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Two American women competing to be the first in the country to scale the tallest 14 mountains were killed while climbing the last remaining peak on their list.
Gina Rzucidlo and Anna Gutu and their Nepalese guides both lost their lives in separate avalanches while climbing Mount Shishapangma in Tibet on Saturday.
Gutu, 32, and her guide Mingmar Sherpa were confirmed dead first on Saturday, while Rzucidlo, 45, was reported missing.
The Massachusetts native and her guide was later confirmed dead by her family in a Facebook post.
The Chinese government has denied the family’s request to search for her body via helicopter and Christy Rzucidlo said the “search for their bodies may resume in the spring once weather conditions are favorable.”
The mountain has been closed for the season due to “unsafe snow conditions,” Christy said.
The two women were killed in separate places on the mountain by two different avalanches.
Mount Shishapangma was the mountain each one had to complete to be the first American woman to climb all 14. Edurne Pasaban was the first woman to climb all 14 peaks, and Kristin Harila, of Norway, recently completed the challenge in 92 days – beating the 189-day record.
Fellow mountaineer, Uta Ibrahimi, of Kosovo, said she turned back around after the first avalanche over fears for her safety, but Rzucidlo kept going.
“I saw the first avalanche! I was terrified to understand that avalanche took three people, including Ana and Mingna, who died!” the Kosovo mountaineer said in a Facebook post. “I was so shocked. I stopped for an hour trying to understand what should I do .. of course I don’t want to climb up! I see the other team of my dear friend Lama, who was guiding Gina, they were still continuing towards the summit!”
Ibrahimi said she also saw the second “big huge” avalanche that “came from the summit” that took out Rzucidlo. Ibrahimi, who had reached 7,600 meters before turning around, said the avalanches took place within three hours of each other.
Karma Gelen Sherlpa, another Nepalese guide, was critically injured and had to be escorted down the mountain and taken to a nearby hospital.
A total of 52 climbers — who all hail from the US, Great Britain, Japan, Italy and other countries — were attempting to summit Shishapangma, the world’s 14th tallest peak. It is the only mountain standing above 8,000 meters, or 26,000 feet, that is located entirely in Tibet.
Chinese authorities have only recently allowed foreign climbing expeditions to begin again this year after three years of COVID-19 restrictions.
Rzucidlo’s family said her death was “heartbreaking” because she was “so close” to her goal.
Christy told The Telegraph her family remembers her sister as “always smiling, always happy, a jokester,”
Gutu’s social media pages were flooded with tributes to the mountaineer, with many calling her an “inspiration” and a “strong woman.”
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