The Woman Who Became a Landmark on Everest | The Story of Hannelore Schmatz

For years, anyone climbing Mount Everest by its southern route passed the same strange sight. About a hundred meters above the highest camp on the mountain, a woman sat in the snow, leaning back against her pack. Her eyes were open. Her hair moved in the wind. From a distance, climbers sometimes mistook her for a resting figure, or even for a tent, until they got close enough to understand what they were really looking at. She had been there since 1979. The cold and the dry wind preserved her where she sat, and for years she was one of the landmarks climbers used to mark their progress on the southern route. Going up, they passed her. Coming down, they passed her again. Her name was Hannelore Schmatz. And the strange thing about her death is that she did not die on the way up. She reached the summit. She stood on top of the world, the fourth woman in history to do it. She had already succeeded. What killed her was a decision made on the way down. A decision she made against the advice of the people who knew the mountain best, the Sherpas guiding her descent. Make sure to subscribe for weekly videos!