Looked at soberly, actually there can not be any doubt: The Spaniard Alberto Zerain and the Argentinean Mariano Galvan have been killed two weeks ago in an avalanche accident on the Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat. Photos taken by the Romanian climber Alex Gavan from a rescue helicopter show the track of the two climbers ending exactly at the fracture line of an avalanche. The last position indicated by the climbers’ GPS tracker is a spot far below, in the supposed fall line. (Look also at the video below) Nonetheless a Pakistani team of eight is currently again searching for the missing climbers at the place where the avalanche swept down. “We moved to the south side of the ridge. We closely looked at the face,” the leader of the search team said today. “We can see the traverse Mariano made. We can also see the ridge from which a chunk of ice fell that potentially caused the accident by sweeping the climbers off the (ridge) into the highly broken glacier. Three of us will try (to ascend) from South West Ridge and three from south east.”

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That’s the way we humans do: No matter how short the straws are, we clutch at them. There is a small glitter of hope that Gerhard Fiegl is still alive. Since Monday, the Austrian climber has been missing at the 6839-meter-high Nilgiri South in the Annapurna massif in Nepal. Three days after his 27th birthday, the mountain guide from the Oetztal – as reported – fell several hundred meters deep while his two team mates were looking on in horror. Hansjoerg Auer and Alexander Bluemel descended to Base Camp and immediately called for a rescue operation. But snowfall and fog prevented helicopter flights. The search for Fiegl is to be continued. Even if the probability to find him alive is low and decreases as each day passes, we should not give up. Even on the highest mountains, now and again there are stories of survival that are almost miracles.

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