Hannelore Schmatz

Hannelore Schmatz ( born February 16, 1940 † October 2, 1979 at Mount Everest ) was a mountaineer and the first German who stood on the summit of Mount Everest.

In 1975 Schmatz ascended the summit of Tirich Mir. Four years later, she and her husband Gerhard Schmatz part in an expedition to Mount Everest via the southeast ridge, the classic Southern or Hillary route. One day after her husband had stood on the summit, she decided at short notice, as to ascend to the next team from the South Col to the summit, though she had not originally planned fixed. Gerhard Schmatz was the expedition leader, and at that time 50 years the oldest person who had made ​​it to the summit. Hannelore Schmatz died of exhaustion during the descent at an altitude of 8300 m, shortly after they see her climbing partner, the Americans Ray Genet, exhaustion had to die.

1984 died on an expedition to the Nepalese border police inspector Yogendra Bahadur Thapa of the police and the Sherpa Ang Dorje crash when they tried to recover the body of Hannelore Schmatz.

Over the years, the remains of Hannelore Schmatz were a landmark in the rise of the South Col for the summit. She sat a few hundred meters above the South Col, leaning against her backpack; her brown hair was blowing in the wind. The Danish lawyer and mountain climber Lene Gammelgaard quoted in her book "Climbing High" on their ascent of Everest in the disaster season 1996 the Norwegian mountaineer and expedition leader Arne Næss that climbers had felt persecuted when passing Stieg of the open eyes of Hannelore Schmatz. This was probably either an optical illusion or a hallucination because of altitude effects, for which there are many examples on Everest. Height storms have her body probably blown over the ridge down into the Kangshung wall.

The first German who stood on the summit and then returned, was only 20 years later Helga Hengge that on the Tibetan north side of Everest took part in an expedition by Russell Brice 1999.

Credentials

  • Mountaineers ( Germany )
  • German
  • Born in 1940
  • Died in 1979
  • Woman
Sherpa people Kangshung Face PBS
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