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Karakoram Dispatch

Remains found of American mountain climber who died in an avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak

Andoram Desk21 August 2026 · 12:15 UTC · 5 sources
Remains found of American mountain climber who died in an avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak
Photograph: Monika Witkowska via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Search teams on Broad Peak have recovered the remains of American climber Mallory Geis, the last of ten mountaineers to be located following an avalanche that struck the Karakoram peak on July 30. Local volunteers found her body on Friday, August 21, according to the Alpine Club of Pakistan Arab News Pakistan ExplorersWeb Outside.

What happened

The avalanche swept across four climbing teams near Broad Peak’s Camp II, at an elevation of about 21,160 feet, at roughly 9 a.m. local time, according to Outside Outside. Ten climbers were killed in the incident Arab News Pakistan ExplorersWeb. Pakistani authorities initially reported recovering Geis’s body on July 31, shortly after the avalanche, but Outside later learned that rescuers had in fact recovered only a detached leg, with the remainder of her body unaccounted for over the following weeks. The formal search for Geis began on July 31, according to Arab News Pakistan, and concluded with the discovery of her remains three weeks later. Eight other climbers’ bodies had already been recovered before Geis was found, according to ExplorersWeb. One body remains on the mountain: that of Nepali climber Nawang Thindu Sherpa, also spelled Nawang Thendu Sherpa, whose remains were located on July 31 but left in place because of the extreme danger of the terrain. According to the Associated Press, as cited by Outside, Geis was the last avalanche victim to be located, and authorities have now accounted for all ten climbers reported missing after the July 30 avalanche.

The people involved

Geis, whose full name was Sarah Mallory Geis, was 39 and lived in San Antonio, Texas Arab News Pakistan ExplorersWeb Outside. The Broad Peak attempt was her first expedition to an 8,000-metre peak. She had previously summited Lobuche East (6,119 m) and Mera Peak (6,476 m) in Nepal, and had completed ice-climbing training in the United States earlier in the year, according to ExplorersWeb. Earlier in the year she had announced on social media that she was closing her Pilates studio to devote herself to mountaineering, describing it as a “giant leap of faith into the unknown” and anticipating “lots of helmets, harnesses, and crampons”; CNN reported the same career change. Her family issued a statement earlier this month describing her as “a bright light who was loved deeply by her family and friends”, and her father, George Geis, told San Antonio station KENS 5 that the family’s “main objective now is to get her back”.

The expedition was led by Nirmal Purja, described by Arab News Pakistan as a Nepal-born former British Army soldier known as “Nims Dai,” who climbed the world’s 14 highest peaks in 189 days in 2019, a feat later featured in the Netflix documentary “14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible,” and subsequently surpassed in 2023 Arab News Pakistan. Outside described Purja as Nepali-British and confirmed he was among the ten climbers killed in the avalanche Outside.

The response

Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, confirmed the discovery of Geis’s remains, according to Arab News Pakistan Arab News Pakistan; Outside notes that Khan holds the rank of Major General Outside. Ayaz Shigri, General Secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, separately confirmed identification of the body, according to ExplorersWeb ExplorersWeb. Volunteers are expected to move the remains to Base Camp, after which helicopters will transport them to Skardu, a plan ExplorersWeb and Outside both attribute to reporting by Dawn.

Background or context

Broad Peak, at 8,051 metres (26,414 feet), sits in Pakistan’s Karakoram range and is ranked as the 12th-highest mountain in the world Outside. Arab News Pakistan noted that accidents are common on expeditions in northern Pakistan because of avalanches, falling ice and rock, high altitude, and rapidly shifting weather Arab News Pakistan. Outside described the July 30 avalanche as the deadliest high-altitude mountaineering accident since 2015, when an earthquake-triggered avalanche swept through Mount Everest Base Camp and killed 22 people. Lukas Furtenbach, founder of Furtenbach Adventures, told Outside that Broad Peak is climbed more frequently than many other 8,000-metre peaks but remains considerably less popular than Everest or Manaslu, with between 50 and 100 climbers attempting it in a given year, placing it in the “upper middle” of annual climber numbers; he added that expeditions typically run six to eight weeks, much of it spent acclimatising and waiting for suitable weather windows.

In a separate incident reported by ExplorersWeb, UK-based Pakistani climber Asma Mushtaq died on August 20 while descending Spantik (7,027 m), known as the “Golden Peak” for the sunset light on its slopes, after reaching the summit ExplorersWeb. Her guiding agency, Karakoram Calling, said she suffered a severe high-altitude medical emergency at around 6,400 metres, and guides were unable to save her. A recovery team was deployed to retrieve her body, and her family travelled to Skardu. Mushtaq, an obstetrics and gynaecology specialist who documented her travels online, had previously completed a winter ascent of Musa ka Musallah (4,076 m) and taken part in trips to the Rupal and Arandu areas.

What is not yet confirmed

It remains unclear precisely how or where Geis’s remains were located after weeks of searching, beyond the initial recovery of a detached leg reported by Outside Outside. The timeline and method by which the other eight bodies, aside from Nawang Thindu Sherpa’s, were recovered has not been detailed across the sources. No account specifies when or whether Nawang Thindu Sherpa’s remains might eventually be retrieved from the mountain. Finally, the two incidents on Broad Peak and Spantik are reported separately, and the sources do not indicate any connection between them beyond their proximity in time and region.

Sources referenced

Written by Andoram by combining 3 independently published reports, each linked above. We synthesise facts and reproduce no source text.

Coverage timeline

This page is an automatically compiled index of third-party reporting. Headlines and links belong to their publishers; Andoram reproduces no article text. Last compiled 22 Aug 2026 11:45 UTC.

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