Vice Sports - On April 27, two days after the earthquake that rocked Nepal, at least 160 mountaineers—guides, clients, and their hired Sherpas— radioed for helicopter evacuations off Mount Everest. The calls for help meant that a significant portion of the helicopters in Nepal were unavailable to assist with search-and-rescue efforts elsewhere in the country.

 

Early Monday morning, the "great Everest Air Show" began, as David Hahn, a mountain guide for RMI Expeditions, described it in his blog. Five high-altitude helicopters—about one-fifth of all the helicopters in Nepal—flew throughout the morning. Pilots for the private helicopter companies Fishtail Air, Manang Air, and Simrick Air made a cumulative total of more than 90 flights over several hours, bringing the 160 climbers that were stranded at Camp 1 down to basecamp.

 

Alan Arnette, a prominent Everest blogger and one of the guided clients rescued on Monday, clarified the situation of that day: "The stories of 'climbers stranded' in the Western Cwm are simply untrue or a matter of exaggeration. We were the highest team on Everest at Camp 2. Others were below us at Camp 1. All had sufficient food, fuel, water, and shelter to survive for days."

 

If that's the case—that the climbers above basecamp had the means to comfortably live for days—then the helicopters could've been used elsewhere without exposing those on the mountain to additional risk.  Read more..