On 10–11 May 1996, eight climbers were caught in a blizzard and died on Mount Everest while attempting to descend from the summit. Over that season, 12 people died trying to reach the summit. These deaths marked that season the deadliest season on Mount Everest until it became the third deadliest after the 23 fatalities from avalanches caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake and the 16 fatalities of the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche. The 1996 disaster received widespread publicity, raised questions about the commercialisation of Everest, and prompted an enduring controversy about who and what was at fault for the disaster.
Numerous climbers were at a high altitude on Everest during the storm including the Adventure Consultants team, led by Rob Hall, and the Mountain Madness team, led by Scott Fischer. While climbers died on both the North Face and South Col approaches, the events on the latter were more widely reported. On the South Col approach, four members of the Adventure Consultants expedition died, including Hall, while Fischer was the sole casualty of the Mountain Madness expedition. Three officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police died on the North Face.
Following the disaster, several survivors wrote memoirs. Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from Outside magazine and on the Adventure Consultants team, published Into Thin Air (1997), which became a bestseller. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide in the Mountain Madness team, felt impugned by the book and co-authored a rebuttal called The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest (1997). Beck Weathers, of Hall's expedition, and Lene Gammelgaard, of Fischer's expedition, wrote about their experiences in their respective books, Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest (2000) and Climbing High: A Woman's Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy (2000). In 2014, Lou Kasischke, also of Hall's expedition, published his own account in After the Wind: 1996 Everest Tragedy, One Survivor's Story.
In addition to the members of the Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness teams, Mike Trueman, who coordinated the rescue from Base Camp, contributed The Storms: Adventure and Tragedy on Everest (2015). Graham Ratcliffe, who climbed to the South Col of Everest on 10 May, noted in A Day to Die For (2011) that weather reports forecasting a major storm developing after 8 May and peaking in intensity on 11 May were delivered to expedition leaders. Hall and Fischer received these before their planned summit attempts on 10 May. Some of their climbers summited Everest during an apparent break in this developing storm only for it to return in full force as they descended late on 10 May.
Climbers
The following is a list of climbers en route to the summit on 10 May 1996 via the South Col and Southeast Ridge, organized by expedition and role. All ages listed are those recorded in 1996.
Adventure Consultants
The Adventure Consultants' 1996 Everest expedition, led by Rob Hall, consisted of 19 people, including eight clients.
Guides
- Rob Hall (35) (New Zealand) – expedition leader; died near the South Summit
- Michael Groom (37) (Australia) – professional mountaineer
- Andy Harris (31) (New Zealand) – disappeared near the South Summit while assisting Hall
Clients
- Frank Fischbeck (53) (Hong Kong) – had attempted Everest three times and reached the South Summit in 1994
- Doug Hansen (46) (USA) – had previously attempted Everest with Hall's team in 1995; disappeared near the South Summit while descending with Hall
- Stuart Hutchison (34) (Canada) – youngest client on Hall's team; previous 8,000 m experiences included K2 winter expedition in 1988, Broad Peak west ridge in 1992, and Everest north side in 1994
- Lou Kasischke (53) (USA) – had climbed six of the Seven Summits
- Jon Krakauer (42) (USA) – journalist on assignment from Outside magazine; an accomplished technical climber, but had no experience in climbing peaks over 8,000 m
- Yasuko Namba (47) (Japan) – had climbed six of the Seven Summits; became the oldest woman to summit Everest at the time; died on the South Col
- John Taske (56) (Australia) – oldest climber on the Adventure Consultants team; no 8,000 m experience
- Beck Weathers (49) (USA) – had been climbing for 10 years and was also making a bid for the Seven Summits, but had no 8,000 m experience
Sherpas
- Sardar Ang Dorje (26)
- Arita
- Chuldum
- Kami
- Lhakpa Chhiri
- Ngawang Norbu
- Tenzing
The Sherpas listed above were the climbing Sherpas hired by Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants. Many other Sherpas working at lower elevations performed duties vital to the Adventure Consultants and Mountain Madness expeditions. Most climbing Sherpas' duties required them to ascend at least to Camp III or IV, but not all of them to summit. The expedition leaders intended for only a select few of their climbing Sherpas to accompany clients to the summit. Legendary Sardar Apa Sherpa was scheduled to accompany the Adventure Consultants group but withdrew due to family commitments.
With the exception of Namba, no client on Hall's team had reached the summit of an 8,000-meter peak, and only Fischbeck, Hansen, and Hutchison had previous high-altitude Himalayan experience. To compensate for the clients' limited high-altitude backgrounds, Hall relied on his extensive guiding track record and deep Himalayan experience, which dated back to his early technical climbs in the Southern Alps and a milestone ascent of Ama Dablam at age 21. Hall had also brokered a deal with Outside magazine for advertising space in exchange for a story about the growing popularity of commercial expeditions to Everest. Krakauer was originally slated to climb with Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness team, but Hall landed him, at least in part by agreeing to reduce Outside's fee for Krakauer's spot on the expedition to less than cost.
Mountain Madness
The Mountain Madness 1996 Everest expedition, led by Scott Fischer, consisted of 19 people, including 8 clients.
Guides
Clients
Sherpas
The Sherpas listed above were the climbing Sherpas hired by Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness expedition. Ngawang Topche was hospitalized in April; he had developed high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) while ferrying supplies above Base Camp. He was not on the mountain during the summit attempt of 10 May. Topche died from his illness in June 1996.
Pete Schoening decided at Base Camp (5,380 m or 17,650 ft) not to make the final push to the summit. The team began the assault on the summit on 6 May, bypassing Camp I (5,944 m or 19,501 ft) and stopping at Camp II (6,500 m or 21,300 ft) for two nights. However, Kruse suffered from altitude sickness and possible high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), and stopped at Camp I. Fischer descended from Camp II and escorted Kruse back to Base Camp for treatment.
