Real Survival Stories - Dash to the Summit: Avalanche Approaching…

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

In remotest India, one moment of misfortune sees a daring adventure snowball into an epic escape. A group of professional mountaineers set out to ascend Panchachuli V, an unclimbed Himalayan peak. But in whiteout conditions the treacherous, adrenalising descent will nearly cost Stephen Venables his life… A Noiser production, written by Joe Viner. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of junior chicken, McDouble, or chicken snack wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. It's June the 24th, 1992. The dead of night.

High in the Indian Himalayas, near the Nepalese border. Darkness cloaks the mountains. Six thousand meters up, perched atop a glacier, three small tents are buffeted by a freezing wind. In one of them, 38-year-old Stephen Venables twitches and groans in a fitful sleep. His broken legs, bandaged and splinted, protrude from his sleeping bag. Around the dressing on his right knee, the flesh is swollen and mottled with blood. Another gust claws the fabric of Stephen's tent and the two empty tents that stand next to his. Just a few hours ago, they were occupied by his friends. Friends who are now risking their necks to go in search of food.

There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink, apart from melted snow after the first day. And so we were fighting this aching pain and this awful, gnawing hunger pangs. By the night of the third day after the accident, Victor and Dick said, well, we'll go down now because we can't stay here much longer without food. All alone, Stephen tosses and turns. In the distance, the rumbles of far-off avalanches. But then suddenly, the crack and crumpling of countless tons of snow is much louder and much closer than before. Stephen's eyes snap open as a thunderous roar echoes around the valley.

Shortly before dawn, I was woken by this appalling noise. It was like a skyscraper collapsing above me in the night, falling masonry. I thought, oh God, it's an avalanche. Where's it coming from? I thought it was about to be demolished. Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice?

Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives. In this episode, we meet mountaineer Stephen Venables. In June of 1992, just days before their return to Britain, he and his colleagues decide to make a daring dash to the summit of Panchachuli 5. For Stephen, it's a chance to realize his ultimate ambition to conquer an unclimbed Himalayan peak.

But as conditions deteriorate rapidly, the attempt will nearly cost him his life. Falling in the darkness, I assumed that I was falling to my death. I couldn't imagine any other outcome. Sooner or later, I'd hit something so hard that I'd be killed. Incredibly, he'll survive the fall. But stranded in a remote mountain range that is literally crumbling around him,

his ordeal will be far from over. I am John Hopkins from Noisa. This is Real Survival Stories. It's late spring, 1992. Six mountaineers pick their way along a Himalayan ridge. Silhouetted against a cobalt blue sky, Six mountaineers pick their way along a Himalayan ridge. Silhouetted against a cobalt blue sky, their movements are deft, expert. Beneath their crampons, glittering shards of ice burst and scatter in the breeze. Among them is 38-year-old Stephen.

He's tall and rangy, with quick, intelligent eyes darting behind round spectacles. As a professional climber, he makes his living writing books and articles and giving lectures about his high-altitude exploits. Four years ago, he became the first Briton to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. But despite his many accomplishments, the thrill never dims. You're doing something which is as close as I'll ever get to dancing in a vertical landscape. You're going to some of the most beautiful places on Earth. You're setting off on great adventures, setting yourself projects full of uncertainty and suspense with very little certainty of the outcome. Every summit he stands on feels like the first.

Nevertheless, being the first to stand on a summit is still the ultimate buzz. There's also an undeniable element of ambition. That mountain's never been climbed before. Wouldn't it be nice to be the first to stand on that summit? A sense of going into the unknown, I think that's a big part of it. And I've always felt if you're going to make that kind of effort, well, why follow in someone else's steps?

Why not go somewhere new? Something entirely new is precisely what Stephen is aiming for here in the Himalayas. He's part of a joint British-Indian expedition. entirely new is precisely what Stephen is aiming for here in the Himalayas. He's part of a joint British-Indian expedition. Their remit is to explore the Pantachuli Mountains, a row of five peaks rising above 6,000 meters and connected by a jagged ridge. The team of 12 is led by two of the world's foremost alpinists, Chris Bonington and Harish Kapadia. With funding from the British Mountaineering Council, they have two months to explore the area, to go wherever mood and ambition takes them. But this expedition is different. It's Stephen's first since becoming a father. When you set off on a Himalayan

expedition, I think there's always at the back of your mind that worrying feeling I might not actually come back. I did find in the spring of 1992 the fact that I had this young child made that feeling much stronger,

much more nagging, much more persistent and it was quite a wrench setting off. And the moment when the car came to collect me to take me to Heathrow, setting off from the front door, seeing my wife Rosie and baby son Ollie wave goodbye, it was very hard. Life is about taking risks. You don't take risks.

