Well-known mountaineer falls to her death into crevasse on Mount Dhaulagiri, the world's 7th-highest peak
Rescuers in Nepal confirmed this week the death of a well-known Russian climber on Mount Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh-highest peak, but bad weather prevented the recovery of her body.
Nadezhda Oleneva, 38, went missing Saturday after slipping and falling deep into a crevasse at an altitude of nearly 22,000 feet.
She had been climbing to the summit along with two other mountaineers. All three were attempting to scale the peak without supplemental oxygen or the support of guides.
"She was spotted on Sunday but now snow has covered the area. A long-line operation could not retrieve her body," Iswari Paudel, managing director of Himalayan Guides Nepal, told AFP on Tuesday.
According to mountain.ru, the Russian Mountaineering Federation announced the end of the search and rescue operation after avalanches caused a change in the snow and ice terrain at the site where Olenyova was located.
"For the entire Russian mountaineering community, this loss is a great tragedy," the federation said. "Over the past three days, many friends, colleagues, partners, and pupils of Nadia have been following the events at Dhaulagiri. And now words cannot convey the gravity of what happened."
Last month, Oleneva, who went by Nadya, posted a message to Instagram about her upcoming trip to Dhaulagiri, writing: "Looking forward to new heights!"
Oleneva was an experienced climber and had been part of a team that made the first ascent of a remote peak in Kyrgyzstan two years ago.
The incident follows the death of two American climbers, including Anna Gutu, and two Nepali guides on Tibet's Shishapangma after avalanches last week.
Gutu had been chronicling her mountaineering feats on Instagram. Last month, she wrote that she had made it to the summit of Dhaulagiri.
Dhaulagiri's 26,800-foot peak was first scaled in 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian team and has since been climbed by hundreds of people.
