Swiss climber cremated near Everest
Print Edition
THE body of legendary Swiss climber Ueli Steck, who died on Mount Everest, was cremated at a Buddhist monastery which lies in the shadow of the world’s highest peak.
Steck became the first fatality of this year’s spring season when he fell from a ridge during an acclimatization climb on Sunday.
The climber’s body was yesterday flown by helicopter to the Tengboche Monastery.
Steck’s wife, Nicole, and close family members arrived with the body from Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, for the Buddhist funeral ceremony.
His body was carried from the helipad to the cremation site, a few hundred meters from the monastery, which is surrounded by sheer Himalayan peaks including Everest’s towering 8,848 meter summit.
The family surrounded the funeral pyre and monks in flowing maroon ropes offered prayers and played music.
Steck was famed for his record speed ascents in the Alps, which earned him the nickname the “Swiss Machine.”
The climber was attempting to achieve another first this year by charting a rarely climbed route to summit both Everest and Lhotse, the world’s fourth highest mountain, all without supplemental oxygen.
He was due to summit Everest via the West Ridge, a route that has recorded more fatalities than summits, before climbing Lhotse.
The accomplished alpinist was on an acclimatization run to Mount Nuptse, which shares a common ridge with Everest, when he slipped and fell more than 1,000 meters.
During his two-decade long career, he scaled some of the world’s most daunting peaks, often alone. He did so without basic safety equipment such as fixed ropes or bottled oxygen.
Steck made global headlines in 2013 when he and two other Western climbers came to blows with a group of Nepali guides on Everest.
After the incident he swore he would never to return to Everest, but he was back in the Himalayas just months later to scale Mount Annapurna, the world’s tenth highest, becoming the first mountaineer to complete a solo ascent of the 8,091 meter peak. He was awarded the Piolet d’Or, mountaineering’s top accolade, for the 2013 climb.
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