What's the point of being alive? Clinging to life, trying to live as long as you possibly can seemed to me pointless. So I accepted the notion of risk, even the notion that I might get killed. In actual fact, when you're there, you think it won't happen to me.

I'll be okay. I'll get through this. I'll be lucky. I'll't happen to me I'll be okay I'll get through this I'll be lucky I'll make myself lucky I'll be careful I'll climb really well I'll use all that skill and experience I've amassed to make sure I don't die but you know at the back of your mind no amount of skill or preparation or caution can alter the fact that accidents happen. They usually happen when you're not expecting them. And there is an element of luck that you can do nothing about. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada.

Reach greatadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from libsyn ads choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with libsyn ads email bob at libsyn.com to learn more that's bob at l-i-b-s-y-yn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. It's mid-June. Panchachuli Base Camp. Stephen and some of his fellow climbers, including Victor Saunders and Dick Renshaw,

sit around a campfire. Two months in, and the expedition has been a resounding success. They've explored new routes to several summits, including the first ever traverse of a previously untouched ridge. Now, it's almost time to go home. While his companions chat away, Stephen's gaze drifts to the towering peaks across the valley,

capped with pristine virgin snow. Of the five Pantachuli Mountains, three have never been summited. Pantachuli III, IV, and V. It's almost as if the others can read his mind. It's that point, Harish said, well, we've got a little bit of time left. Why don't we go and explore that other valley and we can maybe have a look at the unclimbed Chachchoune peaks.

There was no doubt in my mind that to go up into this completely unexplored valley, possibly to even have an attempt at one of the 21,000 foot high summits at the head of that valley would be a fantastic conclusion to the expedition. And then I'd go home totally satisfied and satiated. With a thrilling new objective in their crosshairs, the team are soon trekking through a variable landscape of grassy shrubland and dense pine forest. We were heading up a valley very few people have been up, walking through wonderful forests, climbing up through meadows filled with flowers, coming out onto high glasses, seeing these dazzling Himalayan peaks, saying,

should we climb that one or should we climb that one? And just getting caught up in the beauty and excitement of it. After three days, they reach the upper valley, emerging into a glade of birch trees. It's an idyllic spot. Sunbathing in the grass, identifying wildflowers, washing in the babbling stream, they're almost tempted to end the expedition right here.

Almost. Then the clouds cleared and you could see these high white pyramids of previously untouched peaks above a whole glacier system which had never been explored. I thought it would be a terrible regret to go home and not at least have had a try. There are now eight climbers left in the team, with four having already gone home.

Stephen is one of four Brits, along with Dick, Victor and Chris. Of the Indian climbers, three remain. Arish, Muslim and Monish. There's also one American, Steve Sustad. They begin discussing which of the peaks they'd most like to attempt. There's also one American, Steve Sustat. They begin discussing which of the peaks they'd most like to attempt. But it's at this point that Harish and the other Indian guys make an announcement.

After two months of hard climbing and trekking, they're happy to call it a day. Harish announced very firmly that he and Muslim and Monash did not feel able or didn't want to attempt the very highest peaks. We rather greedy, ambitious Brits thought we'd like to climb one of the three big, unclimbed summits. Chris was slightly in two minds because he was 20 years older than us. He was quite tired. He'd only just descended from a big peak himself, but i think he couldn't resist the lure of the unknown the lure of the unknown an intoxicating siren call to put your skills to the ultimate test

when asked why he wanted to climb mount everest in 1924, George Mallory simply replied, because it's there. Mallory died before reaching the summit. He was one year younger than Stephen is now. July is fast approaching. The rising temperatures mean snow bridges softening, glaciers cracking, and ice walls collapsing. But Stephen and the others decide to give it a go, regardless. Later that afternoon they agree on their target, the highest and most remote

of the three unclimbed mountains, the colossal Pantachuli V. The following morning, Monday, June 17, the team set off into the pre-dawn darkness. With their return to the UK just a week away, they only have five days to get up and down. That means moving fast and light. We were all aware that we were pushing things quite fine. It was now the third week of June. It was approaching midsummer. The monsoon was approaching from southern India.

