Hilaree Nelson, a trailblazing ski mountaineer renowned for creating artistic turns in unlikely places, died on Monday while skiing from the Himalayan summit of Manaslu, the eighth-highest mountain in the world. Nelson had made hundreds of first descents from atop big and lesser-known peaks. She was 49.
Her lifelong friend and climbing companion Jim Morrison, who travelled with her to Nepal, reported that her body was discovered on Wednesday, close to the peak but far below where she had fallen.
The North Face athlete team is an international group of funded adventurers who participate in mountaineering, climbing, backcountry skiing, and other activities. Ms Nelson was the team’s first female captain. In 2018, she was recognised as the “adventurer of the year” by National Geographic. She was dubbed “the most accomplished female ski pioneer of her generation” by Outside magazine in 2019.
She was equally skilled in climbing and descending. In 2012, she became the first woman to reach the summit of both Mount Everest and the nearby Lhotse, the fourth-highest peak in the world, in less than 24 hours. She went back to the summit of Lhotse in September 2018 to ski down the renowned Lhotse Couloir with Mr Morrison. Lhotse is 8,516 metres (27,940 feet) above sea level.
After that journey, Ms Nelson stated, “It’s so difficult to describe.” “While admiring the world’s highest mountain, I put my skis on. There is no one there. It’s ethereal, lovely, menacing, and frightening all at once.
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Conrad Anker, a climber and infrequent expedition partner, claimed in a phone interview on Wednesday that the Lhotse trip was the most significant climbing achievement of the previous ten years. He claimed that even though Ms Nelson was a trailblazer for women in adventure sports, her accomplishments were worthy of praise regardless of gender.
She was on par with guys, according to Mr Anker. She was a match for Jim among the strongest men present. Her capacity to adopt gender stereotypes was fairly amazing in that regard.
The Lhotse descent solidified Ms Nelson’s position in the ski mountaineering community, which is largely unknown and involves activities carried out in perilous and unstable environments in far-flung high regions of the globe. With “Bros,” Billy Eichner wrote himself into the relationship he desired. The Not-So-Silent Friendship Between Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes
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According to Mr Townsend, Ms Nelson was known for both her artistic ability and her patience. She set her sights on several projects and waited years for the ideal moment to do them. She was a climber who didn’t push something merely to push it; instead, Mr Townsend remarked, “she was there to get it when it was ideal and get it done.” Because of that, she had a 20-year track record of success.
But the results were invariably a slip-up or a retreat. Ms Nelson and Mr Morrison scaled Manaslu’s 8,163-meter (26,781-foot) corniced and serrated peak on Monday in Nepal, a particularly chilly and windy morning. The two-headed downward after fastening the skis they had hauled to the summit, according to Mr Morrison.
A little avalanche quickly took Ms Nelson off her feet. Although the slide was catching Mr Morrison, he was unable to stop it as he watched Ms Nelson slip down the mountain. Mr Morrison and the Sherpa guides immediately began searching, but they were unsuccessful. The bad weather prevented a major search and rescue operation until the following morning.
Ms Nelson’s body was discovered by Mr Morrison and Mingma Tenzi Sherpa after a helicopter had been used to examine the mountain for several hours. According to Sachindra Yadav, an expedition liaison officer from the Gorkha district, which encompasses Manaslu, an avalanche appeared to have swept her off a cliff and onto the mountain’s south face. The deceased was sent to Kathmandu.
Mr Morrison posted on Instagram, “My loss is unimaginable and I am focused on her children and their steps forward.” Hilaree Nelson is the most motivating person I know, and her energy will now direct our group’s souls.
Ms Nelson had lived for many years in Telluride, Colorado, where she routinely walked and trained in the nearby San Juan Mountains and spent many years working as a waitress. After she gave birth to two boys, she embarked on most of her most exciting trips.
She previously recalled, “I returned home (from Nepal) Sunday night and I was freaking out Monday morning making kids’ lunches and trying to get the kids to school on time. Stanley and Robin Nelson gave birth to Hilaree Nelson in Seattle on December 13, 1972, and she raised herself there. On the weekends, she and her siblings would take a bus to Stevens Pass in the Cascades to go skiing.
But the family’s main concern was water. Her father, who ran the family auto dealership, took the family on multi-week sailing voyages while her mother refurbished wooden boats. A few years ago, Ms Nelson remarked, “We had lots of independence at 5 years old. That was a crucial component of learning to be independent, which is a fairly important aspect of mountaineering.
She is survived by her parents, her now-teenaged boys Graydon and Quinn from her failed marriage to Brian O’Neill, as well as her siblings and Mr Morrison. Following her time at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Ms Nelson moved to France to spend five winters near Chamonix honing her skiing and mountaineering abilities.
With a current roster of outdoor athletes that includes the climber Alex Honnold and the adventurer and filmmaker Jimmy Chin, she quickly attracted sponsorships, most notably with The North Face.
Ms Nelson was awarded a National Geographic Explorers grant in 2014 to direct an ultimately fruitless expedition to Myanmar’s highest peak, Hkakabo Razi. The expedition was fraught with difficulties and served as the inspiration for the short documentary “Down to Nothing.”
Then, working with Mr Morrison, she joined the National Geographic Live Speaker Series and later enhanced her name with a string of triumphs. They accomplished the first American ascent and ski descent of India’s 21,165-foot Papsura, a picturesque pyramid-shaped peak known to mountaineers as “the Peak of Evil,” in 2017 with the help of Chris Figenshau.
It was the result of Ms Nelson’s lifelong interest after she first saw the Papsura in a photograph 20 years ago and tried unsuccessfully to submit it in 2013.
She told National Geographic, which named the group “adventurer of the year” in 2018, that it “was a picture of the most aesthetically pleasing, magnificent, craggy, and strong mountain that I’d ever seen.” After returning from India, Ms Nelson and Mr Morrison climbed Cassin Ridge on Denali in Alaska and skied down the Messner Couloir.
The North Face gave her the title of team captain the same year, an honour that had previously gone to only one other mountaineer, Mr Anker.
Ms Nelson and Mr Morrison were drawn to Manaslu by the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world, and its ageless allure. Most climbers, who were led by guides, used to stop at a fore peak for years. However, with the contemporary focus on exactitude, explorers are reassessing their peaks and, in some cases, going back to the mountains to put any doubt to rest.
Ms Nelson and Mr Morrison started their descent from the rocky genuine summit, which was freshly dusted with snow. Ms Nelson quickly lost her footing and became stranded in a slough that quickly turned into an avalanche.
According to Ms Nelson’s 2019 interview with Outside, “I’ve always had this weird fear, my entire life, of having every day be the same.” And if I truly think about it, that’s what drives me to go outside, exercise, participate in my sport, and never stop learning.
