Rescuers in Nepal this week confirmed the death of a well-known Russian mountaineer on Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh-highest peak, but bad weather prevented the recovery of her body.
Nadezhda Oleneva, 38, went missing Saturday after she slipped and fell deep into a crevasse at an altitude of nearly 22,000 feet.
Nadezhda Oleneva Instagram
She had climbed to the summit with two other mountaineers. All three attempted to climb the summit without supplemental oxygen or the assistance of guides.
“It was spotted on Sunday but now the area is covered in snow. A longline operation failed to recover her body,” Iswari Paudel, managing director of Himalayan Guides Nepal, told AFP on Tuesday.
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According to Mountain.ru, the Russian Mountaineering Federation announced the end of the search and rescue operation after avalanches led to a change in the snow and ice terrain at the site where Olenyova was.
“For the entire Russian mountaineering community, this loss is a great tragedy,” the association said. “Over the last three days, many of Nadia’s friends, colleagues, partners and students have been following the events in Dhaulagiri. And now words can no longer express the gravity of what happened.”
Last month, Oleneva, who called herself Nadya, posted a message on Instagram about her upcoming trip to Dhaulagiri, writing: “Looking forward to new heights!”
Oleneva was an experienced mountaineer and was part of a team that made the first ascent of a remote peak in Kyrgyzstan two years ago.
The incident follows the deaths of two American climbers, including Anna Gutu, and two Nepalese guides on Tibet’s Shishapangma following avalanches last week.
Gutu had recorded her mountaineering exploits on Instagram. Last month she wrote that she had reached the peak of Dhaulagiri.
The 26,800-foot peak of Dhaulagiri was first climbed by a Swiss-Austrian team in 1960 and has since been climbed by hundreds of people.
Lenticular clouds over Mount Dhaulagiri. Annapurna Conservation Area (Nepal), August 23, 2019 Daniele Frediani/Archivio Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images
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