Arjun Vajpai was sitting inside a tent pitched at a dizzying height of nearly 19,000 feet on Nepal’s Mount Makalu on April 25 when he felt something was wrong.
“At first I thought I was suffering from altitude sickness and feeling dizzy, but then the chairs started shaking. Then we heard the ice crack,” said the 21-year-old mountaineer.
Everything changed after he and his group stepped out of the tent.
“The mountains were dancing in front of our eyes. Massive chunks of snow were falling around us. When you see a 25-km wide mountain shake, what can you do?” he said on Tuesday upon returning home to Noida.
The Nepal Army used its MI-17 helicopter to rescue climbers from Makalu’s base camp at about 15,000 feet on Sunday. An Indian Army aircraft got Arjun from Kathmandu to Chandigarh, from where he travelled by road to Noida on Tuesday.
About 60 climbers were on Makalu, the fifth highest peak in the world, when an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale hit Nepal on April 25. Over 7,000 people lost their lives and tens of thousands have been rendered homeless.
With just over 200 km separating it from the epicentre of the quake in Barpak, Makalu and other mountains in the range experienced huge avalanches and cracks. Over a dozen climbers lost their lives on Everest, which is 19 km away from Makalu, and the tremors even shrank the mighty mountain by five cm.
Arjun, one of the youngest Indians to climb Everest, was attempting to scale the 27,766 feet tall Makalu for the third time. His previous attempts in 2013 and 2014 had to be abandoned to due to bad conditions.
“This time I was really hoping to summit. We take such big dreams to the mountains, but we realise how small we really are,” he said.
Though Arjun and his group are safe, albeit rattled, they decided to stay on Makalu and help other climbers who were stuck either on their way up or down from the base camp.
“It took us 12 hours to get in touch with other climbers and make sure they were safe. Though some climbers were in shock, it was a time to act not be scared.”
Carrying out the rescue operations and staying awake all day in case an avalanche hit, the climbers stayed at the high base camp till April 30. They descended to the Hillary base camp to make evacuation easier. They were finally airlifted on Sunday, after two failed rescue attempts.
Now back home, Arjun says he’s looking forward to some much-needed sleep. But he plans on going back.
“My heart is in Nepal. I will go back to help with the rehabilitation work. There’s a lot to be done with the monsoon approaching. People need shelter and food,” he said.
Arjun said he plans on going back to Makalu within the year.
“It’s as if the mountain is testing me, so I have to go back. Makalu is more than a mountain to me now,” he said.
His parents, however, are in no hurry.
“I was scared throughout, but we get our strength from him. He was confident of his training and kept in touch with us through satellite phones,” said his mother Priya Vajpai.
On whether this experience will change anything, Ms. Vajpai says it was unlikely. “I have asked him many times to do something else with his life, but he says he would like to sign up for the Mars mission. So I’d rather have him climb mountains. Besides, it’s better than going to pubs like others his age,” she said.