All climbers at camps high up Qomolangma airlifted to safety

A rescue helicopter is shown at the Mount Qomolangma south base camp in Nepal a day after a huge earthquake-caused avalanche killed at least 17 people, in this photo courtesy of 6summitschallenge.com taken on April 26, 2015 and released on April 27, 2015.[Photo/Agencies]

Danish climber Carsten Lillelund Pedersen said his team had been trekking on Saturday down from camp 2, which is at an altitude of 6,400 meters, when it was caught in a whiteout and had to turn back. He eventually made it to camp 1.

Three helicopters shuttled 170 climbers from camp 1 to base camp on Monday. Because of the high altitude and thin air, the aircraft were only able to carry two climbers at a time.

"Qomolangma, above base camp, is now empty," Pedersen posted on his Facebook page.

With much of base camp devastated and many sherpas having returned home to see if their families and houses are safe, some expeditions have been forced to cancel their attempts to scale Qomolangma this year.

Some, like Cienski, who plans to set a world record by scaling six 8,000-meter peaks this year, have yet to abandon their quests, despite the disaster that has overwhelmed Nepal and killed at more than 4,000 people.

"A lot of gear, tents, oxygen, fuel etc is stashed a camp 2 ready to 'rebuild' later this season," said Pedersen.