Ueli Steck, the famed Swiss mountain climber, is dead after falling thousands of feet on Mount Everest – the world's highest mountain, which Steck last tried climbing in 2012. He was 40 and known as the "Swiss Machine."
Steck died at Camp 1 of Mount Nuptse after falling 3,280 feet down the mountain, according to Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks. His body was found at the climbing site and then flown to an airport in Lukla.
After his climb was cut short in 2012, Steck said didn't know if he'd be giving Everest another shot, according to Outside Online.
However, he decided to try again last month and he set out to climb a route that had only been successfully completed once, the Washington Post noted.
In making the decision, Steck said he was intrigued by the physical challenge.
"Failure for me would be to die and not come home," he said, at the time.
On Sunday that statement became a reality when Nepalese officials announced that Steck had died.
"I can't express what a loss this is to the mountaineering community," said Alan Arnette, a climber out of Colorado. "Ueli loved Nepal, Everest and the Himalaya."
According to the Himalayan Times, Steck's autopsy will take place at the Maharajgunj-Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu.
Steck's death comes a year after he and his climbing partner David Gottler found the bodies of fellow climbers, Alex Lowe and David Bridges, noted the Post.
The two died in an avalanche on Mt. Shishapangma in Tibet in 1999.
Reporter Nick Paumgarten said Steck was considered the greatest climber of his era, just like Lowe was before he passed.
"Steck and Lowe are now forever linked, in the alpinists' circle of death," said Paumgarten. "Steck's demise is a reminder, as though another one were ever necessary, that mountain climbing is an extremely perilous endeavor, and that even it's strongest and most talented practitioners, experts by necessity in the art of risk assessment, need a great deal of luck to make it to old age."
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