When the monsoon comes, everything gets warmer and wetter and less and less stable. They make quick work of the trek up the glacier. But soon they're picking their way over an icefall, a steep section of huge, jagged ice blocks. The snow underfoot is soft and slushy, but thick enough to conceal deep crevasses. For two full days, they painstakingly proceed

to the foot of Panchachuli 5. As they go, icicles drip like metronomes. Cornices collapse beneath their own weight. It's as if the mountain is crumbling around them. Just before dawn on Wednesday, an argument breaks out. The most experienced climber, 58-year-old expedition leader Chris Bonington, has had a change of heart. Chris expressed severe reservations and thought perhaps actually we should go back down. And there was a lot of talk of putting heads in nooses, of getting ourselves in a trap.

And my feeling was that, yes, this is quite risky, but this is what we do. We do risky things. We're mountaineers. We've done many risky things in the past. We were a big team, five people, a very strong team. I didn't think things were out of control. I was getting actually quite cross with Chris. I felt, look Chris, this is a bit rich coming from you. You've done some really necky things when you were young. You did some incredibly

bold things and you were very pushy. And here you are now, I called him the elder statesman, the senior member of the party. Here you are now that i called him the elder statesman the senior member of the party here you are now suddenly becoming all sensible and old and wise telling us we shouldn't push too hard eventually chris backs down for the time being the five climbers continue to the head of the glacier. They're approaching 19,000 feet when the terrain steepens, merging with the mountain proper. They unharness their ice tools and begin clambering up the 50-degree slope in silence. By early afternoon, they've reached a sheltered col, a place to rest in the curve of the summit ridge. Chris arrives last, noticeably slower than the four younger men.

But when he does, he and Stephen are both apologetic and quickly make up. And then several hours later, he arrived at the notch we were preparing the camp. And to his eternal credit, Chris just sort of put his arms around me and we both bled i'm sorry and nothing more was said again about the about the route tomorrow they'll climb to the pinnacle of panchachuli 5. as tea brews on the sputtering gas stoves, the climbers smoke the last of their tobacco. Then with dusk approaching, Chris makes a sudden announcement. Chris suddenly announced, I'm not coming to the summit with you lot. I'll slow you up. We bet you're going really well as a team, the four of you. I'll wait here. I'll try not to eat any of the food.

There's not much left. And why don't you four just go for it without me? And I thought, what a very magnanimous gesture that was. In the early hours, the four other climbers leave Chris at camp and press on towards the summit. They soon come to a buttress, a vertical rock tower streaked with runnels of ice. It rises to 200 meters. As they prepare their first pitch, the sun bathes the mountain in honeyed morning light.

The skies are clear and conditions look good the climbers scale the buttress successfully they now face what appears to be a simple walk straight to the summit one final stretch along the snow-covered ridge line in fact it wasn't straightforward because it was a thin crust of rather dodgy snow lying on top of hard brittle ice which means actually it's very painstaking and slow and you're moving one at a time and so we continued up this ridge and it was just very very slow the four men creep forwards tiptoeing on the points of their crampons. Their progress slows to a crawl. Clouds begin massing overhead.

Hard, icy pellets whip around their helmets, caught in swirling eddies. At this rate, they're going to be climbing down in the dark. But they can't turn back now, not when they're so close. And it was actually five minutes past three in the afternoon, our cut-off point, when I arrived last in the summit to find the other three waiting there, shook hands, and was utterly thrilled we'd made the first ascent of Pancha Chuli 5.

Snatched it on the last day of the expedition. But there's no time to savor the moment. After just five minutes, the climbers turn their attention to the snaking ridge below them. The real challenge still lies ahead, the most dangerous part of many a climb, the descent. Stephen, Dick, Victor and Steve retrace their steps along the ridge.

