Story highlights
- Six companies have canceled planned expeditions for 2014
- The ice came crashing down in a flash, American climber says
- His Sherpa guide shoved him behind an ice block but did not duck himself
- Selfless Sherpas spent hours taking down bodies on helicopters and cables
To set foot on Mount Everest is to risk death. Mountaineering tourists and their native Nepali guides both have this on their minds, as they straddle cavernous ravines in the ice.
But nothing could have prepared American climber Jon Reiter for last week's avalanche, the deadliest accident in the history of the world's highest peak.
"We've all seen death on the mountains," he told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day" Wednesday. But to see so many limp bodies hanging from cables as helicopters brought them down the mountain shocked him.
Reiter was one of the fortunate ones. His Sherpa guide, Dawa, shoved him behind an ice block when the icy avalanche thundered down, killing 13 Sherpa guides Friday.
Three more Sherpas are missing and feared dead. Buddhist clergy commended all 16 souls Monday in a religious ceremony.
The search for those still missing has been suspended, and it is doubtful it will resume, Nepalese officials said.
'Get down!'
Survivor: 'That could be me' 04:05
Time for change at the top of the world? 01:50
Climbing season dicey after avalanche 01:52
Avalanche struck just before busy season 01:30
"Get down! Get down!" Reiter heard Dawa Sherpa yell before the ice rushed past him.
The moment was like a flash, but Reiter remembers it in detail.
"You're already in the icefall, which is a pretty sketchy place," he said.
The possibility of danger in the shifting and changing ice masses riddled with fissures had his instincts on alert.
"You're crossing ladders and crevasses, and you're pretty aware of your surroundings," he said. Climbers are used to looking out to avoid getting hit by falling ice blocks, he said.
But when the ice avalanche broke loose from the Khumbu Icefall, it sent his mind racing.
"You could see it. I heard it, and I looked up, and I saw it break off the side of a shoulder, and you heard it crash down."
Seconds later, the valley was full of ice boulders; the path up the mountain obscured.
His Sherpa had saved his life.
Then Reiter asked himself: Is anyone under the ice?
Selfless Sherpas
Nearly a third of the group of 50 that had set out up the icefall was missing.
Radios began squawking, and Reiter heard terror in the Sherpas' voices as they spoke.
Dawa Sherpa was still standing.
"He did not dive himself," Reiter said.
Dawa tended to Reiter first. Then, the guide with 24 years of experience embarked on the grimmest task of his career.
"He spent his whole day that day digging his friends out of the snow and hooking them up to cables and flying them down the mountain," Reiter said.
At the end of a 16-hour day, Dawa Sherpa came by Reiter's tent before heading to bed to see if he was all right.
"These are such selfless people," Reiter said.
Emotional rubble
Veteran climber on Everest avalanche 04:16
See youngest to ever climb Mount Everest 01:03
Climber: Avalanche victim was my equal 03:42
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
The journey to the summit of Mount Everest is a challenge an increasing number have taken on since the summit was first reached in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Until the late 1970s, only a handful of climbers per year reached the summit. By 2012 that number rose to more than 500.
Hide Caption
1 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Explorers are seen in 1922 at Camp II on the East Rongbuk Glacier. That same year, seven Sherpas were killed when they were caught in an avalanche during an expedition led by George Mallory.
Hide Caption
2 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
George Mallory and Edward Felix Norton reach 27,000 feet on the northeast ridge of Everest in 1922. They failed to reach the summit.
Hide Caption
3 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Mallory returns to Everest In June 1924. He's seen here with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine at base camp. This is the last photo of the the two before they disappeared on the mountain. Mallory's body was found 75 years later, showing signs of a fatal fall.
Hide Caption
4 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Mountaineers are seen preparing to leave their camp during one of Eric Shipton's early expeditions on Everest in the 1930s. While Shipton never made it to the summit, his exploration of the mountain paved the way for others.
Hide Caption
5 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Shipton leads an expedition exploring the Khumbu Glacier icefall in November 1951.
Hide Caption
6 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Shipton is also known for discovering and photographing footprints of an unknown animal or person, like this one taken in 1951. Many attributed these to the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman.
Hide Caption
7 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Edmund Hillary sits at base camp in May 1953 before heading out on what would become the first successful ascent to the top of the world.
Hide Caption
8 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Hillary and Nepalese-Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay climb beyond a crevasse on Mount Everest in 1953. Upon meeting George Lowe, who had climbed up to meet the descending duo, Hillary reportedly exclaimed, "Well George, we knocked the bastard off!"
Hide Caption
9 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Members of a U.S. expedition team and Sherpas are shown with their climbing gear on Everest. The team, led by Jim Whittaker, reached the top on May 1, 1963, becoming the first Americans to do so.
Hide Caption
10 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Whittaker's team members climb Everest's West Ridge in 1963.
