The search ends in tragedy. The body of famous American mountaineer Hilaree Nelson was found a day after she disappeared on Mount Manaslu in Nepal, organizers of the expedition she was part of said Wednesday morning.
“The search team that left by helicopter this (Wednesday) morning found his body and are bringing him back,” said Jiban Ghimire of Shangri-La Nepal Trek, who organized the expedition. He said the body was returned to the base camp and will be flown to Kathmandu.
Hilaree Nelson began skiing down this Himalayan mountain Tuesday after successfully climbing 8,163m Manaslu, which makes this mountain the eighth highest in the world, with her companion Jim Morrison the day before. She would have slipped and fallen to her death
The organizer of the expedition, Jiban Ghimire, led the search operations and took off by helicopter on Wednesday morning to find them. The helicopters failed to fly on Monday and rescue workers returned empty-handed on Tuesday.
The “most productive mountaineer of his generation”
The 49-year-old mountaineer’s career has spanned two decades and she has been described by North Face, her sponsor, as “the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation”.
In 2012, she became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest, the world’s highest mountain, and neighboring mountain Lhotse within 24 hours. In an Instagram post last week, the climber said the climb was particularly strenuous due to “relentless rain” and hazardous conditions.
This is the second confirmed casualty of the autumn climbing season in Nepal. On the same day of his disappearance, an avalanche occurred between Camps 3 and 4 of Manaslu, killing a Nepalese climber and injuring a dozen people, according to the government’s tourism department.