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The family of a Melbourne woman who died while climbing Mount Everest at the weekend still have not heard from her expedition company, as they come to grips with the fact her body may stay on the mountain.
Expedition leader Arnold Coster Expeditions finally broke its silence on Monday afternoon with a detailed report on what happened to Monash University lecturer Maria Strydom, 34, who died after developing altitude sickness.
The hiking company claimed other people had posted news online while it was still busy rescuing Dr Strydom's husband, Robert Gropel, a vet at Ivanhoe East Veterinary Hospital.
Dr Strydom's sister, Aletta Newman, said on Monday morning that she was furious Arnold Coster Expeditions still had not contacted her, or Dr Strydom's parents, to express condolences. The family has heard conflicting stories about how and where she died.
Relatives were turning their thoughts to whether they could recover Dr Strydom's body.
"[Dr Gropel] doesn't want to leave without her," Ms Newman said. "Given that she is 8000 metres up a mountain, we feel that there is nothing that we can really do. We can't really go and see her and get her down ourselves."
Hundreds of bodies of hikers, who perished while trying to reach the summit, remain on the mountain because it is too hard to recover them.
Ms Newman said the family "really, really hopes" it can recover Dr Strydom's body, and would not organise a funeral or memorial service until it knew for sure.
"It just wouldn't feel right leaving her up there alone. It will make it so much harder".
The expedition company confirmed in a statement that Dr Strydom [who was also known as Marisa] did not make it to the summit.
"Halfway between the South Summit and Balcony she was hardly able to move and became very confused," the company wrote in a blog post.
"Her husband and several Sherpas struggled all night to bring her down, and miraculously she made it back to the South Col 2am that night, after spending 31 hours above the camp.
"We managed to stabilise her that night with medicine & oxygen, and Marisa was able to walk out of the tent herself the next morning. Helicopter rescue is only possible from Camp 3, so we continued our descent the next morning.
"Marisa was able to walk herself, but two hours out of camp she collapsed on the 'Geneva Spur'. Her husband tried to retrieve her, but this was not possible any more. Rob was evacuated by helicopter from Camp 2 the next day and is in Kathmandu now."
Rescuers were assembling teams to try to recover Dr Strydom's body, as well as that of a fellow climber.
Meanwhile, Dr Gropel's uncle said he had warned the couple not to attempt the climb.
Kurt Gropel made the comments as his brother and wife flew from Melbourne to Kathmandu on Monday to be with their son, who is battling a build-up of fluid in his lungs.
"I had a foreboding, a bad feeling," he said. "I said, 'I don't want you to go' – they weren't very happy about that."
Mr Gropel said Dr Gropel and his wife had been extremely fit before the climb after intense training.
"Everest is a killer," he said. "There are 200 corpses up there that decorate the path. They are all people who thought they could go up and down."
Mr Gropel said he was devastated by the loss of Dr Strydom.
The couple's expedition had already lost another climber by the time the elements took hold of Dr Strydom. Dutch man Eric Arnold had told companions "my body has no energy left" before dying in his sleep, according to Dutch news agency ANP.
Dr Strydom and Dr Gropel began their ascent to the top of the world's highest mountain more than a month ago.
They had successfully reached Camp 4, 400 metres below the summit by Friday, as indicated by the satellite pings posted online from their phones.
Furtengi Sherpa, the operational manager of Seven Summit Treks, said Dr Strydom had been battling illness as the final push to the summit began.
"She was tired and energy was down," he said.
Suffering from altitude sickness and just hundreds of metres from the summit, she was forced to turn back through the "death zone", where oxygen-starved climbers battle against frostbite, low-atmospheric pressures and fierce winds, and bodies litter the climbing trail.
"She could not resist any more her weakness and she stopped breathing right there," said Mr Furtengi.
While the Department of Foreign Affairs tries to get the couple home, tributes have begun to flow for Dr Strydom, a banking and finance expert.
Dr Strydom's friend Carly Moulang paid tribute on Monday, saying her friend trained for more than a year.
"She was not a risk taker, she was not willing to take unnecessary risks and she was strongly of the belief that she would return safe, even if it meant that she didn't summit. In the case that she did not reach the summit, she was prepared to return to Everest for another attempt," Ms Moulang said.
"The Monash University community is deeply saddened by the tragic news of the loss of Dr Strydom on Mount Everest," the university said in a statement.
Dr Strydom and Dr Gropel were passionate vegan campaigners and wanted to tackle Everest to challenge the diet's stereotypes.
"It seems that people have this warped idea of vegans being malnourished and weak," Dr Strydom said in March. "By climbing the seven summits we want to prove that vegans can do anything and more."
Over the past eight years, the experienced mountaineers had successfully climbed Denali in Alaska, Aconcagua in Argentina, Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey and Kilimanjaro in Africa.
Dr Strydom's death was the third climbing-related fatality in the Himalayas this week. On Thursday, a 25-year-old Nepali Sherpa plunged more than two kilometres to his death. The man, who has not been identified, slipped while fixing ropes on nearby Lhotse, the world's fourth-highest peak.
With Carolyn Webb
