Mountaineering community mourns loss of top climber

KATHMANDU: The mountaineering community in Nepal paid tribute yesterday Ueli Steck – the Swiss climber who died near Mt Everest – as an accomplished climber and a friend of the country.

The 40-year-old, pictured, slipped from a slope and fell to his death on Sunday while attempting to summit Everest via a rarely used route.

His body was flown to Kathmandu from the Everest region late on Sunday for an autopsy.

Steck’s family was travelling to Kathmandu and planned to bury him there because he loved the country and had many friends there, his spokesperson Andreas Bantel said.

“The family is infinitely sad,” Bantel wrote on Facebook.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, who has known Steck since 2008, said the Swiss climber was “gregarious, quiet and energetic”.

“To me, he was a veteran climber, but he was also a friend. We used to meet almost every year on mountaineering conferences in Europe,” Sherpa said.

Before flying to Lukla, the nearest airport to Everest, last month, Steck practised at Sherpa’s climbing wall in Thamel. “He came at my office and practised on our climbing wall twice. He told me that he was leaving for Lukla. I presented him with silk scarves to wish him good luck,” Sherpa said.

Steck’s plan was to climb the 8 848m Everest peak first, and camp overnight, before continuing to the neighbouring Lhotse peak. – dpa