Hannelore Schmatz was the fourth woman in the world to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Tragically, she was also the first woman to die on it.
The German mountaineer and her husband embarked on their journey in 1979 with high hopes. But during the descent after reaching the summit, Schmatz grew weak from the trek and succumbed to exhaustion and the cold.
For years after Schmatz died, her body lay frozen on the mountainside just as she had fallen — sitting down against her backpack, her hair blowing in the wind, and her eyes wide open. Other climbers who passed her corpse on the trail would say that they could feel her eyes follow them as they walked by.
