A German climber plunged to his death during his descent from Nepal’s Ama Dablam peak after successfully reaching the summit, a trekking company official confirmed Monday.
The mountaineer, who had stood atop the 6,814-meter (22,256 ft) Himalayan mountain on Sunday, fell approximately 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) while making his way back down and died on Monday, according to Gokul Thapa, head of Real Himalaya Pvt Ltd. The Kathmandu-based company had supplied local logistics for the German’s expedition.
“His body was recovered by a search team today itself,” Thapa said from Lukla, the gateway town to the Everest region.
Thapa said the recovery team had already transported the body off the mountain and planned to fly it by helicopter to a Kathmandu hospital for a post-mortem examination.
Ama Dablam sits in Nepal’s Solukhumbu district, the same region that houses Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak. The distinctive pyramid-shaped mountain draws hundreds of climbers each autumn season.
More than 300 mountaineers hold permits to climb Ama Dablam during the current September-November autumn climbing window.
The German’s fatal fall came just days after another climbing tragedy elsewhere in Nepal. Two Japanese climbers died on a peak in the country’s west last week.
The autumn season on Ama Dablam has also seen deaths among trekkers on approach routes. Four trekkers have died along the trail to the mountain, according to regional reports.
Earlier this year, a separate disaster struck the mountaineering community on a Pakistani peak, where 10 climbers perished, including a prominent Nepali-British climber.