Elite climber from Oregon, feared missing, survives Nepal quake

BEND, Ore. -- An elite rock climber from Oregon, among the thousands of people missing after a massive earthquake hit Nepal on Saturday, is alive and well, his aunt said.

Susan Edwards said her 19-year-old nephew Joshua Edwards had contacted the family early Monday morning to say he was heading to Beni, Nepal, after avoiding some landslides.

Edwards was making his way through the area alone. He had been traveling the world hiking and climbing after graduating from high school early so he could hike the Pacific Coast Trail, his family told KGW-TV, Portland.

The last time Edwards' family heard from him was on Monday. They said he was in the village of Mukitnath and headed to the Annapurna Conservation area to climb. He had been in Lamjung just three days earlier, near the epicenter of Saturday's earthquake.

The death toll in Nepal from the 7.8 magnitude quake rose past 4,300 Monday as rescuers tried to find survivors buried in rubble or trapped in remote mountain villages. It's been hard to reach those communities as landslides that followed the quake and severe aftershocks have blocked access.

In the Himalayan peaks beloved by international adventurers, avalanches that followed the quake resulted in the deaths of 18 people.

Three Americans have died as a result of the avalanche on Mount Everest. Survivors reported severe difficulty in traveling, hampered by after-shocks that have forced many residents to camp out in the open.

"Every open field has hundreds of people camping in them," said Carl LaCasse, a Vancouver, Wash. man who had been traveling in Nepal. "There is a golf course near the airport and it is flooded with people, as if it was a refugee camp."