The shrieking wind tears at their clothes. Stephen squints at his watch, 4 p.m. They still have a few more hours of daylight, but visibility is already near zero. May as well be dark. It was June the 20th, midsummer's eve, and we were actually supposed to be back at base camp the next day on the 21st of June. We had a long way to get back down.

It was snowing, we were in near whiteout conditions, and we were descending this long, long, tricky ridge, and we knew it was going to be a hard, hard struggle. It's after nightfall by the time they arrive back at the buttress they scaled so easily that morning. Stephen gazes down the vertical rock face. The beam of his headlamp glints off the swirling snow before disappearing into the inky black. The exhausted climbers screw in their anchors and take turns descending into the abyss. By 2.30 a.m., they're over halfway down and about to begin their penultimate abseil. Dick goes first, then Steve Sustat.

I remember Victor went down third and we were standing there in the dark shivering and stamping and banging our arms together and I actually said to Victor, God, this is bloody cock. I'm so glad we did it. I'm so glad we made the effort. We actually did it. Victor just shone his head torch in my face and said, yes, we're not down yet. And then he disappeared down the ropes. Stephen is left alone at the anchor point. After what feels like an age, Victor shouts the signal to come down.

Stephen threads his brake line and detaches his safety clip. Then he removes the backup anchor, tugging the peg from the crack in the granite and slipping it into his pocket. Generally, once the main anchor has been thoroughly tested, you remove the backups because you're going to need this gear lower down. So now I'm relying solely on the principal anchor, which has been thoroughly tested by three other people. Stephen eases himself backwards over the precipice. As the last man down, compared to his colleagues,

he is in a uniquely precarious position. So there's this terrible feeling of vulnerability as you're there in the dark, legs braced apart, leaning out backwards over the void. And because of that fear of the failure of an anchor, you usually put in a backup. However, you have to conserve the gear you've got. With his cramponed feet planted against the ice, the rope tightens. He feeds some slack through his harness loop, letting gravity guide him down. After 20 feet, he's about to feed more rope

when he feels a horrendous lurch. All of a sudden, he's floating in midair. The weird thing was that I didn't first quite realise that it was happening. It seemed to all happen in reverse. One minute I was flying backwards through space and then almost afterwards I was feeling the jolt and hearing this awful sort of ping and I could actually hear it,

a steel peg pulling out from the crack that it had been hammered into. This awful, mocking ping. And then this realisation, this is the big one. This is it. This is the ultimate nightmare. Stephen plummets through the darkness. I just became aware of this terrible, terrible noise, of this sort of thumping and pounding of my body just being flung against rocks.

Flung up in the air, and somersaults and backwards, sideways, rolling, and the metallic clashing of crampons and ice axes and equipment banging against rocks. And it just is terrible, violent cacophony of noise and violence that just seemed to get worse and worse and worse. And it seemed to go on for a terribly long time. And I thought, this is it, I'm dying, this is death. I felt a terrible sense of helplessness,

but not really fear. The worst sort of random images from my life, flashing past, definitely momentary images of Rosie and Ollie. The actual moment of dying was not full of terror, of regret, of course, yeah, of guilt. Gosh, I left this poor little child without a father. But also a strange sort of acceptance has finally happened. Dangling in the darkness, partway down the buttress, Victor, Dick and Steve Susted stare in disbelief as something hurtles past them. It takes them a second to realize that he's Steven one minute there was this terrible noise

and violence and then it stopped and I don't remember the moment of its stopping that has been totally erased so I went suddenly from pulverizing noise and violence to terrible silence and opening my eyes and seeing light, dim, grey light of a murky dawn and dimly realizing, God, I'm alive. Why?

It ought to be a joyous surprise that I survived. But it wasn't like that at all. I felt desolate, forlorn, abandoned and overwhelmed by guilt. It took a long time to work out what had happened exactly because I couldn't understand why I was alive. It took a long time to work out what had happened exactly, because I couldn't understand why I was alive. Stephen has landed towards the foot of the buttress, but he's tangled in his ropes, which are straining under his weight.

Something seems to have stopped his fall below him is another 300 meter incline down to the glacier he twists his neck and stares back up the mountain slowly i worked out that i was suspended on the ropes, which were pulling tightly on my harness, and they disappeared up above me. And I couldn't hear the others. There was no sound of them. I thought, my God, has everyone been pulled off? Are they all dead? Am I alone? He calls up into the darkness. And then, in the fleeting gaps between gusts of wind, he hears voices echoing through the gloom. Amazingly, they'd managed to grab the ends of the ropes as I went crashing past in the darkness.