Hide Caption
11 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
On April 5, 1970, six Sherpas died in an avalanche at the Khumbu Icefall. The icefall, at the head of the Khumbu Glacier, seen here in 2003, is one of the more treacherous areas of the ascent.
Hide Caption
12 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
British Army soldiers and mountaineers John "Brummie" Stokes and Michael "Bronco" Lane above the icefall at the entrance to the West Col (or western pass) of Mount Everest during their successful ascent of the mountain. The joint British-Nepalese army expedition reached the summit on May 16, 1976.
Hide Caption
13 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
In 1978, Reinhold Messner makes the first ascent without supplemental oxygen. Messner is seen here at Munich Airport showing reporters his frozen thumb after climbing to the top of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, alone and without an oxygen mask.
Hide Caption
14 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
French climber Jean-Marc Boivin becomes the first person to paraglide from Everest's summit in September 1998.
Hide Caption
15 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
The 1996 climbing season was one of the deadliest, when 15 people died on Everest, eight in a single storm in May of that year.
Hide Caption
16 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Francys Distefano-Arsentiev became the first American woman to reach Everest's summit without bottled oxygen on May 23, 1998. However, she and her husband, Sergei Arsentiev, never made it off the mountain. They died after becoming separated while attempting to descend in the dark. At least one climbing party found Francys barely conscious, but there was nothing they could do to save her. Her husband's body was found years later. It is believed he fell while trying to save his wife.
Hide Caption
17 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Pemba Dorje Sherpa and Moni Mulepati became the first people to get married on Everest's summit, on March 30, 2005. The couple are seen here waving from base camp on June 2, 2005.
Hide Caption
18 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Sherpa climbers pose at Everest Base Camp after collecting garbage during the Everest cleanup expedition on May 28, 2010. A group of 20 Nepalese climbers collected nearly two tons of garbage in a high-risk expedition to clean up the world's highest peak.
Hide Caption
19 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Mountaineer Ralf Dujmovits took this image of a long line of climbers heading up Everest in May 2012.
Hide Caption
20 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Jordan Romero became the youngest person to reach the summit, at age 13, on May 22, 2013. Jordan, right, is seen here on the summit with one of the Sherpas who helped him make the ascent.
Hide Caption
21 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Yuichiro Miura, became the oldest person to summit Everest, on May 23, 2013, at the age of 80.
Hide Caption
22 of 23
Photos: Exploring Mount Everest
Malavath Poorna, left, holds up her national flag on May 24, when the 13-year-old daughter of poor Indian farmers became the youngest girl to climb Everest.
Hide Caption
23 of 23
The mountaineering group milled around base camp Wednesday with a lot on their minds -- especially the families of the Sherpas who died.
"All those kids, whose dads aren't coming home," he said.
Many Sherpas left the camp to attend funerals and bury their dead friends. Most did not return, but Dawa came back to talk to Reiter.
He told the American climber that he wanted to stand by his side but that he could not continue. "Jon, I just can't go back up that hill" were his words, Reiter said.
Death has climbers taking inner inventory, Reiter said. "Thinking, reassessing life, reassessing our values."
Lifeblood
But as the mountain can be deadly for the ethnic group indigenous to the cold peaks of the Himalayas, it is also the Sherpas' lifeblood.
Leading expeditions is how they feed their families. For many, the guides are the only breadwinners.
Ngima Sherpa, 26, for example, supported his three younger siblings and mother from the money he made taking foreign nationals around the mountain.
He was among the 13 dead whose bodies were taken around Kathmandu in a funeral procession Monday.
Ultimately, the guides may decide to forge ahead, but they may be out of business already. "The major expeditions pulled the plug," Reiter said. He predicted Everest would close to climbers this year.
At least six companies that lead Everest expeditions have called off their 2014 climbs.
Emily Turner, a spokeswoman for Alpine Glow in California told CNN: "This is completely unique. Nothing like this (number of cancellations) has ever happened."
And peak season is just beginning. Between May 15 and 30 is usually the best window for reaching the peak.
Foreign climbers spend between $40,000 and $90,000 each in their attempt to scale the mountain.
Nepal's government rakes in about $3 million from Everest climbers during the high season.
Sherpas make up to $6,000 per season. They also usually get a summit bonus if their clients reach the top of the 8,848-meter (29,029-foot) mountain.
Now they want to be paid in full even if the climbs are abandoned.
Mounting deaths
The mountain guides are not looking to quit their work, but they feel more is due to them for the risk they take.
They want to know that they're covered if something like this happens to them. They want higher life insurance payouts.
"It's overdue," Reiter said. Climbers want to see the Sherpas' demands met.
Until the late 1970s, only a handful of climbers reached the top each year. The number topped 100 for the first time in 1993. By 2004, it was more than 300. In 2012, the number was more than 500.
The deadliest year on Everest was 1996, when 15 people died. Another 12 climbers were killed in 2006.
Reiter doesn't think any of the climbers at the base camp would be able to reach the top of Everest this year.
The focus it takes to survive, he said, is gone.
