Deep, heavy snow has forced an early close to the climbing season on Pobeda Peak in Kyrgyzstan, leaving the body of Russian mountaineer Natalia Nagovitsyna high on the mountain for another year.
According to Dmitry Grekov, the long-time head of the South Inylchek Base Camp, the notoriously short climbing window on the brutal 7,439m mountain has officially shut down.
“Even at Base Camp, the snow is already half a meter deep,” Grekov told TASS on August 7. He confirmed that the remaining climbers flown out of the area by helicopter.
As ExplorersWeb reported last August, 47-year-old Russian Natalia Nagovitsyna was descending from the summit of Pobeda when she broke her leg. Nagovitsyna was part of an independent four-person team with Russian Roman (no last name given), Italian Luca Sinigaglia, and German Gunther Sigmund.
The red circle marks where Natalia Nagovitsyna became stranded on Pobeda. Frame of a video by AKI TV
Rescuer also died
While Sinigaglia and Sigmund managed to reach her the following day with a stove and limited supplies, they were unable to move her. In a tragic turn, Sinigaglia succumbed to the extreme altitude and cold while attempting to assist.
On August 19, a drone captured heartbreaking footage of Nagovitsyna still alive and waving from her wind-torn tent. However, subsequent thermal imaging flights detected no signs of life, leading Kyrgyz authorities to declare her deceased.
Pobeda Peak was meant to be the final chapter in Nagovitsyna’s pursuit of the prestigious Snow Leopard award. Tragically, her mountaineering history was already marked by loss. In 2021, her husband Sergey died of a stroke on neighboring Khan Tengri. Natalia stayed by his side until the end when rescuers arrived and evacuated her.
Three groups of climbers tried to reach Natalia Nagovitsyna’s body this season to bring her down, but none got close, according to Grekov. The highest any team reached on Pobeda this year was 6,500m, well below the 7,000m where her body lies.
New safety regs
In direct response to the string of high-altitude tragedies, the Kyrgyz government has implemented strict new safety regulations. Moving forward, climbers targeting Pobeda, Khan Tengri, and Lenin Peak must prove high-altitude experience, adequate technical training, and specialized insurance that fully covers helicopter evacuation.
Natalia Nagovitsyna died on Pobeda in the summer of 2025. Photo: Izvestia