And they'd managed to hold on to the ends of the ropes. So I'd fallen about 40 metres down to them and then gone about another 40 metres, and then the ropes had come tight, so I hadn't gone all the way down into the glacier bowl. So I was basically hanging near the top of this steep 50-degree snow ice slope. As the shock subsides, the pain comes into sharper focus.

His colleague's quick thinking has saved his life, but he's still bashed his way down a sheer mountain wall. The fact that he can still move tells him his spine is intact. His neck feels sore, but not broken. He suspects he's busted some ribs but maybe that's the worst of it and then I thought well not now what about the legs and I reached down to my right leg and and there's this great bloody hole on the side of my right knee with blood pouring out and and bone showing and when I tried to move my right it was excruciating pain shooting up the leg.

The knee was clearly badly damaged and the leg was completely useless. So I thought, oh, well, I'll stand up on my left leg. And then when I tried to stand on my left leg, the ankle wasn't working properly. So I thought, oh, two broken legs, that's not ideal in a situation like this. Stephen manages to carve out a small hollow in the snow.

He hauls himself into it. He lies on his back, blood gushing from his right knee. Sometime later, Victor descends to the foot of the buttress and makes his way over. The first thing I said to him as he got to me, I said rather pathetically, feeling very sorry about myself, if I don't get out of this, will you say sorry to Rosie?

And he said, of course we're going to get you out of here. What nonsense, you'll be fine. Stephen grits his teeth as Victor dresses the wound and straightens his snapped bone against a makeshift splint. Soon Dick and Steve join them. They agree that carrying Stephen all the way down the valley isn't going to be an option.

It's a three-day trek to the nearest village. So they decide that Dick and Victor should lower Stephen the remaining 300 meters back to the relative safety of the glacier. In the meantime, Steve Sustert will traverse back along the ice slope to where Chris Bonington is waiting for them. With the plan settled, Stephen braces himself. Once we got this all organised, I said, well, we'd better get started.

I knew it was going to hurt. And I did actually, at one stage, I thought, this is going to hurt. But be brave. Other people have done things like this. Just be brave. So we started. And Victor and Dick took turns to lower me. Two 50-meter ropes tied together.

So a total of 100 metres lower at a time. And it was exhausting. Dick and Victor work tirelessly, without complaint, grunting and heaving at the ropes. Hours are measured in inches as the morning grinds on. I had to keep bracing myself with the moderately good leg, kicking in with my broken ankle to try and steer myself while they alerted me, and trying to avoid bashing the bad leg.

The slightest little bump, it would bash against the bad leg, and excruciating pain would go shooting up through the knee. Twelve hours after the accident, over 24 hours since they set off for the summit, the three climbers finally arrive at the head of the glacier. The gradient is gentler here. Steve Sustad arrives soon after with the gear, alongside Chris. As the expedition leader, he had warned against this risky ascent, but there's no trace of scorn. Behind his wiry grey beard, the veteran's face is a picture of fatherly concern. Chris drops to a knee and hands Stephen a flask of hot sweet tea.

He handed me this plastic litre water bottle full of hot, sweet chai. Indian chai, you know, tea, milk and lots of sugar all boiled up, red hot. And bearing in mind, in the last 24 hours, all we'd had was one litre of water between the four of us and a bar of chocolate. That was just wonderful. And you could just feel this warmth coursing through and and just feel the calories and the sugar and the milk it's just wonderful stephen is wrapped up and laid down inside a tent but safety is still a long way off

we were in a very, very serious predicament. Here we were, almost 6,000 metres above sea level, someone with very serious injuries who couldn't walk. And below us were the three huge icefalls we climbed up through three days earlier, which every day were decaying and falling to pieces as the weather got warmer as the monsoon approached we were down to our last few bits of food i think we had two gas cylinders left for melting snow and we were a very very long way from help. They quickly formulate another plan.

