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Witness to the worst mountaineering tragedy in history
12:07 p.m. EDT Oct 23, 2003
Peak Lenin, the second tallest peak in the former Soviet Union is usually considered fairly easy and a good introduction to climbing 7000m mountains. Despite this reputation, Peak Lenin, 7134m, located in Tajikistan, has been the site of two major mountaineering accidents. In the early seventies a whole team of Russian women died from exposure while on the mountain and on Friday, July 13, 1990, 43 climbers died in one fell swoop when an earthquake triggered a serac to break loose, falling on top of Camp II.
Part I of II
In the first of a two part series covering these two tragedies, ExplorersWeb is publishing a recent interview with Canadian climber Ian McLagan who was in Camp I on the day the accident that claimed 43 lives happened. This event has gone down as the worst accident in climbing history. The story of the Russian women’s team will follow next week.
I was there
This interview came about when Ian contacted us last May after a story broke about 10 deaths on Cho Oyu, "As you are profiling this emerging news, you might also remember that the worst accident overall in mountaineering is actually on a 7000m peak. Peak Lenin, Soviet Pamirs - A serac collapsed and killed 43 mountaineers at 5200m. The biggest group killed was 23 Russians practicing for an upcoming Cho Oyu expedition the next year. I know - I was there."
Several foreign news agencies reported on the Cho Oyu deaths and we picked up on the story. Needless to say we had an uncomfortably silent dinner and a sleepless night as we noticed that nobody else had the news. Early next morning we finally found an embassy that could confirm - not 10 but one death, and we could correct the piece at last! Late last month however, an all too real accident occurred as nine climbers in India died in an avalanche. We came to think of Ian and his story. Here it is:
An ExplorersWeb interview with Ian McLagan, witness to the most tragic event in mountaineering history:
Exweb:You were in Camp I when this happened, did you feel the earthquake? Did you hear the slide?
Ian: No, we didn't nor did anyone else because it wasn't a slide - it was a collapsing serac. A ‘splat’ is more the word.
We were in Camp I because we were delayed waiting for a helicopter fuel drop - at the last minute, the Soviets gave us benzene instead of gasoline and our stoves wouldn't fire. If they hadn't screwed up and we had not checked our stoves when we got the fuel, we would have been in Camp II as well. It was caused by an earthquake, which we also didn't feel because of a ‘gel’ effect on the glacier.
Exweb: At what point did you realize that the serac had killed that many people? What was everyone's immediate reaction and what was the rescue effort like?
Ian: Dawn the next day - one of the two survivors staggered into camp and said, “everyone is dead." We were immediately just numb - it was unfathomable. One of the survivors heard voices for several hours (!!) but couldn't dig because it set up like concrete immediately.
He also heard a voice in the icefall that was a noted Soviet climber who was swept in there from the shockwave, but otherwise said everyone was dead.
Exweb: When something as catastrophic as this happens, sometimes folks band together, did this happen on Lenin with the remaining teams?
Ian: Yes and no. The mountain was closed for three days. They flew in rescue teams to dig out survivors because of foreign government pressure, but ultimately only retrieved 3 bodies. I want to stress - NOTHING came up. There was no churning as in an avalanche where you’d typically get tents, gear, bodies and survivors. This was like taking a dollop of whip cream and splattering it down on a counter. The horror is that many of them lived buried for several hours.
Our expedition stayed and virtually everyone else left. We also decided to continue climbing, which most everyone else gave us grief about, but we thought it was the right thing to do. There were the usual pissed-off survivors who lost teammates and accused people of not telling that a 7000m peak was dangerous. We stayed and tried to summit - turned around in ultra cold weather at about 22,000 and crossed right beside the former camp II; it was a thought-provoking time.
Exweb: How did this effect you personally and your team? Is it something that you still think about? Do you do things differently now or perhaps look at things differently? Did it change your life?
Ian: The one thing that will always stay with me is that the day we moved up they brought down the first body that was retrieved. At the bottom we helped them bring it down. Of course we assumed that this would be the first of many bodies but that was not to be . . .
