Mount Everest is basically a vertical graveyard. You've probably heard of "Green Boots" or the "Sleeping Beauty," the frozen sentinels that climbers have had to step over for decades. But for a long time, the most haunting of them all was the body of Hannelore Schmatz.
She didn't look like the others. Most bodies on the mountain are tucked away in crevasses or slumped in a way that looks like they're sleeping. Hannelore was different. She was sitting up.
For twenty years, she sat there, leaning back against her yellow backpack. Her eyes were wide open. Her brown hair whipped in the jet-stream winds of the Death Zone. Climbers called her "The German Woman." Honestly, passing her was a rite of passage for anyone taking the southern route—a chilling, wide-eyed reminder that the mountain doesn't care about your resume.
What Happened to Hannelore Schmatz?
It was 1979. Hannelore and her husband, Gerhard Schmatz, were leading a massive expedition. Gerhard was 50 at the time, the oldest man to summit at that point. They were a power couple in the mountaineering world.
They didn't summit together. Gerhard went up with the first group and made it down safely. Hannelore followed in the second group. She reached the top, becoming the first German woman to stand on the roof of the world. But Everest has a way of letting you reach the peak just so it can kill you on the way down.
The Fatal Bivouac
The descent was a disaster. Hannelore and an American climber named Ray Genet were exhausted. As night fell at 8,300 meters ($27,200$ feet), they decided to do the one thing you are never, ever supposed to do in the Death Zone:
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They stopped.
Their Sherpa guides begged them to keep moving. "Just a bit further to Camp IV," they said. But Genet was done. He crawled into a bivouac and died of hypothermia that night. Hannelore survived the night, which is a miracle in itself, but she didn't last much longer. Just a few hundred feet from the safety of Camp IV, she sat down.
She asked for water. Then she died.
One of the Sherpas stayed with her as long as he could, losing fingers and toes to frostbite in the process. He eventually had to leave her there, sitting against her pack, staring out over the Kangshung Face.
The Sinister Guard of the South Col
For the next two decades, the body of Hannelore Schmatz became a landmark. Because of the way she died—sitting upright—the wind and cold mummified her in that exact position.
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Mountaineer Arne Næss Jr. described seeing her in 1985. He said it felt like she was following him with her eyes. It wasn't just a corpse; it was a "sinister guard." It’s hard to imagine the mental toll of climbing through thin air, oxygen-deprived and terrified, only to come face-to-face with a woman who looks like she’s just taking a quick break—except her skin is grey and her eyes have been open for years.
The Failed Recovery Attempt
In 1984, the Nepalese police organized an expedition specifically to recover her. It ended in more tragedy.
Yogendra Bahadur Thapa and Ang Dorje Sherpa reached the body, but something went wrong. They both fell to their deaths while trying to secure her remains. The mountain seemingly refused to give her up. After that, people mostly left her alone. They accepted that the body of Hannelore Schmatz belonged to Everest.
Where is the Body Now?
If you climb Everest today, you won't see her.
Sometime in the late 1990s or early 2000s, the winds finally won. The constant gale-force gusts that batter the South Col eventually pushed her over the edge. She didn't get a burial. The mountain just shifted her. She likely fell down the Kangshung Face, the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain.
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She's gone from the trail, but the legend of "The German Woman" still scares the hell out of new climbers.
Lessons from the Death Zone
You can't talk about Hannelore without talking about "summit fever." It’s that intoxicating, dangerous urge to keep going when your body is screaming at you to stop.
- The 2:00 PM Rule: Most modern expeditions have a hard turnaround time. If you aren't at the summit by 2:00 PM, you turn around. No exceptions. Hannelore and Genet pushed too late.
- Energy Management: Reaching the top is only half the battle. Most deaths happen on the way down because people use 100% of their "tank" just to get the photo at the summit.
- Listen to the Sherpas: They live there. If a Sherpa tells you that staying the night at 8,000 meters is a death sentence, you listen.
Hannelore Schmatz was an elite climber. She wasn't some amateur who bought her way onto the mountain. She was experienced, prepared, and strong. And she still ended up as a landmark. That’s the real takeaway here. The mountain doesn't care how many peaks you've bagged before.
If you’re planning a high-altitude trek or even just a visit to Base Camp, the best way to honor these fallen climbers is to respect the margins. Don't push when the weather turns. Don't ignore your guide. And always, always keep enough in the tank to get back to the tent.
To see what the South Col looks like today, you should check out the latest Himalayan Database logs or recent drone footage from the 2024 and 2025 seasons, which show how much the landscape of the "Rainbow Valley" and the Southern Route has changed as the ice continues to shift.