There is a fine line between triumph and tragedy on the world’s highest mountains. Three days after the news of the first ascent of the extremely challenging East Face of the seven-thousander Langtang Lirung in Nepal by the Czech Marek Holecek and the Slovak Ondrej Huserka, there is bad news: Ondrej fell into a crevasse on the descent two days ago, reports Slovakian mountaineer Eva Milovka, who is part of Huserka’s home team, on Facebook.
“His partner – Marek Holecek – was not able to recover him and after shouting to him and hearing no response, he assessed that Ondrej is dead and descended alone to the base camp. Yesterday was a helicopter rescue flight and nobody was willing to descent onto to glacier due to some objective dangers of the place. We have hope that Ondrej is still alive.”
A miracle is needed
Eva referred to the example of Indian mountaineer Anurag Maloo. He fell into a crevasse on the eight-thousander Annapurna I in spring 2023. Three days later, he was rescued, seriously injured but miraculously alive.
Milovska appealed to all experienced mountaineers currently in Nepal to take part in the rescue operation for Huserka. According to Eva, there will be another rescue attempt tomorrow, Sunday, by a “Nepalese-Ukrainian team”. This was confirmed by the Slovakian Mountaineering Association (JAMES) on Facebook. There is “still a small hope” of a miracle, it said. But it must be clear to everyone: It is a race against time.
Ondrej Huserka and Marek Holecek reached the 7,227-meter-high summit of Langtang Lirung on Wednesday. They had previously climbed the East Face of the mountain for five and a half days. The wall had never been mastered before. Langtang Lirung, which lies around 50 kilometers north of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, is considered to be extremely prone to avalanches and rockfall.
