“It was a terrible experience,” Mr. Megreli said. “It seemed that everything was fine. The weather was fine. The trail was not so hard. Until the storm.”

Image Army rescue teams pulled bodies from the snow on Thursday. Credit... Nepalese Army

The Annapurna Circuit, as the three-week trekking path is called, is a popular route, nicknamed the Apple Pie Trek for its famously well-stocked lodges. Guesthouses along the way provide hikers with thick blankets, yak-dung fires and simple foods like rice and soup, said David Ways, a travel writer who has made the journey twice. October is peak season for the route because the weather is optimal. Temperatures are usually moderate, and there would have been little worry about snow. Anyway, in the days leading up to Tuesday, Mr. Dahal said, “there was not even a drop of cloud in the sky, it was all blue sky.”

Members of the Israeli group had just crossed the pass and were beginning their descent toward Muktinath when the wind whipped up, lashing their faces with snow and making it difficult to see, Mr. Dahal said. The path is both steep and exposed, offering virtually nothing that could serve as shelter. As the snow accumulated, some hikers found that it was taking them as long as five minutes to make a single meticulous step, he said, and some hikers lost their shoes in the snow.

Linor Kajan, a hiker who survived, said she became separated from her group and got stuck in a snowdrift, unable to see, until a Nepali guide she knew spotted her and “dragged me, really dragged me to the tea shop.”

Mr. Shrestha, the Trekking Agencies official, said the sudden storm was unlike anything he had seen in his 15-year career. “It was not snowing when they started to walk down,” he said. “Less than one to two hours later, they could not move. They cannot go back, they cannot go ahead.” After spending Wednesday at the site of the rescue operation, he said that many of those who died had nearly reached Muktinath. Some stumbled into the town just before dawn on Wednesday.

“Everyone was freezing, everyone was trying to put their feet in the right place, slowly, slowly,” he said. “Everything looks white, and you can’t find the real path.”