American ski-climber Hilaree Nelson’s body was discovered Wednesday by rescuers in Nepal. She had been missing for two days while skiing down Mt. Manaslu, the world’s eighth highest mountain.
Nelson, 49, fell off the mountain Monday as she skied with partner Jim Morrison. A spokesman for expedition company Shangri-La-Nepal Trek told NBC News
Her body was found during a helicopter search roughly 6,200 feet from the summit, according to Capt. Surenda Poudel of Simrik Air.
“The body has been badly damaged,” Capt. Poudel said. “It took an hour and a half to retrieve the body that was buried half in the snow.”
According to Nepal’s Department of Tourism, two sherpa guides were dropped by the helicopter to search for Nelson. They found her body about 50 meters away from the landing point, according to Capt. Poudel.
Nelson’s ski partner said Nelson had slipped while skiing near the summit of Mt. Manaslu and fell down the southern side of the mountain.
Nelson became the first woman to scale two of the tallest mountains in the world in 2012, scaling both Mt. Everest and Mt. Lhoste within 24 hours. Nelson and Morrison were the first to ski down Mt. Lhoste in 2018.
Describing the Lhoste expedition, Nelson wrote on her website, “This particular ski descent, off this 8,000-meter peak, is incredibly aesthetic and challenging and had all the ingredients that drew me in. It was a dream realized in the long term.”
In an Instagram post only days before she went missing, Nelson wrote, “I haven’t felt as sure-footed on Manaslu as I have on past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalaya. These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways,” she wrote. “The constant monsoon with its incessant rain and humidity has made me hopelessly homesick.”
So let us see….Who is paying for all the resources spent to find this girl and why was she was skiing down the Himalayas for what reason? Was it going to cure cancer OR collect funds for hungry children in India?
I am always amazed all the “adventurers” we have to rescue while in their selfish pursuit of their next high.
I’m inclined to agree. Their behavior is hardly “heroic”, in fact it is quite stupid. Cheating death serves no one and death wins in the end anyway. Do something productive with your time. We aren’t here long enough to be pointedly stupid.