The body of a Canadian woman who died while descending Mount Everest has been removed from the world's tallest mountain, after bad weather bungled previous attempts.
Shriya Shah-Klorfine's body is being flown via helicopter from Mount Everest to her family in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu, a spokesperson for Utmost Adventure Trekking said Tuesday.
The 33-year-old was among four climbers who died while scaling the mountain on May 19.
Climbers reached the Toronto woman's body on Monday and carried it to a camp within helicopter rescue range, but difficult weather conditions prevented crews from flying the body off the mountain right away, Ganesh Thakuri told The Canadian Press.
The retrieval of Shah-Klorfine's body is particularly important to many who were close to the Nepalese-Canadian woman due to the importance of cremation in the Hindu faith, a friend told CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.
"If the body is not cremated then the soul never (gets) salvation," Priya Ahuja explained.
Recovering the body was a costly and dangerous operation, she said, but Shah-Klorfine's loved ones had asked crews to continue trying.
"We said, 'If it is possible then please do it,'" said Ahuja. "If they were not successful this time ... then we will try it again."
Climbing Mount Everest had been a life-long dream for Shah-Klorfine, who told friends she was first inspired to scale the mountain after visiting it with her parents as a child.
She aspired to be the first South Asian woman from Canada to reach the mountain's summit, according to a message posted to her expedition website.
Shah-Klorfine had been climbing for nearly 17 hours when she fulfilled her dream of reaching Mount Everest's peak, Thakuri had said earlier.
Ahuja said she still remembers hearing about the accomplishment via a phone call that day.
"That time, I was so, so happy, I cannot describe," she said.
A number of factors are believed to have contributed to her death, including low oxygen, fatigue, bad weather conditions and a "traffic jam" of climbers that weekend.
The incident continues to baffle Ahuja, who continues to ask herself why others could return home after scaling the mountain and not her friend.
She admits she was taken off-guard when Shah-Klorfine first revealed her Everest ambitions, but soon came to understand that her friend was serious about her goal.
"I realized it's her dream, and her dream motivated me a lot," she said. "After I met her, I saw her courage, I saw her motivation, her determination."
