North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Threads related to Colorado mountaineering accidents but please keep it civil and respectful. Friends and relatives of fallen climbers will be reading these posts.
Forum rules
Please be respectful when posting - family and friends of fallen climbers might be reading this forum.
User avatar
BillMiddlebrook
Site Administrator
Posts: 6910
Joined: 7/25/2004
14ers: 58  46  19 
13ers: 172 44 37
Trip Reports (2)
 
Contact:

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by BillMiddlebrook »

Friends, acquaintances, peers, idols, all just climbing mountains to ski a big line and dying in the process. I get it, this sh!t is dangerous and Manaslu is at the upper end of the scale but it still jolts me every time this happens.

I didn’t know Hilaree but I’ve known plenty of others who’ve died skiing mountains. Fellow ski mountaineers, we can never let our guard down, be safe out there, we need to come home so our loved ones don’t have to go through this.
"When I go out, I become more alive. I just love skiing. The gravitational pull. When you ski steep terrain... you can almost get a feeling of flying." -Doug Coombs
User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 2390
Joined: 6/14/2010
Trip Reports (9)
 

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by Dave B »

robby40 wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:29 pm
Dave B wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 10:22 am
jfm3 wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:18 am Here is her obituary in the New York Times. This has hit the mountaineering community very hard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/spor ... -dead.html
Paywall. I f**king hope they have comments disabled on that article.
What difference does it make about the NYTimes comment section or any comment section? The family has been notified. There have already been plenty of comments from her partner to someone who was there who said something like, "it had snowed for a month, avalanche danger was very high, they did not belong on the mountain" to condolences. Her partner in time will may write a book, just like Maurice Herzog (and others) did describing (some say his embellished) ordeal and post-ordeal agonies. And he will probably lament and second guess about this for the rest of his life. It is sad that she is gone, as it is for all those who pass in accidents. Post accident kabitzing - by comment, by book or however - is part of the deal. And mountain accidents and small airplane accidents are often two of the most interesting types of accidents for the human aspects of a series of decisions and events that lead to something bad.
Ron Desantis, is that you?
Make wilderness less accessible.
User avatar
SnowAlien
Posts: 1756
Joined: 11/3/2010
14ers: 58  57  58 
13ers: 652 118 15
Trip Reports (111)
 
Contact:

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by SnowAlien »

robby40 wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:29 pmThere have already been plenty of comments from her partner to someone who was there who said something like, "it had snowed for a month, avalanche danger was very high, they did not belong on the mountain" to condolences.
You ski mountains when there's snow on them. If that new snow would shed, the mountain may be climbable in relative safety, but not skiable anymore. It's absolutely next level to try ski descents on Himalayan high peaks, that's why there are so few skiers there compared to climbers. If you watch the Lhotse ski descent video, the summit and ski window was in days, and then hours (as the storm was moving in). Turnaround time was 2pm, they made summit @1.45pm and winds picked up at 2.20pm. What they do is insanely difficult.
Unfortunately, looking at the direction the alpinism and ski mountaineering is going, the stakes just continue to get higher. I am really starting to think that the sponsor companies (like NorthFace), but really all of them should stop encouraging athletes to keep pushing the boundaries to the absolute limit until they make the final mistake. We already lost the best skiers like Shane McConkey, Doug Coombs, JP Auclair, Andreas Fransson, Liz Daley, the alpine trio in Canada - David Lama, Roskelley and Auer, Craig Luebben before, now Hilaree Nelson. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
User avatar
Gulf_Coast_Hiker
Posts: 118
Joined: 5/29/2020
14ers: 14 
13ers: 5
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by Gulf_Coast_Hiker »

BillMiddlebrook wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 6:40 pm Friends, acquaintances, peers, idols, all just climbing mountains to ski a big line and dying in the process. I get it, this sh!t is dangerous and Manaslu is at the upper end of the scale but it still jolts me every time this happens.

I didn’t know Hilaree but I’ve known plenty of others who’ve died skiing mountains. Fellow ski mountaineers, we can never let our guard down, be safe out there, we need to come home so our loved ones don’t have to go through this.
Amen, brother. I'm having a hard time figuring out if I could ever do Capitol Peak let alone an 8,000 meter summit.

Stay safe everyone, and thank all of you for the great info you share here on this wonderful site.
User avatar
justiner
Posts: 4396
Joined: 8/28/2010
14ers: 58  8 
13ers: 138
Trip Reports (40)
 
Contact:

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by justiner »

I feel for her husband. Adam Campbell had a (somewhat) similar thing happening to him, where his wife was buried by an avalanche. He's been very frank and open about his struggles ever since.

