East Asian landmass bordering the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea, between North Korea and Vietnam in a changing configuration of broad plains, expansive deserts, and lofty mountain ranges, including... Sagarmatha National Park, is located in eastern Nepal, containing parts of the Himalayas and the southern half of Mount Everest. ... Fig 1: The earth in the Early Permian. ... The eight-thousanders are the fourteen mountains that rise more than 8,000 meters above sea level; they are all in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges. ...

References

1. ^ http://www.salon.com/wlust/feature/1998/08/cov_03feature.html
2. ^ http://outside.away.com/peaks/fischer/anatoli.html
3. ^ http://outside.away.com/peaks/fischer/krakreply1.html
4. ^ Everest : The First Indian Ascent from North by Mohinder Singh. Delhi, Indian Pub., 2003, xvi, 166 p., photographs, $77. ISBN 81-7341-276-6.
5. ^ Into Thin Air - By Jon Krauker, p239
6. ^ American Alpine Journal
7. ^ http://outside.away.com/peaks/japan.html ITBP Climbers killed]
8. ^ List of Everest Fatalities AdventureStats.com