Fay manners
Fay Manners (right) climbed Chaukhamba Mountain with her climbing partner Michelle Dvorak (left)
A British mountaineer who went missing in the Himalayas has spoken of her relief after surviving two days in “brutal” conditions that left her life threatening.
Fay Manners, from Bedfordshire, and her climbing partner, Michelle Dvorak, from the United States, became stranded on Chaukhamba Mountain in northern India when the rope lifting their food, tent and their climbing gear broke, leaving them without provisions.
The two men sent an emergency message from more than 20,000 feet (6,096 m), but search and rescue teams were initially unable to find them.
Ms Manners told the BBC the two men were “terrified” as they attempted to do part of the descent alone, before being met by rescuers.
Reuters
Fay Manners (centre) said she cried when she was found by her rescuers
Ms. Manners is a mountaineer, a climber specializing in difficult climbs, and now lives in Chamonix, France.
After a rock cut the rope used to carry the two men's bags, Ms Manners said she felt “desperate”.
“I saw the bag rolling down the mountain and immediately understood the consequences of what was going to happen,” she said.
“We no longer had any safety equipment. No tent. No stove to melt the snow for water. No warm clothes for the evening. Our ice axes and crampons for the return to base camp.
“No headlamp to move around at night.”
The two men were able to send a text message to emergency services, triggering a search and rescue operation.
Reuters
A helicopter had made several attempts to find the stranded women, but weather conditions were poor.
The women took shelter on a ledge as it began to snow, sharing the only sleeping bag they had.
“I felt hypothermic, I was shaking constantly and with the lack of food my body lacked the energy to keep warm,” Ms Manners said.
The next morning, a helicopter came to pick up the two men, but was unable to locate them – meaning they had to spend another 24 hours on the mountain.
“They tried to rescue us, but the conditions were brutal for the company. Bad weather, fog, high altitude and they couldn't find us because the face was so vast,” she explained.
Fay manners
Fay Manners provided an image showing the approach from base camp to the start of the course
After successfully rappelling down until the ice melted, the two women managed to collect water in their bottles.
Ms Manners said they “barely survived” the afternoon storm and the second night in the cold, with no food and only a little water.
“The helicopter flew by again, it couldn't see us. We were destroyed,” she said.
“We knew we had to try to get down ourselves because the helicopter wasn’t going to help us.”
On the second morning, they began rappelling carefully down the rocky outcrop, aware that their weak condition could lead to mistakes.
Fay manners
In the early stages of the climb, the duo had taken photos demonstrating the difficult terrain they had to navigate.
That's when they spotted a team of French climbers heading their way, rescuers who had heard about their plight from mutual friends.
They shared their equipment, food and sleeping bags with the women and contacted the helicopter to tell them the exact location of help.
Ms Manners said: “I cried with relief knowing we could survive.
“They helped us cross the steep glacier, which would have been impossible without our equipment, crampons and ice axes.
“Either we would have frozen to death or we would have attempted to cross the steep glaciers without the right equipment and would have slipped at our peril.
“Or maybe the helicopter would have finally found us?”
Fay manners
Climbers used ropes to lift their supplies in steep situations where it was not ideal to carry them on their backs.
In 2022, Ms. Manners was the first woman to complete the ascent of the Phantom Direct route on the south face of the Grands Jorasses on Mont Blanc.
She has also successfully climbed peaks in Pakistan and Greenland over the past year.
Ms Manners described her ambition to inspire women to take an interest in mountaineering and take up mountaineering as a hobby.
She said the incident that cut the rope “was unfortunate and very rare.”
“We were very successful in surviving and retreating the way we did,” Ms Manners added.
She said she felt “exhausted, mentally destroyed and too tired to the point that I can't sleep.”
Now the pair said they plan to eat some local Indian food before they can catch a flight home to their loved ones.
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “We are supporting the family of a British woman who went missing in India and has since been safely rescued. »
