Sugar Land resident battles blizzards and nearly loses his limbs during a trip to Nepal
Written by Rina C. John | Photos courtesy of Peter Fenelon
Sugar Land, TX News - Peter Fenelon and his college buddies were far away from the Texas heat when they got stuck in the mountains of Nepal during a blizzard in 2012. The snow slowed the hikers down and eventually forced them to stop at a remote rest area.
“The only heating we had was a small fire stove in the main room of a tea house,” Fenelon says. “The rooms were so cold that even a water bottle froze overnight.” The next day, the group continued their hike. “The snow completely covered the trails and continued to come down,” says Fenelon. “It was only going to get more difficult and dangerous as we continued up the mountain.”
What should have been an eight-hour hiking journey, ended up taking 15 hours. Fenelon says his feet went numb 45 minutes into the climb. When the group reached their destination, he removed his boots and noticed his socks were wet. “I took my socks off, and my feet were freezing. I had little pieces of ice on my toes,” he says.
Peter Fenelon (second from left) and his friends Chad Hutchinson, Jim Mazzo, and Thomas Owens fought blizzard conditions and frigid temperatures during their hike
He still wasn’t too worried because he didn’t feel any pain. “It wasn’t until the next morning when I woke up with swollen feet that I became nervous,” says Fenelon. (more…)