The busy climbing season follows two years of disasters on the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) -high mountain.
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Fourteen Nepali guides are trying to bring down the body of Australian climber Maria Strydom, 34, who died of altitude sickness on Sunday.
“[Knowing she died in his arms] comforted me, because that’s where she would want to be”. As owner of a small company that made mountaineering equipment, Nath “was the only breadwinner for the family”, she said from their home in Durgapur, an industrial city in the Indian state of West Bengal.
The fixing of ropes on Everest was a daunting task, and had they not been repaired by the Sherpas, who worked day and night; it would not have been possible to climb the world’s tallest peak after last year’s earthquakes. The Dutch mountaineer said he had personally selected climbers, and Strydom and Gropel had three experienced sherpas between them. After being carried down the mountain, her body was flown to Kathmandu on Friday.
This week the expedition’s leader, Arnold Coster, revealed that Strydom had spent 31 hours above Everest’s South Col and had been stabilised with medicine and oxygen.
Husband Robert Gropel reached the top as Strydom waited for him, but she died in his arms on the descent, reports The Guardian newspaper.
“It took a while for me to register that I had medication, and so as soon as I realised, I gave her a dexamethasone injection”, Gropel told the ABC.
He reached the summit alone and the two then began to descend, but she collapsed and died on 21 May. “In their itinerary it was suggested they would sleep over at camp 3 for their acclimatization”.
Sherpas working to recover the body of the Melbourne woman Dr Marisa Strydom from Mount Everest are hopeful it will be in Kathmandu by the weekend, with her sister saying the situation is “looking positive”.
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Officials from Seven Summit Treks said 13 sherpas bringing Strydom’s body down the mountain had encountered heavy snowfall at about 7,700 metres on Tuesday. Indian national Subash Paul died at Base Camp II – at an elevation of about 24,600 feet – Sunday from altitude sickness.