Here we were moving up and they were bringing bodies down. It put it all in perspective that this is what we do for fun in life - nothing more - we're effectively goofing off and they're bringing down bodies and a helicopter was overhead to fly them down. I continue to keep it in perspective that this is what I personally consider fun and not to lose perspective of that.
We next had an interesting experience when we came down and two of us, my teammate Chuck and I caught a ride back to Base Camp. When we got out tearful Russians mobbed us. As Americans, well, I'm Canadian but was acting like American, we were the privileged guests and the last team they wanted to lose given U.S./ Soviet relations at the time. This was more than one week after the accident, but they were really, really happy to see us alive and well.
Exweb: How did that expedition effect your climbing, the occasional second guess when you're in a sticky situation or perhaps some hesitation now?
Ian: The one thing I'll say was that this reaffirmed a policy we already had in place and one that ALL mountaineers should have. One of our team members had been avalanched on Logan several years before and lost several teammates. He came back and, the responsibility fell to him to notify the families of his now deceased teammates. It became all the more difficult as one of the families thought their son was just on a hiking trip, rather than attempting a new route on Logan.
Consequently, we already had a signed agreement with each other that we had each notified our next of kin what we were doing and, that we had told them of the inherent dangers of climbing a 7000 meter peak. That policy still remains part of my climbing today. Even when just taking friends to Joshua Tree for the first time, I ensure that they have told their families what they’re doing.
This event in my life, plus visiting the Peruvian town of Cuzco which along with its neighbors was eradicated, and that's the proper word, in the 1970 earthquake, is the reason I try to keep the words “mountain tragedy” reserved for more appropriate times. There's a good book about the 1970 earthquake, "No Bells to Toll"
Exweb: Was there a moment from that expedition that just stuck in your head?
Ian: Bringing that body down. I have a slide of it (see first pic above) and get chilled every time I see it. The other moment was calling my parents in Canada from JFK airport. We didn't know if they even knew about the situation or whether they thought we were all dead. It turned out that it was in all the papers and television news and that they had been in touch with both the Canadian and U.S. governments but didn't have a definitive answer until that call.
After all their worrying in 1990, I also now extend my parents the courtesy of asking their permission before joining a major climbing expedition as well.
Exweb: What are you up these days? Are you still in contact with your team members?
Ian: We remain the best of friends and climb somewhere in the world each year – we revisited the Soviet Union in 1994 on our way through to Mustagh Ata and again enjoyed the region. If anything, it has reaffirmed our belief in getting out and having fun on a regular basis, but being vigilant, cautious, and not taking things for granted.
Exweb: How do you think people would react if a tragedy on as big a scale as this happened on Everest or another well-known mountain like Denali in today’s times?
Ian: They'd be horrified and probably demand some type of inquiry. We now live in an era of instant communication and GPS where much of the adventure has been removed and people expect more certainty. In this case, a lot of mountaineers got bunched up on a route because of bad weather and then they all camped under a serac which should only cleave once every 500 years or so. Pretty good odds but . . .
By the way. . . two other sidebars are that the leader of the Soviet Cho Oyu team that was warming up on Lenin woke up in Camp III when serac collapsed. . .he had left his team in Camp II and had gone ahead to ready Camp III and gain more altitude. . He woke up in the morning and looked down at what use to be Camp II - can you imagine the horror? You'd think you had lost your mind to look down at what had been a camp of several dozen tents and to see nothing. Not even a fleck of nylon fabric.
A further five climbers died shortly after the serac collapse – a Swiss died in a crevasse fall on Lenin and, four Soviet climbers perished on a neighboring peak bringing the total deaths that summer to 48 climbers.
The last sidebar is that the serac collapse both happened on Friday the 13th and, followed a freak summer snowstorm in early July, which was why so many teams were bunched up together. This is a rare occurrence so close to the equator and took many people back to 1974 when a freak summer snowstorm that year left so many dead.
Images courtesy of Ian McLagan.
Image 1: Body being recovered
Image 2: Base Camp after a summer snowstorm
Image 3: Climbing in Russian garb
Image 4: Peak Lenin
Image 5: Memorial
Image 6: A shot from Camp III looking down. You can see where the slough occurred
Image 7: Base Camp before the snowstorm
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