American ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson is reportedly missing after attempting to ski down Manaslu in Nepal, North Face, her sponsor, confirmed to ABC News.
Nelson was on the eighth highest peak in the world along with her partner, Jim Morrison, when she went missing just below the summit, North Face said, according to reports.
They had reached the true summit late Monday morning, Outside magazine reported the managing director of the guiding company they were with said. The Himalayan Times reported eyewitnesses said she fell into a crevasse.
At 26,781 feet, Manaslu is a difficult peak for rescue efforts. Further hindering efforts is bad weather on the mountain, according to the Himalayan Times and Outside.
This comes as an avalanche caused tragedy lower down on the mountain. One person was killed and 14 were injured, according to The New York Times.
Chhang Dawa Sherpa, a director at Seven Summit Treks, wrote on Instagram that the avalanche took place between Camps 3 and 4, which are above 22,000 feet, and that “more than 13 climbers (including Sherpas) were swept along.” Mountaineer Nims Purja, of Elite Exped, posted videos apparently showing helicopters managing rescues from the avalanche.
Hilaree Nelson of Telluride, Colorado, and James Morrison of Tahoe, California, raise their fists as the pair arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, Oct. 4, 2018.
Niranjan Shrestha/AP
ABC News has reached out to the Nepal Tourism Board and Shangri-La Nepal Trek, the guiding company Morrison and Nelson were with, for further information.
It had already been a difficult time on Manaslu before Monday for Nelson and Morrison. Late last week they turned around on a summit push when “the mountain said no,” Morrison wrote on Instagram.
“I haven’t felt as sure-footed on Manaslu as I have on past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalaya,” Nelson wrote about the failed summit push. “These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways. The constant monsoon with its incessant rain and humidity has made me hopelessly homesick. I am challenged to find the peace and inspiration from the mountain when it’s been constantly shrouded in mist.”
Even so, she wrote, they found joy on their skis that day, including racing with Palden Namgye, Sherpa Yulha Nurbu and Pemba Sharwa and “generally just finally being present and actually seeing what I have been seeing for weeks but not absorbing.”
Sunrise on the peaks of Manaslu, left.
Jon G. Fuller/VWPics via AP, FILE
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