Initially Dick and Victor will stay put with Stephen. In the morning Chris and Steve Sustad will make the three-day trek to the village of Munsiari down in the valley. They'll try to organize a rescue. Steve will then climb back up to the glacier with a package of fresh supplies for Dick and Victor to come and collect. Of course, Stephen needs more than just food and water. They have stemmed the bleeding for now, but the longer he goes without proper medical attention, the greater the risk of infection. And all the while, the monsoon is getting closer.

With the ice falls and snow bridges crumbling, time is running out. June the 22nd, almost two days since the accident. Stephen lies on his back, staring up at the inside of his tent. Outside, he can hear Victor and Dick burning the last of their gas to melt snow. And yet, in spite of everything, he feels strangely optimistic. His years of mountaineering have taught him to trust in the abilities of his teammates. Now, of course, intellectually, I knew we were in a very dangerous situation. It's very precarious.

And I was at a lot of risk because I had an open fracture and no antibiotics. And, you know, I was at the risk of losing my leg, probably. But I was incredibly confident about the amazing people I was with. Eventually, day turns to night. Stephen must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he wakes, it's morning. A grey dawn, ushering in another identical day. The hours drag on and on. At least the pain is proving manageable, as long as he lies still.

By the end of the second day, though, they're all feeling the strain. They've completely run out of food, and they're down to the dregs of the last gas cylinder. It's dark now, but Victor and Dick decide there's nothing else for it. They're going to head down to see if the food parcel has been dropped off at the bottom of the glacier their footsteps recede into the wind stephen is alone a few hours later he's woken by a terrifying sound shortly before dawn i was woken by this appalling noise it's like it's like sort of a skyscraper collapsing above me in the night,

falling masonry. I thought, oh, God, it's an avalanche. Where's it coming from? Stephen sits bolt upright. His impulse is to stand and run. But, of course, he can't. All he can do is sit there, praying the avalanche misses him. That must have been close.

It sounds like it passed just below him. Right where his friends are climbing back up the glacier with his supplies. When the tent flap unzips an hour later and Victor's face appears, frost clinging to his beard in clumps, Stephen finds out exactly how close they all came to disaster. They got the food, and it's taken all night to get down and get back

and dick just said it was horrible it was horrible i never want to have to do that every game and and as they came back up this avalanche had swept right across their path they waited for it they then made their way through all these blocks of ice and debris and piles of snow. And just after they got through, the second big avalanche came down. So it had been a very narrow escape. And it was only then I realized, you know, God, this was actually very dangerous. And we were very, very lucky.

They now have a fresh stock of food and gas, and that's not the only good news. They also have a note from Steve Sustad telling them that help is on the way. He also said, Chris left for Munciari hoping to organise a helicopter. So, you know, that meant we knew they'd got down safely chris had gone back down to win cra they were trying to organize something so so really you know we were now feeling

quite confident that at any rate someone was going to come and help us which is a great feeling it's now the morning of June the 24th, four days since the accident. Stephen, Victor and Dick are enjoying a meal of potatoes and onions when a low, distant humming drifts into earshot. While we were having our glorious breakfast, we heard something, we thought, is it an avalanche? I think it might be a helicopter, is think it is a helicopter and then it disappeared and then later so early afternoon I think then we heard it again thought yes

it's coming closer it's a helicopter yes it is a helicopter and amazing it was just a flurry of activity a small Indian army helicopter jerkily makes its way up skimming over the glacier dick and victor jump to their feet they wave their arms but there's no need the chopper has seen them and then it came closer and closer and closer and then finally this helicopter came right towards us it was obviously there's no winch and i thought bloody hell i have to get into this thing how the hell am i supposed to do that excitement turns to concern how will they get steven in without a winch and a harness the pilots have already defied the odds and the aircraft's operating altitude by making it this high somehow through the, they've located the climbers on their frozen perch. But now, they have to land.

You can actually see the faces of the two pilots inside the little sort of perspex dome at the front of this little Cheetah helicopter. A tiny, precariouslooking little thing. And then one of them was gesticulating with his arms, and I thought he was saying, can't do it, no good. And then the others realised what he meant was, put the tents down, because they'll get in the way. And what they were going to do was try and land on the tent ledge. Dick and Victor clear away the tents. For the next 30 minutes, the pilots attempt to land.

