US climber dies on Nepal's highest mountain

Renowned US ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson has disappeared on Nepal's Manaslu mountain, on the same day an avalanche killed a Nepali climber on the same peak, expedition organisers and officials said.

Nelson was skiing down Manaslu after having successfully summited the world's eighth-highest mountain with her partner Jim Morrison on Monday.

She had an accident yesterday as she was descending shortly after her summit. Jiban Ghimire of Shangri-La Nepal Treks, who organised the expedition, told AFP on Tuesday that they are trying to get clarity on what happened.

On the same day, an avalanche between Camps 3 and 4 hit the 8,163 metre 26,781 foot mountain, killing a Nepali climber and injuring a dozen others, the government s tourism department said.

The death was the first confirmed casualty of the autumn climbing season in Nepal.

The 404 paying climbers attempting to reach the summit of Manaslu this year have had to deal with constant rain and snow, and bad weather has also hindered rescue efforts, with helicopters unable to fly on Monday due to the conditions.

Ghimire said the weather had improved on Tuesday and a helicopter was headed to the site of Nelson's accident.

Ghimire said Morrison safely reached base camp and was accompanying the search and rescue team.

Nelson said in an Instagram post on Thursday that I haven't felt as sure-footed on Manaslu as I have on a past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalayas.

These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways. The 49-year-old has had a career spanning two decades and is described as the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation in a profile on sponsor North Face's website.

In 2012, she became the first woman to summit the highest mountain in the world, Everest, and its adjacent Lhotse within 24 hours.

Six years later, she returned to Lhotse and made the first ski descent of the mountain, which earned her the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award.

Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest peaks and foreign climbers who flock to its mountains are a major source of revenue for the country.

The industry was almost completely shut down due to the coronaviruses pandemic in 2020, but the country opened its peaks last year to mountaineers.