Ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson has been found dead after going missing while skiing at Manaslu in Samagaun, Nepal.
The world renowned climber had been descending from the 27,000ft Manaslu mountain on skis on Monday when she is said to have crashed near the summit.
A huge search was launched for the mum-of-two from Telluride, Colorado, with teams finding her in a deep crevasse this morning on the Larke Peak side.
DSP Leela Raj Lamichhane at District Police Office, Gorkha, said Sherpas recovered the 49-year-old's body and a helicopter will later take her to Samagaun and the onto Kathmandu.
Jiban Ghimire, managing director of Shangri-La Nepal Trek, had earlier said: “The duo reached the true summit of Manaslu at 11.30am local time and about 15 minutes later I got a call from our staff at Base Camp that her ski blade skidded off and [she] fell off the other side of the peak."
Reports suggest her partner, Jim Morrison, returned to camp after the incident on Nepal's Manaslu, the world’s eighth highest mountain.
Efforts to search for the mountaineer were hampered early on by bad weather which meant helicopters were unable to take off.
Ahead of the climb, Hilaree had posted on social media she had not "felt as sure-footed on Manaslu" as on previous trips into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalayan mountain.
She wrote on her Instagram page: "These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways.
"The constant monsoon with its incessant rain and humidity has made me hopelessly homesick.
"I am challenged to find the peace and inspiration from the mountain when it’s been constantly shrouded in mist.
"Yesterday we ended our summit bid when we decided it was too dangerous to move from C3 to C4.
"We subsequently decided to ski down from C3 knowing that would mean carrying our skis all the way back up the mountain again if, big if here, we try again for a summit.
"It was the best thing we could’ve done."
In 2012, Ms Nelson became the first woman to summit the highest mountain in the world, Everest and its adjacent Lhotse within 24 hours.
In 2017, the couple attempted the first ski descent of the 21,165-foot mountain known as the Peak of Evil - which is a 3,000-foot, 60-degree ski descent with almost no visibility.
The North Face, one of the mountaineer's sponsors, tweeted on Monday: "Hilaree Nelson, professional ski mountaineer and Team Captain for The North Face, has gone missing below the summit of Mt. Manaslu in Nepal.
"We are in touch with Hilaree's family and supporting search and rescue efforts in every way we can."
On the same day Hilaree disappeared an avalanche lower down the same mountain killed a Nepali climber and injured 14, according to Nepal’s tourism department.
