Retki-lehden tänään julkaistu uutinen kertoo Samulin huipulle noususta, viimeisistä hetkistä, tapahtumista ennen putoamista ja oikaisee tähän asti liikkeellä olleet osittain virheelliset tiedot.
An article published today by Retki magazine sheds light on Samuli Mansikka’s journey to Annapurna’s summit, his last moments and events before the fall.
The article is only available in finnish. Rough English translation / summary of the events:
Samuli flew to Annapurna BC on the 5th of March. He had aqcuired the Basecamp service from a company called Dreamers Destination which was taking 12 climbers to the Annapurna summit.
The conditions on the mountain were difficult and the amount of snow considerable. On the 17th Samuli tweeted climbing from BC to C2 (5700m) was ”pure hell” because of it.
Samuli left C4 for the summit on the early hours of the 24th of March. He was climbing the mountain as an independent mountaineer like he had done on many other mountains before. He didn’t have a guide or support. He was however climbing with a group of Dreamers Destination clients that day. For a big part of the day Samuli was the first person going up breaking trail in deep snow. Advancing was slow and since the summit wasn’t on sight by 2pm the leader of the Dreamers Destination group decided that the group turns back down.
Based on the information Samuli had gathered by studying photos of the route and interviewing people who had been to the summit he knew it was near. He asked the group to wait for a moment, climbed a bit higher and informed the others that the summit was on sight. Samuli was the first to reach the summit – also all others reached it.
He was also the first one to start making the way back down. It’s unknown if Pemba Sherpa followed Samuli but at some point he caught up with him. No one saw how or in which conditions the fall happened. The Dreamers Destination group detected the victims on their way down – they were lower in roughly 6700 meters. The group made an alert and resque preparations were started. Since no signs of life were detected the resque mission was called off. The bodies are on a mountainside, not on a crevasse.
On the 28th of March Samuli’s good friend and colleague Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies organized a mission (Nepalese government wasn’t involved) to recover the bodies by using a helicopter. The bodies were located and an attempt to reach them by a long-line technique was made. Unfortunately the mission had to be aborted because it was endangering the safety of the resquers. Mountaineers understand the risks that are related to the sport and wouldn’t want others to risk their lives trying to rescue or recover them.
The purpose of this post is to correct the partially misleading information that has been available so far.
