• 5 climbers feared dead on world's 3rd highest peak

    Desmond Boylan / Reuters file

    Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world with an altitude of 28,169 feet, is seen in this aerial view taken from a passenger aircraft flying over Nepal at a height of 30,000 feet. Five climbers are lost on the Himalayan range peak.

    By The Associated Press

    Five climbers including two Hungarians and a South Korean are missing on the world's third-highest mountain and feared dead, a mountaineering official said Friday. 

    The five disappeared Monday on Mount Kanchenjunga, and bad weather was preventing a rescue helicopter from reaching their base camp. 

    Mountaineering Department official Dipendra Poudel said Friday that the climbers were descending from the summit when they were believed to have slipped or fallen at an altitude of about 7,900 meters (25,900 feet). 

    The Hungarians have been identified as Zsolt Eross, 45, and Peter Kiss, 27, while the South Korean climber is Namsoo Park, 47. The Nepalese guides have been identified as Phu Dorjee, 24, and Bibash Gurung, 25. 

    Eross has scaled 10 of the 14 highest peaks in the world and was the first from his country to scale Mount Everest. 

    Kanchenjunga is 28,162 feet high. 

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • World's highest fight? Sherpas, Westerners come to blows on Everest

    Sabina Bhattrai / EPA

    A fight between Sherpas and three Western climbers broke out on Mount Everest on Saturday, with an argument beginning within a few thousand feet of the top escalating at a lower camp. The Westerners said they were attacked by about 100 Sherpas who punched and kicked them and threw rocks at them.

    By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Editor's note: This article includes a correction.

    A fight broke out high on the slopes of Mount Everest between a group of European climbers and local guides, officials and one of those involved have said.

    The three Europeans, from Italy, Switzerland and the U.K., were headed for Camp 3 at about 23,600 feet on the 29,035-foot mountain on Saturday, when they crossed a fixed line being put in place by the Sherpa climbers and an angry altercation ensued, according to a statement issued by Italian climber Simone Moro’s team.

    One Sherpa claimed the Westerners had injured another local climber by knocking ice down onto him and about 100 Sherpas later attacked the three Westerners at Camp 2, lower down the mountain.

    They were punched and kicked, stones were thrown, and they were told they would be killed, Moro's statement said. However, another group of Westerners intervened and the three men headed down to Base Camp by a “circuitous route.”

    “The climbers believe that the lead Sherpa was tired and cold and felt that his pride had been damaged as the three climbers were moving unroped and much faster to the side of him," the statement said.

    “Whatever the reason may be, there is no reason to instigate vigilante rule and to try and kill three visiting climbers,” it added.

    The statement said the incident began when Briton Jonathan Griffith crossed the line of rope being fixed by the Sherpas and then Swiss climber Ueli Steck did the same.

    “At the point where Ueli Steck stepped over the rope the lead [Sherpa] climber noticed the climbers below and began shouting and banging the ice with his axe erratically,” Moro’s statement said.

    “Still shouting down at the climbers, he fixed his rope and abseiled [rappelled] down … As Ueli was soloing and therefore not attached to a rope it was natural that he should hold his hands up to take the impact of the force arriving on him from the lead climber abseiling right on to him. This prompted the lead climber to accuse Ueli Steck of 'touching him,'” the statement said.

    “In between hitting the ice with all his force and screaming at Ueli Steck 'why you touch me' he said that they had kicked ice down on them and injured a Sherpa. Seeing as the trio were climbing a completely independent line and entirely on snow this is highly unlikely,” it added.

    Later, at Camp 2, the three men were attacked by “some 100 Sherpas,” the statement said.

    “They became instantly aggressive and not only punched and kicked the climbers, but threw many rocks as well,” it said. “A small group of Westerners acted as a buffer between the out of control mob and the climbers, and they owe their lives to these brave and selfless people.”

    The Sherpas are an ethnic group who live in the Everest region, and many of them work as climbing guides.

    Beni Hyoju, an official of the Cho-Oyu Trekking agency that organized the expedition, told Reuters that the three Europeans had failed to comply with a request from their Sherpa guides to stay at a location while the guides fixed the route.