On 9 June 1996, three days after Sherpa Ngawang Topche died in hospital from high-altitude pulmonary edema, a private memorial service was held for Scott Fischer attended by the climbers and Sherpas from Mountain Madness at Kiana Lodge, near Seattle, Washington. The Sherpa chanted a Buddhist prayer, Beidleman gifted his late friend's engraved expedition knife to Fischer's two children, and Jeannie Price, Fischer's wife, released a cloud of butterflies.
Taiwanese expedition
"Makalu" Gau Ming-ho led a five-member team to Everest on 10 May 1996.
The previous day (9 May), Taiwanese team member Chen Yu-Nan had died following a fall on the Lhotse Face.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police
Half of the climbing team from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police North Col expedition from India (Subedar Tsewang Samanla, Lance Naik Dorje Morup, and Head Constable Tsewang Paljor) died on the Northeast Ridge.
The plan
Hall and Fischer's plan for their clients to summit Everest on 10 May was to leave Camp IV on the South Col at midnight, to reach the summit of Everest about 12:00 p.m. and to descend, returning to Camp IV at about 6 p.m. The time required for the round trip would be eighteen hours. Hall established a turn-around time of 2:00 p.m. (some sources say 1 p.m) at which time all climbers, wherever they were on the mountain, were required to begin their return to Camp IV. Hall said that his decision to descend was "absolute law, beyond appeal." Fischer does not seem to have established a firm turn-around time. Thirty-three climbers departed Camp IV on 10 May to climb upward toward the Everest summit. Twenty of them consisted of Hall's and Fisher's guides and clients and the rest were Sherpas and the Taiwanese climber Makalu.
All clients and guides, except Boukreev and a few Sherpas, were required to use supplemental oxygen during the climb. Each client would depart Camp IV, elevation 8,000 m (26,000 ft), with two oxygen tanks (weighing 3 kg (6.6 lb) each) which at a moderate rate of flow each would each last six hours. At the South Summit, 8,749 m (28,704 ft), they would discard their first oxygen bottle and use their second oxygen bottle to summit Everest and return to the South Summit where additional oxygen bottles had been pre-positioned by Sherpas for them. They would use a third bottle for the descent to Camp IV. If they ran out of oxygen before reaching Camp IV, they would begin to suffer the impact of oxygen deprivation. Oxygen was waiting for them at Camp IV after they completed their descent. A rest day or two later, they would leave Camp IV and descend to lower altitudes.
Camp IV, at 8,000 m (26,000 ft) elevation, was at the lower edge of the "death zone" where the body and mind quickly deteriorate due to lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. Hall and Fisher did not have enough bottled oxygen to make a second attempt on Everest from Camp IV if the 10 May attempt failed. They would have to descend to lower elevations from Camp IV and either give up the attempt on Everest or resupply.
Timeline
Delays reaching the summit
Shortly after midnight on 10 May 1996, the Adventure Consultants expedition of three guides and eight clients plus Sherpas began a summit attempt from Camp IV, atop the South Col (7,900 m or 25,900 ft). They were joined by six client climbers, three guides, and Sherpas from Scott Fischer's Mountain Madness company, as well as one climber and two Sherpas in an expedition sponsored by the government of Taiwan.
The expeditions quickly encountered delays. The climbing Sherpas and guides had not set the fixed ropes by the time the team reached the Balcony (8,350 m or 27,400 ft), and this cost the climbers almost an hour. The cause of this delay is unclear, in part due to the subsequent death of the expedition leaders.
Upon reaching the Hillary Step (8,760 m or 28,740 ft), the climbers again discovered that no fixed line had been placed, and they were forced to wait 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 (500 ft) of each other, there was a bottleneck at the single fixed line at the Hillary Step. Hutchison, Kasischke, and Taske returned towards Camp IV as they feared they would run out of supplementary oxygen due to the delays.
Climbing without supplemental oxygen, guide Anatoli Boukreev from the Mountain Madness team was the first to reach the summit (8,848 m or 29,029 ft), at 13:07. Many of the climbers had not yet reached the summit by 14:00, the last safe time to turn around to reach Camp IV before nightfall.
Boukreev began his descent to Camp IV at 14:30, having spent nearly 1.5 hours at or near the summit helping others complete the climb. By that time, Hall, Krakauer, Harris, Beidleman, Namba, and Mountain Madness clients Martin Adams and Klev Schoening had reached the summit, and the remaining four Mountain Madness clients had arrived. After this time, Krakauer noted that the weather did not look so benign. At 15:00, snow started to fall, and the light was diminishing.
Hall's Sirdar, Ang Dorje Sherpa, and other climbing Sherpas waited at the summit for the clients. Near 15:00, 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 verbally, but shook his head and pointed upward, toward the summit. When Hall arrived at the scene, the Sherpas offered to take Hansen to the summit, but Hall sent the Sherpas down to assist the other clients, and instructed them to stash oxygen canisters on the route. Hall said he would remain to help Hansen, who had run out of supplementary oxygen.
Scott Fischer did not summit until 15:45. He was exhausted from the ascent and was becoming increasingly ill, possibly suffering from HAPE, HACE, or a combination of both. Others, including Doug Hansen and Makalu Gau, reached the summit even later.
Descent in a blizzard
Boukreev recorded that he reached Camp IV by 17:00. Boukreev's reasons for descending ahead of his clients are disputed. Initially, Boukreev said he was going down with client Martin Adams, but later descended faster and left Adams behind. Boukreev also 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. According to Boukreev, this plan was discussed with and approved by expedition leader Fischer.