Himalayas: A mountaineer who was left for dead on Mount Everest has returned to camp after being found half-dressed and sitting on the edge of a precipice 150m from the summit.
Sherpas pronounced Lincoln Hall (50) dead at sunset on Thursday after he had shown no signs of life for two hours. The five-strong team then left him behind at 8,800m, forced to continue down the mountain before their own oxygen supplies ran out.
But the next morning, climber Dan Mazur found Mr Hall, who is Australian, alive but disorientated.
"I imagine you are surprised to see me here," he told Mr Mazur, as he sat without a hat and dangling his legs over the edge of the 1,000m Kangshung Face. The Age newspaper reported that he had removed his shirt and gloves and was "twitching around", believing he was sitting in a boat.
The team gave him tea, medicine and oxygen before starting an 11-hour descent to the North Col camp at 7,000m.
Mr Hall had severe frostbite, water on the brain and a chest infection but managed to walk into the camp and talk to his wife by satellite phone.
Simon Baulderstone, a friend and former climbing partner, told Australia's ABC radio yesterday that his friend was on his way down the mountain.
The incident comes in one of the deadliest Everest climbing seasons. At least 10 people have died on the mountain since the season began earlier this month, a record surpassed only in 1996 when the mountain claimed 12 lives.
The death of British mountaineer David Sharp on May 15th drew attention to the questionable ethics of Everest climbing, after it was reported that up to 40 mountaineers had walked past him on their way to the summit as he sat, close to death, in an ice cave 300m from the peak.
Mr Hall is an experienced mountaineer who had attempted to climb Everest without oxygen in 1983. "No view is worth that price," he wrote after turning back at 8,300m in fear for his life.
His survival after more than two days in the "death zone" is rare, especially as he spent nearly 12 hours without oxygen. The region above 8,000m has a fearsome reputation among mountaineers because the air is too thin to support life.
- (Guardian service)