A German climber, 57, died after falling about 1,500 metres on Nepal’s Ama Dablam, a day after reaching the summit. It is the first death on the peak this year.
KATHMANDU (Nepal): A German climber fell about 1,500 metres (4,920 feet) to his death on Monday, a day after reaching the summit of Ama Dablam mountain, according to a trekking company operator.
Wolfgang Waschiczek, 57, was reported missing from Camp 3, which lies at around 6,200 metres.
He had been resting after reaching the 6,812-metre summit on Sunday, before his planned descent.
“After a successful summit, he spent a night at Camp 3 on Sunday, and on Monday morning, his guide found him missing,” Gokul Thapa, head of the trekking company Real Himalaya, told AFP.
Thapa said Waschiczek’s personal trekking guide, Sonam Lama, had left him in the tent for a few minutes to return borrowed equipment, telling him to stay inside.
When he returned, Waschiczek was missing.
Waschiczek’s body was spotted by another Sherpa at Camp 2 at around 8 am on Monday at an altitude of about 4,600 metres, Thapa said.
The body was retrieved by helicopter during the afternoon and taken to Lukla, a town known as a gateway for mountaineers and trekkers heading to the Everest region.
It was then flown to the capital, Kathmandu, where a postmortem will be performed at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital.
“Once the postmortem is done, the body will be handed over to his family members through the embassy,” Thapa told AFP.
He said this was Waschiczek’s second visit to Nepal.
“He had come to Nepal in 2024 for a trek, and his passing saddened us,” he added.
Ama Dablam lies in Nepal’s Khumbu region and is considered a technically challenging mountain with steep faces.
This is the first fatality on the mountain this year.
Last October, two climbers, one French, aged 65, and the other South Korean, aged 66, died during expeditions there.
This climbing season, more than 300 climbers are attempting to scale Ama Dablam.