Men Should Not Need to Be Told Not to Abandon Their Partners in the Wilderness via “Alpine Divorce”

Two months ago, I wrote a little something about a strange criminal case in Europe related to an incident in the Austrian Alps, in which a man and his girlfriend attempted to climb Großglockner (Glockner), the country’s highest peak, only for the man to ultimately leave his girlfriend behind to “go for help,” while she ultimately perished from exposure. Although the man was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter, what stood out most was the veritable slap on the wrist he had received in the form of a five-month suspended sentence and a fine of roughly $11,000. This, despite the fact that the man in question not only turned down an offer of help when contacted by police a few hours earlier, but also had a former girlfriend who testified during the trial that he had likewise abandoned her on the very same mountain two years earlier, in suspiciously similar circumstances. It was a fascinatingly odd story for the way it captured the seeming portrait of a toxic man who was apparently more concerned with his climbing than whether his significant others lived or died. Little did I know at the time, though, that this kind of treatment is apparently an entire archetype of shitty romantic partner behavior. It even has a name: “Alpine divorce.”

I have a suggestion for men: Do not abandon women on hikes! This includes charging on ahead and stopping to watch her as she struggles to catch up with you. Unless she has said, “Can you go ahead to see if it’s passable, for me, and then come back,” just WALK WITH HER. (Ofc this has happened to me)

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— Erica C. Barnett (@ericacbarnett.bsky.social) Mar 25, 2026 at 11:06 PM

Nor is that term some recent phenomenon: It was culled from an 1893 short story from Scottish Canadian writer Robert Barr, with a plot oddly reminiscent of the new film Over Your Dead Body, premiering in U.S. theaters this weekend. In the story, an unhappily married couple takes a vacation in the Alps, where the husband is planning to push his wife off a cliff … only to find that she’s simultaneously planning to frame him for murder in an O Henry-style twist. The phrase “alpine divorce” has since taken on a more typically gendered meaning, in which impatient, inconsiderate, frustrated or occasionally genuinely homicidal men choose remote locations such as the backwoods or mountain trails to leave their partners behind to fend for themselves. Following the Austrian case’s appearance in headlines, it seemingly kicked off a wave of discussion about the phenomenon, with women on social networks such as TikTok or long reddit threads sharing their own stories about times that they were abandoned on dates, or even by longtime boyfriends or husbands. Seriously, just look at an average example of one of these stories:

I dated a guy who did this on nearly every hike we went on for YEARS. 20 minutes into every hike we did, he just left me behind, never stopping for a breather or water break. I wouldn’t see him again until summit (sometimes when he’s on the descent already). I had absolutely no idea it was a common issue and I thought I was just being sulky and dramatic. Because he always said we just have “different paces” and that I’m too slow blah blah blah. And that was true, so I just thought I was super out of shape and felt embarrassed. I was actually in great shape but he was twice my size so obviously he’s still going to be faster.

He also did this when walking around in public places. Even when traveling in other countries. Randomly he would just stop talking, pick up his walking pace, and fucking leave me. Many times I had to find my own way home or back to the hotel.

I mean, is it any wonder why the average woman would choose the bear? This is, to put it mildly, psycho behavior, to the point that I question giving it an almost cute-sounding term like “alpine divorce” when the realistic outcome is that the women experiencing it could potentially end up dead. Would we call it “maritime divorce” if you sailed your boat away from your partner and left them bobbing in the middle of the ocean, awaiting their drowning? Hey, wait a minute…

That said, there’s something fascinating and seemingly nigh-universal about the root of toxic masculinity that powers such incidents. What is it that apparently makes a man so angry about going on a hike with their girlfriend or wife? The misogynistic implication that she is somehow dead weight, slowing you down from reaching your peak potential as a physical specimen? Is taking a casual walk through the woods or up a mountain with a significant other some kind of burden no man should be expected to endure, because it robs them of the chance to brag to other men about how quickly they were able to achieve a task? Or is there something about going out into nature that allows dormant arguments and buried resentments to flare up, resulting in abandonment? Who can say?

Apparently men need to be told, however: Do not do this. It seems like it would be common sense that when you embark on an activity with a person, the pair of you (or the group) have become a single entity as far as forward progress is concerned. The max speed of your group is now the max speed of its slowest member–and nor should you guilt that person or imply that they’re holding the rest of you back, by the way. Because, you know, that’s what an asshole would do. Or as Andreas Truegler, a mountain rescue worker in the Austrian Alps put it in a piece in the New York Times: “This is not what you do as a decent human being.” He went on to attribute the phenomenon to male egos that cannot be put in check, even by the men themselves: “There’s the male ego, the pressure to be faster and stronger than others and to climb mountains not because of the beauty and the experience but to be able to tell someone some superlative that you reached.”

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, a clinical psychologist quoted in the same piece, theorized that “alpine divorce” is what happens when seemingly dormant aspects of dysfunctional relationships are forced to the front via physical exertion and the potential for danger. Narcissism flares up, causing men to signal that “your needs are inconvenient to me.” As she described it, on the mountain “It’s magnified. The combination of intimate partner betrayal and a very real physical threat is truly traumatic.”

At its worst, this can result in what is indisputably homicidal violence, as in a recent case where a male doctor from Hawaii was convicted of attempted manslaughter just a few weeks ago after he was found to have attacked his wife on a secluded trail near Honolulu, reportedly attempting to shove her off a cliff. The husband chose her 36th birthday of all times, with his wife testifying that he told her “Nobody’s going to hear you out here” and “Nobody’s coming to save you” as he attacked her. She survived thanks to other hikers who heard her screams and contacted police.

A Hawaii anesthesiologist who was accused of trying to murder his wife on a cliffside hike last year has been convicted of the lesser charge of attempted manslaughter.

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— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) Apr 8, 2026 at 9:19 PM

Oddly enough, though, despite the many shared anecdotes and documented cases like the one above, some women take offense at discussion of the concept of “alpine divorce” as a gendered idea, largely because it could promote the assumption that women can’t take care of themselves in the wild or are inherently less capable. This was one of the strangest aspects of the case of the woman’s death in the Austrian Alps that seemingly kicked off the entire alpine divorce conversation: The victim’s parents testified in court, but they testified in favor of the man who abandoned her there, because they were incensed by local media reporting they thought implied their daughter was not an extremely competent and capable mountain climber. As they put it: “Our daughter takes responsibility for her own actions, we can’t blame her boyfriend. She did mountain runs and summited mountains far more difficult than this one.”

That is … wow. Calling out the underlying sexism of assuming a woman is less physically capable than a man is one thing, but actively making excuses for the guy who abandoned your own daughter at the top of a mountain–where she froze to death–would seemingly be entirely another. Need I reiterate that he had already abandoned another woman on the same peak previously? Note to my own parents, if they happen to be reading: Should my wife ever leave me behind in some wilderness where I end up dead, I would appreciate it if you posthumously had my back. Thank you.

As for the rest of the men who fancy themselves outdoors adventurers and mountain climbing gods: Maybe you could devote some of your unparalleled athleticism and wilderness savvy toward assisting your partner in your journey together, and take pride in that accomplishment? It seems like you’d be much less likely to end up in a court room that way.