Again and again, their rotor blades scythe dangerously close to the icy slope. They come in for one final attempt. They'd come in and then they'd back off and they'd come in again and eventually got it in and they edged one of the two skids right onto the lip of this snow ledge. And then just held it there with this terrible noise of rotor blades and this sort of blast of hot aviation fumes filling the air. And eventually they flung open the little door side door and said get in how am i supposed to do that with the aircraft balanced precariously on one ski propellers still whirring it's now or never victor and dick grab step Stephen and drag him towards the chopper. I'm trying to pull myself backwards into the helicopter, and the whole of my torso is still incredibly painful from the accident. And at one point I thought, I just can't do this, this is too difficult.

And Victor was saying, get in, get in, and the helicopter co-pilot kept turning around and said, please get in, this is very dangerous. Please try. Clenching his jaw, Stephen plants his left foot against the snow and pushes down hard through his smashed ankle. So I eventually managed to pull myself back into the little sort of canvas seats at the back of the helicopter and they just slammed the door shut and immediately they took off.

Suddenly everything is a blur of white. Frozen waterfalls and ice pillars rise and fall beyond the window. Gradually the landscape changes to lush green meadows and electric blue alpine rivers. All of which Stephen might have had to be carried over. I looked down into those icefalls which we'd climbed through five days earlier, six days earlier. I thought it would have been an absolute bloody nightmare trying to get me down through those icefalls. I just felt so grateful and I just shouted to the front, thank you, thank you so much. It was extraordinary what they did.

So they were doing a very, very dangerous pickup from some stupid foreigner who'd gone and hurt himself. This has nothing to do with their military duty, just purely out of goodwill, at great risk to themselves. They were called Sharma and Jaiswal, two very, very brave men. Back at base camp,

they're briefly reunited with Chris, Harish and the rest of the team. But there's no time to lose. Stephen is flown on to a military hospital two hours away. Doctors and nurses were around him, checking his vitals and dressing his wounds. There's this lovely feeling of, well, it's all out of my hands. I'll just do what I'm told. These people look after me. They x-rayed me.

They confirmed that I had a spiral open fracture of the tibial plateau and the patella was in about a hundred pieces. I had a fracture of the medial malleolus on my left foot. The rest of me was okay, so very, very lucky. Three days later, with his leg in plaster, Stephen is on a plane back to England to continue his slow recovery. I spent five weeks in hospital, although towards the end of it I got very bored and I spent the night with Rosie,

and then I checked back in in the morning. But during that time I started doing physiotherapy, and the first day I had to do physio, this very fierce physiotherapist made me get upright and stand with the help of the Zimmer frame. And the pain was just unbelievable. It was really depressing. I really thought, I can't do this. I'm never going to walk again. That was very depressing. Bit by bit, though, Stephen regains the strength in his leg. He gets back on two feet. A little unsteady at first, but soon he can walk.

And then run. But as for climbing... My immediate thought was, well, that's it's it no more climbing this has to stop that was the logical conclusion alas even by the time we were back down in the tent waiting for the helicopter i was starting to think well i'm sure i want to give this up completely so it's not as straightforward as you think it might be. Ultimately, the pull of the mountains is too strong to resist. But his nightmare on Panchachuli does give him pause for thought,

a chance to re-evaluate what matters most. So it turned out that actually Panchachuli was my last big Himalayan climbing expedition. It was never intended that way, but that's how it worked out. But it didn't make me give up climbing completely. But it did make me think, well, I need to concentrate more on the pleasure and less on the ambition. And so most of my climbing since then has been geared more towards pleasurable rock climbing trips around Europe or in Africa. And expeditions to big snowy mountains, yes,

but snowy mountains closer to sea level, mainly in Antarctica, where there's no altitude to worry about. And of course there's risk, but a less dramatic risk. So I've tried very hard to stay alive. Because life's fun. In the next episode, we meet Claire Nelson. Worn out by city life, the young travel journalist decides it's time to reconnect with herself out in the desert. But what should be a straightforward day hike in Joshua Tree National Park soon turns into a very different journey of

self-discovery. Trapped off trail, stuck in a gully, none of Claire's friends or family know her location. Under the glare of a white-hot sun, it seems only a matter of time before the elements overwhelm her. That's next time on Real Survival Stories.