Petaluma’s Spencer Dickinson stuck in mountainous Nepalese town

A former Petaluma man who survived a harrowing ordeal on a snowbound Himalayan pass during Nepal’s deadly earthquake was stranded Wednesday in Lukla, where hundreds of quake survivors were awaiting flights to Kathmandu delayed by bad weather.

Spencer Dickinson, 21, called his mother, Lisa Rosenbush of San Diego, at about 5 a.m. Wednesday, giving a hurried account of his ordeal since Saturday, when the magnitude-7.8 temblor struck, leaving a death toll of more than 5,000 and tens of thousands homeless.

Relieved to learn his whereabouts, Dickinson’s family is still worried about his health and his circumstances in Lukla, an airport town at 9,383 feet transformed by the disaster into a mass evacuation point.

“It’s what I imagine is a horrible scene,” said Spencer’s cousin, Haley Caldwell of Las Vegas. Injured quake victims are awaiting help along with corpses that are bound for home.

“The goal is just to get him to Kathmandu,” Caldwell said, referring to the quake-ravaged Nepalese capitol about 85 air miles to the east of Lukla. But, she said, “we have no idea when he’ll get out.”

The family hadn’t heard from Dickinson until he called his father, Bob Dickinson of Petaluma, Tuesday night and said he was aboard a helicopter bound for Kathmandu. But it landed instead at Lukla, ordinarily the tourist gateway to the Mount Everest region, Caldwell said.

Dickinson, a 2011 graduate of Petaluma High School, had been incommunicado for three days while he was holed up at Machhermo, a village stopover for Everest-bound trekkers at 14,660 feet flooded with hundreds of quake survivors. A doctor had the only satellite phone and Dickinson never got a chance to use it, Caldwell said.

Jon Reiter, a Kenwood contractor and climber who was at Everest Base Camp when the avalanche barreled down from the world’s tallest peak, was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday and on his way home, his office said.

Another Sonoma County climber, Scott Holder, a Santa Rosa financial adviser, was in Lukla during the earthquake. His whereabouts Wednesday weren’t immediately available.

On Saturday, Dickinson had met up with a Sherpa guide at the village of Lobuche, south of Everest, intent on hiking over snowy Chola Pass to reach Gokyo Ri, a 17,575-foot peak that affords a view of Everest and three other mountains over 26,000 feet.

They were crossing the pass through knee-deep snow when the quake struck. Both men were knocked down twice and dodged falling debris including a boulder that nearly struck the Sherpa. They subsequently made their way to Machhermo. “They were in danger,” Caldwell said.

Dickinson is presumably safe in Lukla, but his family is worried he may be suffering from altitude sickness and they don’t know if he is running out of money or where he is sleeping, she said.

Bob Dickinson said his son had reached Nepal during the course of a six-month “spiritual journey” that had previously taken him to Thailand and Sri Lanka.

Calling it an “incredible experience” that now includes witnessing a disaster amid raw natural beauty, Dickinson said his son “may want to finish his journey” rather than immediately return home.

Weather conditions were limiting flights out of Lukla on Wednesday, according to news reports.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.