Hilaree Nelson, a well-known American ski mountaineer, went missing in Nepal on Monday after skiing down Manaslu, the eighth-highest mountain in the world, according to reports. Nelson vanished the same day an avalanche killed a climber from Nepal on the peak she was crossing. After successfully summiting Manaslu with her partner Jim Morrison, the event is believed to have occurred as Nelson was skiing down.
A Nepali climber was killed and 12 people were injured on Monday when an avalanche struck Camps 3 and 4 on the 8,163-meter (26,781-foot) mountain. The rescue effort has been extremely difficult because of the severe weather, which has included continuous rain and snow.
But on Tuesday, as the weather began to clear up, Jiban Ghimire of Shangri-La Nepal Treks said that a helicopter had been dispatched to the scene of Nelson’s accident.
Nelson’s ski buddy Morrison has been escorting the search and rescue crew and is safe. Added Ghimire. On Thursday, Nelson wrote on Instagram that he hadn’t felt as secure on Manaslu as he had on previous forays into the thin air of the upper Himalaya. “The most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation,” the 49-year-old has been called. She was the first woman to climb Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, and nearby Lhotse in a single day in 2012.
