Can a mountaineer live while abandoning a fellow mountaineer to die?

A murder on the mountaintop, or the ruthlessness of the fear of death? But not everything is as we see in the movies; they actually sell a fantasy.

More than a year after the death of a 33-year-old woman who froze to death on Austria’s highest mountain, the possibility that she may have been abandoned to die by her boyfriend has emerged, and now the climber’s boyfriend will be tried on Thursday for causing death by gross negligence.

The BBC gave a brief summary of the event: Kerstin G died of hypothermia on a mountain climbing trip to the Grossglockner that went horribly wrong. Her boyfriend is accused of leaving her unprotected and exhausted close to the summit in stormy conditions in the early hours of 19 January 2025, while he went to get help.

What kind of feeling is it to abandon your own friend to die, or to say you’ll get help and then never call again, helplessness or… A climber’s most important quality is conscience. Conscience is first for oneself, then for the fellow mountaineer who shares the same fate. Moreover, this friendship is based on love. Was it love they experienced, or was mountaineering merely a means of bringing them together?

Another mountaineer who abandoned his girlfriend to get help and then forgot about her? Or someone who loved no one but himself?

Whatever the court says, the real judgment is in people’s hearts, and this judgment follows them even after death.