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/grabbed-all- ... -1.5754170
User avatar
jfm3
Posts: 271
Joined: 8/2/2016
14ers: 58 
13ers: 24
Trip Reports (12)
 
Contact:

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by jfm3 »

SnowAlien wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:45 pm
robby40 wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:29 pmThere have already been plenty of comments from her partner to someone who was there who said something like, "it had snowed for a month, avalanche danger was very high, they did not belong on the mountain" to condolences.
You ski mountains when there's snow on them. If that new snow would shed, the mountain may be climbable in relative safety, but not skiable anymore. It's absolutely next level to try ski descents on Himalayan high peaks, that's why there are so few skiers there compared to climbers. If you watch the Lhotse ski descent video, the summit and ski window was in days, and then hours (as the storm was moving in). Turnaround time was 2pm, they made summit @1.45pm and winds picked up at 2.20pm. What they do is insanely difficult.
Unfortunately, looking at the direction the alpinism and ski mountaineering is going, the stakes just continue to get higher. I am really starting to think that the sponsor companies (like NorthFace), but really all of them should stop encouraging athletes to keep pushing the boundaries to the absolute limit until they make the final mistake. We already lost the best skiers like Shane McConkey, Doug Coombs, JP Auclair, Andreas Fransson, Liz Daley, the alpine trio in Canada - David Lama, Roskelley and Auer, Craig Luebben before, now Hilaree Nelson. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
Not to mention Ueli Steck, Marc Andre LeClerc....They are the very best in the world at this stuff, but sometimes the line between skill and luck really gets thin. It's awesome to watch Kilian summit Everest twice in one week, and to have one of those be a bottom-to-top-to-bottom < 24 hour climb, but what if he hit the wall above the Yellow Band on his second attempt? It was awesome to watch Ueli climb the Nordwand in 2 hours, but what if a rock had peeled off near the top of the face?

I think it's incredible that these people have the skill and ability to do these kinds of climbs while also (probably) having the very real possibility of death somewhere in their minds the entire time.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/2596507" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamie.mothersbaugh.3rd/
Garmin inReach Map: https://share.garmin.com/jfmiii
User avatar
Violet
Posts: 21
Joined: 9/5/2022
14ers: 13 
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by Violet »

And also including Alex Lowe :
In September 1999, Lowe, Conrad Anker and David Bridges (a two-time US national paragliding champion) traveled to the 26,291-foot (8,013 m) Himalayan giant Shishapangma, the fourteenth highest peak in the world, as part of the 1999 American Shishapangma Ski Expedition.

Plans called for Lowe and Anker to be part of the team that would ski down, to become the first Americans to ski down from the summit of an 8,000-meter peak; while Bridges was part of a three-man film team that was to shoot an NBC documentary of the expedition for The North Face. Lowe commented:

It's been a passionate goal of mine to ski off an 8,000 meter peak. I guess there's a lot of people sort of looking to do this and try to ski off Everest. But for me, it's got to be an aesthetic and quality run. And Shishapangma has the best ski line of any of the 8,000 meter peaks. It's just an absolutely straight shot right down the Southwest Face. That's going to be a good one.
On 5 October, they split into two teams as they searched for a route up the mountain. Lowe's group (Lowe, Anker and Bridges) were crossing a flat glacier when a large serac broke loose 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above and tumbled downhill. The 500-foot (150 m)-wide avalanche swept over the three men. Anker was thrown 100 feet (30 m) by the windblast, and suffered a lacerated head, two broken ribs, and dislocated shoulder, but emerged from the snow, and led a 20-hour rescue attempt in the large debris field measuring up to 20 feet (6.1 m) deep. Neither body was found at the time, but almost seventeen years later on 27 April 2016, climbers Ueli Steck and David Göttler, came across the remains of the two climbers emerging from the glacier……..
The above is from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Lowe
And there is a movie 《Torn》 about the story of What happened before and after the fatal accident. Very good movie.
User avatar
cedica
Posts: 725
Joined: 6/25/2014
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by cedica »

SnowAlien wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:45 pm We already lost the best skiers like Shane McConkey, Doug Coombs, JP Auclair, Andreas Fransson, Liz Daley, the alpine trio in Canada - David Lama, Roskelley and Auer, Craig Luebben before, now Hilaree Nelson. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
And Davo Karničar, in logging accident while he was back home.
User avatar
pcrotty41
Posts: 30
Joined: 8/6/2015
14ers: 42 
Trip Reports (0)
 

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by pcrotty41 »

I did a ski mountaineering trip with Hilaree in the Sierra's years ago. She was an absolute professional through and through and was a good human being and world class mountaineer. RIP and condolences to the family and friends. She was one of the good ones and will be missed.
User avatar
Jorts
Posts: 1113
Joined: 4/12/2013
14ers: 58  4  2 
13ers: 102 11 5
Trip Reports (10)
 

Re: North Face skier Hilaree Nelson missing in Manaslu

Post by Jorts »

While the likes of The North Face and Red Bull embrace pushing the limits, many people are just simply wired to accept risks in outdoor endeavors because it makes them feel alive. I think of Marc Andre LeClerc and Dean Potter, but even more so of their partners that died with them whose names I doubt any of you can recall off the tops of your heads - who didn't have lucrative sponsorships.

I don't think TNF or Red Bull can be held all that responsible. They help support a lot of these individuals who would be doing this extraordinary, risky stuff regardless.
Traveling light is the only way to fly.
IG: @colorado_invasive
Strava: Brent Herring
Post Reply