ASAHIKAWA, HOKKAIDO: Mountaineer Kei Taniguchi fell to her death while climbing this week in the snowy Daisetsuzan range in northern Japan’s Hokkaido.

Taniguchi, 43, the first woman to win the prestigious Piolet d’Or (Golden Ice Axe) mountaineering award in 2009, apparently slipped and fell after scaling 1,984-meter Mount Kuro in a party with four men, according to members of the group who alerted police at 2:50 p.m. Monday.

Taniguchi scaled Mount Everest in 2007 and was an experienced mountaineer, with an official at the Japanese Alpine Club describing her as “one of the world’s most skilled female climbers.”