A British climber who went missing in the Himalayas has spoken of her relief after surviving for two days in “brutal” conditions that put her life in danger.
Fay Manners, originally from Bedfordshire, and her climbing partner, Michelle Dvorak from the United States, were stranded on Chaukhamba mountain in northern India when the rope lifting their food, tent and climbing equipment snapped, leaving them without supplies. The pair sent an emergency message at more than 20,000ft (6,096m), but search and rescue teams had initially been unable to find them.
Ms Manners told the BBC the pair were “terrified” as they tried to make part of the descent alone, before being met by rescuers.
Ms Manners is an alpinist, a mountain climber who specializes in difficult climbs, and now lives in Chamonix, France.
After a loose rock cut the rope being used to haul the pair’s bags, Ms Manners said she felt “despair”.
“I watched the bag tumble down the mountain and I immediately knew the consequence of what was to come,” she said.
“We had none of our safety equipment left. No tent. No stove to melt snow for water. No warm clothes for the evening. Our ice axes and crampons for retreat back to basecamp.
“No head torch for moving at night.”
The pair were able to send a text message to emergency services, prompting a search and rescue.
The women took cover on a ledge as it started snowing, sharing the only sleeping bag they had.
“I felt hypothermic, constantly shaking and with the lack of food my body was running out of energy to keep warm,” Ms Manners said.
The next morning, a helicopter came to find the pair, but could not locate them – meaning they faced another 24 hours on the mountain.
“They did try to rescue us, but the conditions were brutal for the company to operate in. Bad weather, fog, high altitude, and they couldn’t find us as the face was so vast,” she explained.
After managing to abseil down the mountain face to some melting ice, the two women managed to catch some water in their bottles.
Ms Manners said they “barely survived” the storm that afternoon and the second night in the cold with no food and only a little water.
“The helicopter flew past again, couldn’t see us. We were destroyed,” she said.
“We knew we had to try to go down ourselves as the helicopter wasn’t going to help us.”
On that second morning they began to cautiously abseil down the rock spur, aware their weak condition could lead to mistakes.
At that point, they spotted a team of French climbers coming towards them – rescuers who had heard about their situation from mutual friends.
They shared their equipment, food and sleeping bags with the women and contacted the helicopter with an exact location for rescue.
Ms Manners said: “I cried with relief, knowing we might survive.
“They supported us to get across the steep glacier that would have been impossible without our equipment, crampons and ice axes.
“We would have either frozen to death or attempted to cross the steep glaciers without the right equipment and slipped to our peril.
“Or maybe, maybe, the helicopter would finally have found us?”
In 2022 Ms Manners was the first woman to make the ascent of the Phantom Direct route on the south face of the Grand Jorasses in Mont Blanc.
She has also successfully climbed peaks in Pakistan and Greenland in the past year.
Ms Manners has described her ambition to inspire women to pursue an interest in alpinism and pursue mountaineering as a hobby.
She said the incident that cut the rope “was unfortunate and very rare”.
“We did very well to survive and retreat in the way that we did,” Ms Manners added.
She said she felt “exhausted, mentally destroyed and over tired to the point I can’t sleep”.
Now, the pair said they planned to eat local Indian food before they could get a flight home to their loved ones.
A Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office spokesperson said: “We have been supporting the family of a British woman reported missing in India who has since been safely rescued.”