The worst fears turned into sad certainty. The Austrian climber Gerhard called “Gerry” Fiegl will not return. Reiner Gerstner, company spokesman for the outdoor sporting goods manufacturer Salewa, informed me, that the search for the missing 27-year-old was abandoned: “According to information from Nepal there is no longer any hope to find Gerry still alive.” In recent days, up to one and a half meter of fresh snow had fallen in the Annapurna region, Gerstner said. Last week on Monday, on the descent from the 6,839-meter-high Nilgiri South, Fiegl had fallen several hundred meters into depth. Previously Gerry – along with his compatriots Hansjoerg Auer and Alexander Bluemel – had first climbed the difficult South Face of the mountain where several expeditions had failed in past decades. “So an until then successful expedition came to a tragic end”, said Gerstner. “We mourn the death of a friend. Gerry was one of the best.”

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