Everest Climber: Sherpas Tried to Kill Me

In his first extended interview, Moro gives NationalGeographic.com his take on what happened
Alternative accounts, including those claiming to represent some Sherpas, have been posted on climbing blogs and sites.
Can you tell me what happened on the Lhotse Face on Saturday?
Our aim was to reach Camp 3. We knew there was a team fixing rope on the Lhotse Face. I've climbed Everest four times and done ten expeditions here, and I know that on the day the ropes are fixed, nobody should hang on the fixed ropes. This doesn't mean that nobody is allowed to climb the mountain. Everest isn't just a mountain for clients and guides. Everest is for all who pay the permit.


When we arrived on the Lhotse Face, the Sherpas fixing rope there told us to turn back and go home. But we told them that we weren't going to disturb them or hang on the fixed ropes, as they probably assumed. Then we immediately climbed Alpine style, without a rope, 100 meters to the left of them. They threw a piece of ice at us to scare us. But we didn't react. We continued climbing to the left of them.


The fixing team threw ice at you?
Yes, yes, nobody has told that. But the fixing team, at the beginning, two Sherpas especially, used ice axes to cause pieces of ice to fall on Ueli Steck's head, who was the first of our group. We continued climbing. We were, of course, much, much faster than them. They were carrying rope and fixing.

After one hour, we saw our tent on the right. So we traveled horizontally toward our tent. And during this traverse, 50 meters from our tent, we crossed the line of the rope-fixing team, exactly at the same altitude where the leading Sherpa climber was. And when we arrived close to him, without touching the rope and without sending any piece of ice down onto the heads of the 15 Sherpas who were on the fixed line, the leader of the rope-fixing team started to scream, "What are you doing here? Why are you here? Blah, blah, blah, blah." And he was waving his ice ax. And you know as well as I do that an ice ax can kill a person. One hit on the head and you're done.


Who was he screaming at?


He was screaming at all of us. Because the first of us making the traverse was Jon Griffith. The second was Ueli Steck. And the third was me. He was screaming at all of us. When we got close to him, without saying, "Hello, ciao, how's it going? It's cold and windy," he immediately started to scream. Very nervously. Very angry. And, I repeat, waving an ice ax. So I also screamed myself, after 30 seconds, saying the exact words in Nepalese, "Mother******, what are you doing?" Because he was waving the ice ax close to us and we were not roped. If he touched me, I would fall down the whole face of Lhotse.


This is the only thing that I can say I'm sorry for. I said, "Mother******, what are you doing?" And he said, "We are fixing rope!" And we told him, "Okay, if you want, we can help you. Okay?" Because it was getting cold and windy. "If you want, we'll go and stop at our tent here, come back at 1:00, and if you want [us] to, we can also help you to do your job."


"No, no!" And he came very close to Ueli Steck. There was a physical contact between them because, when he was going toward him, waving the ice ax, at a certain moment, Ueli was retreating but also losing his balance. So Ueli touched, physically, the Sherpa, but just to keep himself from falling. And the Sherpa said, "Why you touch me? Why you touch me?" And Ueli said, "Listen, we are here all together for the same aim. If you want, we can help you to fix rope." And the Sherpa said, "No, I don't want that. Now we stop. We go down."



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