A British climber too weak to descend from Mount Everest died on Saturday, officials said, the eighth climber to die on the world’s tallest mountain and the 18th in Nepal’s Himalayas during the current climbing season.
Hiking officials attributed most of the deaths to weakness, exhaustion, and delays on the crowded route to the 8,850-metre summit.
Robin Haynes Fisher, 44, died in the so-called “death zone” known for low levels of oxygen on the descent from the summit, Mira Acharya, a tourism department official, said.
He is the eighth fatality on Everest in the current climbing season that ends this month.
“He died because of weakness after a long ascent and difficult descent,” Murari Sharma of the Everest Parivar Treks company that arranged his logistics told Reuters.
“He was descending with his Sherpa guides from the summit when he suddenly fainted.”
Fellow guides changed Fisher’s oxygen bottle and offered him water, but could not save him, Sharma said.