Kamas mountaineer Shelley Johannesen dies in Makalu tragedy

Shelley Johannesen’s death on Makalu has landed in Summit County as more than a headline from Nepal. The 53-year-old Kamas resident and co-founder of Dash Adventures died after an avalanche hit her team on the descent from the world’s fifth-highest mountain, leaving her business and life partner, David Ashley, to return with frostbite and a local community trying to absorb the cost of a climb gone fatally wrong.

Johannesen and Ashley founded Dash Adventures in 2018 as a U.S.-based expedition company built around small, tailor-made trips. Their Makalu attempt was part of a broader Himalaya campaign after the pair traveled to Nepal in April to acclimate. On May 9, Johannesen, Ashley, and two Nepali guides, Tawa Sherpa and Phurba Sonam Sherpa, reached Makalu’s 8,485-meter, or 27,838-foot, summit.

The descent turned dangerous the next day. An avalanche struck between Camp II and Camp III at roughly 7,000 to 7,200 meters, during snow, wind and low-visibility conditions. Ashley suffered frostbite and was airlifted, along with at least one guide, to a Kathmandu hospital. Later reports said Johannesen died in Ashley’s arms.

For Summit County, the loss reaches into the outdoor economy that shapes daily life from Kamas to Park City. Johannesen was not a distant mountaineer passing through on an expedition; she was part of a local network of guides, travelers and recreation businesses built around the mountains. Her home in Francis, just south of Kamas, placed her even closer to the Wasatch Back community that often sees big-mountain travel as both livelihood and passion.

The aftermath has moved quickly. A memorial project was started, and a Buddhist cremation ceremony in Kathmandu was scheduled for May 17, 2026. A GoFundMe was also launched to support the recovery and families of the Sherpas who were on the climb. Those details have made the tragedy feel less like a single incident and more like a chain of injuries, grief and responsibility reaching from Makalu back to Utah.

Johannesen’s death came amid a deadly 2026 spring climbing season in Nepal, when storms and unstable conditions also killed climbers on Everest and other Himalayan peaks. For the Summit County climbing community, the Makalu disaster has sharpened the questions that trail every major expedition: how much can preparation really control, what rescue can and cannot guarantee, and how much risk remains when a summit comes with a descent that can turn lethal in minutes.