The search for missing ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson ended on Wednesday morning, when a Simrik Air helicopter flying around Mt Manaslu found her body on the south face of the mountain.
Nelson, a famous U.S. big-mountain skier and climber, had gone missing on September 26 in Nepal's Himalayas after falling into a 2,000-foot crevasse in Mt Manaslu, where she was skiing with her partner Jim Morrison.
According to what the expedition's organizer Jiban Ghimire, of Shangri-La Nepal Treks, told Outside Magazine, the two had climbed up to the 26,781 feet peak of Mt Manaslu and were skiing down the north face of the mountain when Nelson's ski blade "skidded off and [she] fell off the other side of the peak."
The incident happened only 15 minutes after Nelson had reached the peak.
Rescue operations were delayed and hindered by bad weather, which didn't allow for searches to start on Monday.
After her fall, an avalanche on the mountain—the eighth tallest mountain in the world—later in the day killed one person and injured over a dozen.
Nelson, 49, was the first woman to climb both Mt Everest and Mt Lhotse in a single 24-hour period, a record she broke in 2012. She also climbed Mt Lhotse—the world's fourth-highest peak—together with her partner Morrison in 2018, and together they had made the first ski descent of Lhotse in history.
In the same year, Nelson was named National Geographic's Adventurer of the year. She had also recently been named by Men's Journal one of the most adventurous women of the last 25 years.
In a post on her Instagram profile, she had talked of not feeling "sure-footed" on Mt Manaslu "as I have on past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalaya" because of the "constant monsoon with its incessant rain and humidity," which she wrote had made her "hopelessly homesick."
Nelson had two sons and lived in Telluride, Colorado.
On Monday, her sponsor—outdoor apparel brand The North Face—wrote that they were in touch with Nelson's family and supporting search and rescue efforts "in every way we can."
The North Face has not yet commented on the founding of Nelson's body.
The mountaineer's body, according to the Agence-France Presse (AFP), is being taken to a nearby village.
Update, 9/28/2022 5:30 a.m. ET: This breaking news story has been updated to offer more context on the story.
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