The 49-year-old American suffered a fall while skiing back to base camp after climbing Manaslu
She was the first woman to summit two ‘eight thousand’, Everest and Lhotse, in 24 hours in May 2012
Renowned American mountain skier and mountaineer Hilaree Nelson was found dead this Wednesday, three days after her disappearance after a fall on an expedition to Manaslu, the eighth highest peak in the world, located in the Nepalese Himalayas. Her body was found this morning buried in the snow on a slope of the Manaslu mountain, about 6,000 meters high, she told Efe Jeevan Ghimire, director of the Shangrila-Nepal company, in charge of this expedition in Manaslu.
Three Sherpas and fellow skier Jim Morrison, Nelson’s partner, were taken by helicopter to the place where the skier was estimated to have fallen, and “the body was removed at 11:00 (local time, 5:15 GMT),” an official explained. of the Nepalese Government, Bigyan Koiral. The well-known mountaineer suffered a fall on Monday when he was skiing back to base camp after reaching the 8,163-meter-high Manaslu summit with Morrison. At first it was thought that Nelson had fallen through a crack, according to information from the authorities who began an aerial and ground search operation in the area early Tuesday, which had to be suspended later due to bad weather. although later this theory was discarded.
Almost a week ago, Nelson had shared on social media that unlike other expeditions in the Himalayas, this time in the Manaslu I felt less confident, and the mountain conditions made him long for home. “I am challenged to find peace and inspiration on the mountain when it has been constantly shrouded in fog,” the skier posted six days ago.
Adventurer of the Year for ‘National Geographic’
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Nelson, 49, was the first woman to summit two ‘eight-thousanders’, Everest and Lhotse, in 24 hours in May 2012. In 2018 she returned to Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world at 8,516 metres, to achieve the feat with Morrison of being the first to ski down this peak. That same year she was named ‘National Geographic’ magazine’s Adventurer of the Year.
His disappearance took place on the same day that a large avalanche occurred in the lower Manaslu camps, in which a guide was killed and several were injured, including four seriously. The Nepalese authorities authorized this autumn season a record number of 404 permits to climb Manaslu, known as “the killer mountain” due to the high number of deaths that occur despite the fact that the number of ascents is relatively low. In September 2012, an avalanche killed 11 climbers.