    Hyoju said this made the Sherpas unhappy and they attacked the climbers. No one was critically wounded.

    "Sherpas who were responsible for the fight will offer (an) apology," he added.

    Tourism Ministry official Dipendra Paudel told Reuters that the government would ensure the safety and security of the climbers.

    "There was a slight misunderstanding and communication gap between them," Paudel added in Kathmandu after contacting the base camp. "This has been sorted out and the climbers are at the base camp."

    He told Reuters the European climbers would resume their bid to climb Everest.

    Historian Elizabeth Hawley, who has been tracking foreign expeditions to Mount Everest for more than five decades, said she had "not heard of any such incident before."

    Reuters contributed to this report

    Related:

    Turning garbage 'into gold': Nepali artists transform Everest litter into art

    Japanese climber, 80, aims for Everest record

  • Nine swept to death in Nepal avalanche

    Handout / Reuters

    Rescue team members carry a survivor (center) after an avalanche at Mount Manaslu Base Camp, Sunday.

    By Reuters

    Updated at 2:15 p.m. ET: KATHMANDU, Nepal - An avalanche swept away climbers and their camps on the world's eighth highest mountain in northwestern Nepal on Sunday, killing at least nine people, police said.

    A former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, Ang Tshering Sherpa, said most of the dead climbers were French and that others were from Italy, Germany and Spain.

    French news channel BFM TV reported that four of those killed on Mount Manaslu were French, citing a mountain climber.

    Nepalese officials confirmed earlier that the dead included climbers from Nepal, Germany and Spain, and they said four people were missing. Five injured climbers were rescued by helicopters and flown to the capital Kathmandu.


    German climber Andreas Reitero, 26, said he was sleeping in his tent when the avalanche struck at about 4 a.m. local time (2315 GMT on Saturday). His camp was about 7,000 meters (22,950 feet) above sea level.

    "It was a big sound. I was afraid," Reitero told Reuters from hospital in Kathmandu after being rescued by a helicopter from the mountain, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital.

    "I was so confused that I can't say how far I was swept away or how many people were there in the camp at the time of avalanche," said the climber, who is being treated for a back injury. "I had luck. I did not go far enough and was (left) outside ... not buried under snow."

    Reitero was one in a group of 13 climbers - 11 Germans and two Austrians. One German member of the group died, he said.

    A French Foreign Ministry spokesman would not confirm any deaths but said "at least three" French climbers were injured.

    Police Inspector Basant Mishra said the bodies of a German climber and a Nepali guide were recovered from the snow on the 8,163-metre (26,781-foot) mountain.

    "Rescue pilots have spotted seven other bodies on the mountain," Mishra said. 

    Sources at the Spanish Foreign Ministry said one of the dead climbers was Spanish, without giving further details.

    The accident took place at 7,000 meters (22,950 feet), making it difficult for land rescue teams to reach the scene.

    Helicopters were dispatched to the remote area to look for those missing after the early morning accident, but cloud and fog were complicating rescue efforts, Mishra said.

    Hundreds of foreign climbers flock every year to Himalayan peaks in Nepal, which has eight of the world's 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest. September marks the beginning of the autumn climbing season which runs through November.

    In the last major accident, at least 42 people including 17 foreigners, were killed in heavy snowfall in the Mount Everest region in 1995.

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  • 2 US climbers found dead on Peruvian peak

    Peru Police via AP

    A Peru police photo shows a yellow tent believed by authorities to belong to U.S. climbers Gil Weiss and Ben Horne near Palcaraju Peak in Huaraz, Peru.

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    Searchers on Saturday found the bodies of two U.S. mountaineers who apparently plunged 1,000 feet to their deaths on their way down from the summit of a glacier-capped Peruvian peak.


    Gil Weiss, 29, and Ben Horne, 32, fell off a ridge after reaching the west summit of 20,584-foot Palcaraju in the Cordillera Blanca range in mid-July, search coordinator Ted Alexander told The Associated Press.

    Their bodies will be recovered Sunday, he said.

