noida twentyoneyearold mountaineer arjun vajpai returned home on tuesday after he was rescued from the collapsing slopes of mount makalu in nepal on sunday where he was stuck since the earthquake a relieved arjun said the incident has changed the way mountaineers see the sport of mountain climbing small avalanches are normal in mountaineering but i had not expected what befell us arjun said about his third expedition to scale makalu that began on april 11 he had failed to summit in two previous attempts in 2013 and 2014 by 100 m and 50 m respectively due to bad weather and shortage of ropes huge avalanches rushed towards our base camp the entire mountain appeared to be doing a jig in front of our eyes he said it was april 25 arjun and his fellow climbers were sitting in the makalu advance base camp at 18500 ft we first felt an unusual movement along the surface and realized something was wrong shortly afterwards the mountain swayed violently again and we realized it was an earthquake he said it was followed by a clouded sky lots of snowfall and avalanches the situation deteriorated further when they lost contact with advance climbers the satellite phone stopped working for an hour at the base camp the huddled group of climbers fervently recalled their families as if it was their last day we saw avalanches 700 metres in length and 400 metres across approaching base camp it was frightening he said but courage returned when the satphone woke up after an hour they contacted each other to confirm there was no causality since the first quake we slept for one hour at a stretch to keep vigil in case of further quakes or avalanches he said the indian embassy in nepal swung into action and immediately contacted nepal army for their rescue twice the nepal army tried and failed due to inclement weather and heavy snowfall finally at 2 am on sunday a nepal army mi17 chopper rescued arjun and 13 other climbers even the rescue mission was fraught with danger with the chopper unable to fly to the advance base camp and asked the climbers to descend we climbed down around 4000 ft in twoandahalf hours to catch the rescue copter arjun said routes were damaged and some climbers were injured in the process among the 13 rescued were five from spain three from belgium two from austria and three nepalese sherpas at kathmandu arjun was taken to the indian embassy finally on tuesday he flew to chandigarh back home in noida arjun reflected on the horrific scenes he encountered saying they have inflicted mental and emotional injuries on him that will be hard to forget but it has not dented my determination i will attempt scaling makalu again this year or the next he said arjuns parents said they will continue to facilitate his passion as a mother i want him to be with me but we will not stop him from