A desperate search for Russian mountaineer Natalia Nagovitsina, 47, has stretched into its second week, with local authorities stating on Monday that they're abandoning attempts to extricate her from Victory Peak due to bad weather.
Nagovitsina became stranded on August 12, unable to descend from the treacherous slopes in Kyrgyzstan after breaking her leg. Multiple rescue missions have been mounted in the days since, but the efforts have been marred by tragedy and setbacks.
Italian climber Luca Sinigaglia managed to reach her, delivering a sleeping bag to help her endure the brutal -23°C conditions, but he later succumbed to hypothermia and exhaustion. His body was found in an ice cave, and with his death, the already dangerous mission grew even more perilous, MailOnline detailed.
Helicopters were dispatched to try to lift Nagovitsina from the mountainside, but the operations ended in disaster. One aircraft crashed during the attempt, another was forced to retreat in zero visibility, and a final ground effort to climb toward her position was abandoned when worsening weather made progress impossible.
The president of the Kyrgyz Mountaineering Federation has since admitted it is now “highly likely” that Nagovitsina has not survived, saying she was trapped at an altitude “practically incompatible with normal life.”
For Nagovitsina, danger on the mountains was not new. Years earlier, her husband Sergei had died during their own expedition on nearby Khan-Tengri Peak, collapsing after a stroke during the climb. Natalia was told to continue her descent without him but she refused.
“I understand everything, but I will not leave him alone,” she told rescuers at the time, per CNN. Though a team eventually tried to bring Sergei down, he broke free in a delirious state and fell to his death. His body was never recovered.
In a documentary filmed about their expedition, Natalia admitted she had never feared death, only the possibility of losing her ability to climb. “You know, I was not afraid to die. I was afraid to be disabled, that I will get frostbite, they will take away my arms and legs, and what will I do? In fact, this is it. Yes, this is the worst punishment.”
A year after Sergei’s death, she returned to Khan-Tengri to leave a memorial plaque for him on the mountain. It was both an act of tribute and a declaration of her own unbroken connection to the peaks that had shaped her life, and claimed her husband’s.
The haunting clip from that film has resurfaced now, as the world watches the latest chapter in her story. On August 19, a drone spotted Nagovitsina still alive, but heavy snowfall soon blanketed the mountain and shut down further attempts at rescue, according to CNN. Since then, silence.
For those who know her, Natalia’s ordeal carries a tragic symmetry. She once pledged she would not abandon Sergei to die alone on the mountain, and now, years later, she may herself have been left to face the same fate; unmoving, unreachable, and surrounded by the vast silence of the high peaks she loved.