The surviving Taiwanese (l.) in a hospital in Kathmandu

Mountain rescuers in the Alps often complain about climbers or hikers, who overestimate their abilities, suddenly can not move neither forward nor back and have to be rescued from this precarious situation on the mountain. That’s what happened to a young couple from Taiwan, who were on a trekking tour in the mountains of Nepal, more precisely in Langtang, without a guide. The two had been missing for 47 days. Now rescuers found the 21-year-old man lying unconsciously in a cave at the foot of a rock, his 19-year-old girlfriend was dead. According to the Taiwanese she had died three days earlier.

At the end only water

The rescuers reported that the trekking tourists had got lost and descended a steep rocky slope because they hoped to reach a village in the valley on this way. However, a gorge with a waterfall cut off the path. They could not return because they were unable to climb the rock up again. First they had eaten their supplies of noodles and potatoes, the survivor said. When the food had been consumed, they only had drunk water.

Maggots and lice

The sight of the Taiwanese was not exactly appetizing. His right leg was infested with maggots, his head full of lice. The young man is said to have lost thirty kilos. The survivor’s father had traveled to Nepal after the couple had been reported missing, and had hired a helicopter to search for the two trekking tourists. In the Himalayan state it happens again and again that hikers are missing. In almost all previous cases, the trekkers were traveling alone and without local guides. This should actually give all hikers who travel to Nepal food for thought.