Body of Canadian Everest climber taken off mountain by helicopter
Posted May 29, 2012 5:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The body of a Canadian woman who died while returning from the summit of Mount Everest has been brought off the world’s tallest mountain.
A spokesman from Utmost Adventure Trekking says Shriya Shah-Klorfine’s body has been taken via helicopter from Mount Everest to her family in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.
Ganesh Thakuri says a team of climbers managed to bring the Toronto woman’s remains down from an area more than 8,000 metres above sea level to a camp within helicopter rescue range on Monday, but bad weather prevented the body from being flown off the peak right away.
Shah-Klorfine was among four climbers who died while trying to scale Mount Everest on May 19.
They died under what’s being described as overcrowded conditions in the mountain’s so-called death zone in the final stretch of the climb.
The 33-year-old had previously stated that climbing Everest was a long-held dream.
Shah-Klorfine had been climbing for nearly 17 hours by the time she reached the summit at 2 p.m., Thakuri had said.
The descent was further complicated by cold, windy conditions, he added.
“She lost her stamina, and according to the sherpas was suffering with the altitude. Everything came together when they were coming down and she collapsed,” Thakuri said.
German doctor Eberhard Schaaf, 62, 55-year-old Wang-yi Fa of China and 44-year-old South Korean mountaineer Song Won-bin also died on the mountain that day.
Born in Kathmandu, Shah-Klorfine grew up in Mumbai, India and moved to Canada to be with her husband and start an import business, SOS Splash of Style Inc.
Her adopted country soon became central to her convictions as she involved herself in social and political groups, including the Conservative Party of Canada, where she was on the board of directors as secretary to the party’s Toronto-Davenport riding association.
Her desire to climb Mount Everest was also intermingled with her patriotism.
“This is my dream and passion, and (I) want to do something for my country,” Shah-Klorfine wrote on her website.
“Nothing is impossible in this world, even the word ‘impossible’ says ‘I M POSSIBLE’!”
