Everest 2025: Pumori Avalanche, Makalu Death

As the Sherpas continue fixing the route to the summit on both side, other events are capturing climbers attention on Everest and Makalu. The drone that landed in a crevasse last week was recovered, but is damaged.

Pumori Avalanche

On May 4, 2025, there was a large avalanche off Pumori spraying Everest Base Camp-Nepal. This brought back tragic memories of the 2015 earthquake that took 22 lives at EBC. Thankfully this time it appears that base camp just got a little spray. pemba_explorer1999 working for 8K Expeditions captured the event on video:

 

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Makalu Death

Sadly an American climber has died on Makalu as reported by the Himalayan Times. Alexander Pancoe , 39, of Chicago died at Camp 2 after not feeling well on an acclimitization roatation to Camp 3. It’s reported he died from cardic arrest.

He the founder of Peaks of Mind, and an accomplished climber and explorer with skiing to the North and South Poles plus completing the Seven Summits, raising almost $500,000 for Lurie Children’s Hospital.

Damaged Drone Recovery

Mike Hammil tells me from EBC that the $70,000 drone used to ferry supplies to Camp 1 and bring garbage back, was recoved. It was hit by a high wind gust, depolyed a parachute and landed in a deep crevase, damaged:

Hey Alan- Yes, it looked like they were able to long line it out with another drone a few days ago. The drone that crashed didn’t look in good shape so I hope they are able to fix it. Cheers

My condolences to the family snd teammates of Alex.