She said climbing had not come naturally to her son, who suffered from altitude sickness as a child while trying to climb the Matterhorn with his father and brother. <\/p>\n
Kellam never wanted to climb the highest peaks, she said. Instead, he found tremendous peace and joy in connecting with nature in some of the most beautiful and majestic mountains in the world.<\/p>\n
As an adult, he decided to give climbing another try, and arrived in New Zealand. <\/p>\n
He met Vialletet, who grew up in the French Alps and co-owned W\u0101naka mountain and ski guide company Summit Explorers, when they climbed together two years ago.<\/p>\n
Kellam, a 44-year-old lawyer from Washington DC, was remembered as a much-appreciated role model in his field. <\/p>\n
Kellam Conover, 44, was a lawyer in Washington DC.<\/p>\n
He mentored junior colleagues, taking time with them and explaining things. <\/p>\n
But most importantly, he made them feel valued, his mother said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt did not surprise me that, in remembering him, his colleagues stressed his kindness and generosity. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn legal teams, he was known for his positive can-do energy, collegiality and his brilliance in crafting winning arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside work, he was unfailingly generous in spirit with his friends and family.<\/p>\n
He was an accomplished violinist who began playing at age 3 and, as an adult, played in various quartets. <\/p>\n
More recently, he had taken up piano and was taking lessons.<\/p>\n
Pamela Conover said her son just loved being in the world. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe lived in downtown Washington DC, and much enjoyed walking all around the city. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a fabulous cook and relished finding new and interesting restaurants. <\/p>\n
\u201cHis favourite author was Marcel Proust. A few years ago, he was rereading In Search of Lost Time and carried the last volume with him to read when he was climbing and hiking between huts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a wickedly good pool shark at 9-ball, and he passionately followed the exploits of the University of North Carolina Tarheel basketball team his whole life, proudly wearing Tarheel T-shirts to the gym.\u201d<\/p>\n
She had been left \u201cutterly shattered\u201d by her son\u2019s death, but found solace in knowing he died doing what he loved. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a parent, I am, of course, utterly shattered, absolutely heartbroken by his death.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill, I and the rest of our family find much solace in the fact that Kelly died doing what he loved on top of an extraordinary mountain. <\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in New Zealand has been tremendously kind and helpful in navigating the complex process of bringing him home. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe coroners must finish their required examination, and when that is done, he will come home to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jazlyn Whales is a multimedia journalist based in the Christchurch newsroom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She said climbing had not come naturally to her son, who suffered from altitude sickness as a child…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,101609,104263,104264,4194,1359,6179,39197,42,97687,20053,424,5829,6178,10048,43,1118,180,22639,1961,40,38,41,39,12628,28355,1955,686,6123],"class_list":["post-157725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-and","tag-aoraki","tag-climber","tag-conquer","tag-cook","tag-described","tag-died","tag-extraordinary","tag-headlines","tag-heartbroken","tag-lawyer","tag-life","tag-many","tag-mother","tag-mt","tag-news","tag-of","tag-shares","tag-son","tag-this","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tragedy","tag-trying","tag-ways","tag-week","tag-while"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}