    More at NBCSanDiego.com: Climber remembered by father, friend

    Both Weiss, of Queens, N.Y., and Horne, of Annandale, Va., were experienced climbers. Weiss was a repeat visitor to the Cordillera Blanca while this trip was Horne's first.

    Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com 

    Both belong to the pullharder.org climbers' collective, and Horne wrote about the first, six-day leg of their trip on its blog, saying they had been buffeted by hurricane-force winds when the two reached the top of the 20,216-foot Ranrapalca.

    After a rest in Huaraz, the two set out again July 11 for an excursion of seven to 10 days. Their families contacted Alexander after 13 days passed with no word from them.

    Weiss's sister, Galit, said the two were not carrying a satellite phone.

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    Horne was a graduate student in economics at the University of California, San Diego. Weiss was founder of a business a Boulder, Colo., business called Beyond Adventure Productions that specialized in organizing and photographing events in remote and spectacular locations.

    The Cordillera Blanca climbing season runs from June to September, and the deaths of Weiss and Horne bring to eight the number of mountaineers who have lost their lives in the range so far this year, the AP said.

    This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.

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  • Four climbers die on Mount Everest

    A Colorado mountaineer recounts the harrowing details about the deaths of several climbers who perished over the weekend trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest. NBC's Miguel Almaguer reports.

    By Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News

    Updated May 23, 8:40 a.m. ET -- Four climbers died while descending from the summit of Mount Everest last weekend.

    Three other climbers are said to be missing and feared dead, according to NBC News' Miguel Almaguer. 

    Eberhard Schaaf, 61, from Aachen, Germany, who was climbing with the Eco Everest Expedition to remove decades-old garbage from the mountain, died on Saturday along the normal Southeast Ridge Route on the 29,035-foot peak.

    Shriya Shah, a 32-year-old Nepal-born woman living in Canada, and a Korean, Song Won-Bin, also died while climbing down from the summit at the weekend, Tourism Ministry official Gyanendra Shrestha said.

    "Schaaf died at the South Summit of Sagarmatha due to altitude sickness," said Ang Tshering Sherpa, chief of the Asian Trekking company that organized the expedition, referring to the Nepali name of the mountain. South Summit is about 28,697 feet high.

    He said the body was lying on the mountain and that Schaaf's family as well as the German Embassy in Nepal had been informed.

     

    "If the family wants the body to be brought down we will try, but it is very difficult to do so from that altitude," Sherpa said.

    Over the weekend, a 73-year-old Japanese woman improved her own record and climbed the peak for a second time at the weekend becoming the world's oldest woman to scale the giant peak.

    Related: 73-year-old smashes own record as oldest woman to climb Mount Everest

    Two Sherpas have died so far this season -- one after falling into a crevasse and the other reportedly from altitude sickness, according to National Geographic magazine.  At least 236 people have died climbing Everest since 1950.

    The deaths mark an already controversial season on Everest. On May 5, Himalayan Experience announced that it was canceling its expedition because of safety concerns. Minimal snowpack and warm temperatures, among other factors, had led to dangerous conditions, including rock fall and avalanches, the company said.


    Michael Fagin, who provides forecasting services for Everest teams and runs everestweather.com from Redmond, Wash., said the spring had been very dry and windy. In the past week, winds had reached up to 80 mph; climbers on Everest prefer them under 30 mph.

    Eric Simonson, Himalayan program director of International Mountain Guides, told msnbc.com last week that to cancel an Everest expedition so early was "quite unprecedented," but added it is unreasonable to expect every team to agree on how to handle difficult conditions.

    "They’re betting on there being a problem and all the other expeditions that have stayed are betting on our ability to mitigate that problem. I don’t think it has to reflect poorly on anyone."

    Related: Climber's sky-high dreams dashed far below Everest summit

    Last week, the National Geographic-North Face expedition, led by accomplished mountaineer Conrad Anker, canceled its plans to summit via the West Ridge due to icy conditions, but will still attempt to reach the peak via a different route.

    About 300 climbers remain on the mountain at different camps waiting for a window of good weather to try to climb the peak before the onset of annual monsoon rains next month, which effectively ends the climbing season in the Himalayas.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter at msnbc.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

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