Stranded for two days at Nepal’s Tilicho Base Camp while a deadly blizzard killed 39 hikers in the Annapurna region, Canmore resident Dawson Vlessides is reporting he’s alive and well.
Vlessides, 18, went to Nepal alone to hike sections of the 220-kilometre Annapurna Trail in early October, and sent an update to the Outlook on Wednesday (Oct. 22).
His journey began with an acclimatization sidetrip, which fortuitously took him away from 5,416-metre Thorung La pass, where most of the casualties were found. Thorung is the highest mountain pass in the world.
“We decided to go to Tilicho Lake, which is around two or three extra days depending on how fast you go. We could have left base camp the day the storm hit, but we decided we wanted an easy day in just going to the lake and back before we pushed to the pass,” Vlessides wrote in an email from Nepal.
The freak storm hit the Himilayas when the tail end of a cyclone lashed through the tallest peaks on earth, creating massive snow drifts and deadly avalanche conditions that ultimately killed 39 hikers on the trail. Nepal officials claim the storm caught them off-guard, however, others have disputed that stance.
Vlessides wasn’t near the avalanche, but was stranded at a Tilicho Lake lodge when the storm hit. Soon he saw first hand how dangerous high altitude landscape can be.
“The storm was really crazy. It just started in the evening and by the morning there was like two feet of snow on the ground,” Vlessides said. “We were gonna try to walk out that day with some other groups, ones with guides and porters … but we didn’t get out because there was a close call where a guide slipped off the trail and slipped down a steep slope and off the cliff, so all the groups came back. It was still snowing really hard.”
Cut off with no means of communication, the camp only heard rumours of terror on the mountain passes. As news of the deaths, including four Canadians, circled the globe, Vlessides had no way of letting his family know he was safe.
“We were completely cut off. There was no phone and no Wi-Fi, so we just played cards and hung out in the lodge all day. There was a metre of snow on the ground by the end of the day,” Vlessides said.
The next day, Vlessiddes and his American friends tried to push their way through the deep snow, but couldn’t get make up enough ground carving through thigh-deep snow. For five hours, they pressed forward, but were forced back to the lodge by fading daylight. Israeli helicopters began to fill the air, rescuing their countrymen. The next day, Vlessides and a group of 30-40 hikers decided to push through.
“The path we had made the day before and taken us five hours … we covered that ground in like 30 minutes. There was a path by the river that some others had forged the day before, so we decided to leave the main path and go down this massive landslide area to the river and follow that path,” Vlessides said.
The folly of the decision to follow the Lungpughym River quickly became apparent.
“That ended up being a terrible idea and after two river crossings and seeing a third, we decided to climb all the way back up around 400 vertical metres up this avalanche chute, with avalanche debris in it back up to the regular path,” Vlessides said. “The path was already broken by others who left the same day, so it was fairly easy to get to the next lodge once we were back on the main path.”
Through the journey, Vlessides had no idea the extent of the tragedy unfolding on the surrounding mountain passes.
“We were completely cut off. We heard a rumour that one person had died on the pass, but we had no idea of the extent of the damage. When we got to Menang, it was still really hard to get solid information about what was going on up there because there’s only one place with Wi-Fi and there were so many people on it that day it was incredibly slow.
“We waited in Menang for two days, then decided to go back the way we came when we learned the pass would maybe not be opening for a while,” Vlessides said.
Frances Klatzel, who splits her time between Canmore and Kathmandu, led treks on the Annapurna Trail for eight years, and has been back and forth between Canada and Nepal since 1980. She said such storms are a risk in October.
“It’s not common, but not uncommon,” Klatzel said. “As cyclones move inland, they hit the coast of India and bang against the Himalayas, hit a wall of mountains, divert up and falls as snow.”
She said Vlessides made the right move in sitting tight at the lake, and as an experienced mountain hiker, he was better prepared for such an event, which caught many off-guard.
“October is an illusionary time. People believe the best time to hike is after the monsoons, but you can get these cyclone storms. People have no idea what it can be like to get two metres of snow in a day,” Klatzel said.
Since the Annapurna Trail starts low and has a balmy climate, it attracts throngs of tourists who show up in flip-flops and cotton T-shirts. That is why this storm caught so many, she believes.
“Part of it is the mass of people who go trekking. Annapurna goes from very low, so a lot of people can get away with it. It’s warm, tropical, 20 degrees. Then they get to the pass, and it’s dire … It was so bad because in Annapurna, some were not as prepared,” Klatzel said.
