A massive avalanche was filmed from the basecamp on the north side of Zanskar 1 in the Himalaya yesterday.

There were a few avalanches this day but this was the largest.

This is most certainly one of the largest natural avalanches ever caught on film…

It’s hard to understand the scale here.  These peaks are over 20,000-feet tall.

“On our first full day at basecamp, the north side of Z1 basically fell away in a series of small to massive avalanches and rock slides that continued for the majority of the afternoon and well into the night. The entire valley was filled with dust for hours and the noise was unbelievable. By the end, the ice fall it covered was unrecognizable, as was the north face of Z1. A sobering reminder of the hazards of mountaineering. We gratefully acknowledged that our planned route up the south face remained untouched during this activity. A video of the biggest avalanche is linked in my profile. Sorry about my dumbass commentary throughout.”

On our first full day at basecamp, the north side of Z1 basically fell away in a series of small to massive avalanches and rock slides that continued for the majority of the afternoon and well into the night. The entire valley was filled with dust for hours and the noise was unbelievable. By the end, the ice fall it covered was unrecognizable, as was the north face of Z1. A sobering reminder of the hazards of mountaineering. We gratefully acknowledged that our planned route up the south face remained untouched during this activity. A video of the biggest avalanche is linked in my profile. Sorry about my dumbass commentary throughout. #z1climb2016 #himalaya #mountaineering #avalanche #mecexpeditions @mec @climberbharat @adventuregeckco

A photo posted by Taylor Maavara (@tmaav) on Sep 2, 2016 at 4:14am PDT

ABOUT ZANSKAR:

Zanskar (Ladakhi: ཟངས་དཀར་) is a subdistrict or tehsil of the Kargil district, which lies in the eastern half of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The administrative centre is Padum. Zanskar, together with the neighbouring region of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kingdom of Guge in Western Tibet.

The Zanskar Range is a mountain range in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir that separates Zanskar from Ladakh. Geologically, the Zanskar Range is part of the Tethys Himalaya, an approximately 100-km-wide synclinorium formed by strongly folded and imbricated, weakly metamorphosed sedimentary series. The average height of the Zanskar Range is about 6,000 m (19,700 ft). Its eastern part is known as Rupshu.

It also separates Kinnaur District from Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. The highest peaks of Himachal are in the Zanskar Range.” – Wikipedia