The mountaineering community in Nepal paid tribute on Monday to Ueli Steck, the Swiss climber who died on Everest, describing him as an accomplished climber and a friend of the country.
The 40-year-old climber slipped from a slope and fell to his death on Sunday while attempting to summit Everest via a rarely used route. 
His body was flown to Kathmandu from the Everest region late on Sunday for an autopsy at a government-run hospital.
Steck's family was travelling to Kathmandu and planned to bury him there because he loved the country and had many friends there, his spokesman Andreas Bantel said.
"The family is infinitely sad," Bantel wrote on Facebook.
Ang Tshering Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, who has known Steck since 2008, said the Swiss climber was "gregarious, quiet and energetic."
"To me, he was a veteran climber, but he was also a friend. We used to meet almost every year on mountaineering conferences in Europe. Naturally, I feel very sad," Sherpa told DPA.
Before flying to Lukla, the nearest airport to Everest, last month, Steck practised at Sherpa's climbing wall in Kathmandu's tourist district of Thamel.
"He came at my office and practised on our climbing wall twice. He told me that he was leaving for Lukla the next day. So I presented him with silk scarves to wish him good luck," Sherpa said.
Steck's plan was to climb the 8,848-metre Everest peak first, to camp overnight at above 8,000 metres, before continuing to the neighbouring Lhotse peak, Swiss media reported in late March.