Nixa climber: 'The ground was buckling and heaving'

Hearing the ominous sound of ice cracking high above him, Nixa climber Dan Nash knew he could be in big trouble.

Nash and his climbing team were 19,000 feet up on Cho Oyu mountain and were finishing lunch in their tent when the region began shaking from a 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

"We all ran out of the tent looking for cover, with the ground shaking like crazy," Nash recalled. "The ground was buckling and heaving underneath us. That's when we heard the crack of ice above us, but we couldn't see what might be coming because the clouds were so low."

Ice and snow roared down 27,000-foot Cho Oyu, sweeping close by but sparing Nash's team. But quake-triggered avalanches on nearby Mount Everest killed 18 people.

Nash described the avalanche near his team as sounding "like a train or a tornado — roaring like a deep rumble."

"Thank goodness it wasn't big pieces of ice," he said. "We had nowhere to go. You can't outrun it, and tents don't give you any protection."

Nash said there had been 16 days of snow on Cho Oyu before the quake hit — the most snow in 40 years. The mountain was ripe for avalanches, even without an earthquake to shake the snow loose.

Nash, owner of Satori Adventures and Expeditions, said he radioed Satori climbing teams on Everest and another nearby mountain and found they had all survived.

As the aftershocks lessened in intensity, Nash and several of his Cho Oyu team were able to climb to 21,000 feet before learning the Chinese government ordered a halt to all ascents.

Nash planned to fly home through Kathmandu airport, but the border and roads leading to the city were closed due to landslides. Nash is now trying to make his way by jeep and small planes to Beijing, China, where he hopes to catch a flight back to Missouri by May 7 or 8.

He hopes to go back someday and finish his Cho Oyu climb. He's not deterred by the possibility of more earthquakes.

"I love the outdoors. I don't want to just go to Table Rock Lake and set up my camper by the lake," he said. "I want to go see places and explore where people haven't been before."

He said climbing mountains "is the most physically and mentally challenging thing I've ever done."

"You have to deal with the weather and the altitude, the extreme cold and your own mental and physical fragility. I need that in my life. I like the preparation, I like being there. I like to challenge myself.

"For me, the mountains are my church."