The body of American mountaineer Hilaree Nelson was found Wednesday, September 28 in the Himalayas, two days after his disappearance on the slopes of Mount Manaslu in Nepal, announced the organizer of the expedition.

"The search team that left this (Wednesday) morning by helicopter has spotted his body and is bringing him back," Jiban Ghimire of Shangri-La Nepal Trek, who organized the expedition, told AFP.

The latter specified that the body was brought back to the base camp and will be transported by plane to Kathmandu. 

Hilaree Nelson slipped as she skied down the eighth highest mountain in the world (8,163m), after reaching the summit with her partner, Jim Morrison, on Monday.

He led the search operations and left Wednesday morning in a helicopter to find her. 

The helicopters could not fly on Monday and the rescue services returned empty-handed on Tuesday.

>> To read: The impossibility of repatriating the dead from the peaks of the Himalayas

First woman to summit Everest in 24 hours

The 49-year-old mountaineer's career spans two decades and she is described as "the most prolific female ski mountaineer of her generation" by North Face.

In 2012, she was the first woman to reach the summit of Everest, the highest mountain in the world, and the neighboring mountain of Lhotse in 24 hours. 

In an Instagram post last week, the mountaineer said the climb had been particularly strenuous due to "incessant rain" and dangerous conditions.

This is the second confirmed casualty of the autumn climbing season in Nepal.

The same day of his disappearance, an avalanche occurred between camps 3 and 4 of Manaslu, killing a Nepalese mountaineer and injuring a dozen people, according to the government's tourism department.

Nepal is home to eight of the fourteen highest peaks in the world and the foreign climbers who flock to climb its mountains are a major source of income for the country.

With AFP

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