Alpine Divorces are a Terrifying Trend That Costs Lives — Here's What They Are

Ending a relationship can be one of the trickiest things for a person. If you still care about the other person, you have to find a way to be mindful of their feelings while also enforcing your boundaries and ensuring you move forward with clear communication.

If you don't care about them anymore, it can be a little simpler.

However, for a small subset of people, ending a relationship with a divorce is done in a tragically dramatic fashion, risking life and limb for their soon-to-be-former partner. Enter: the horrifying alpine divorce trend. It's an innocuous-sounding name with a jaw-dropping meaning.

Here's what we know about the meaning behind "alpine divorces."

The phrase originated in a 19th-century short story by Robert Barr. The story, titled An Alpine Divorce, tells a tale about a man who plots to murder his wife during a trip to the Swiss Alps.

Unfortunately, some men have decided to bring this horror tale to life.

In modern context, an alpine divorce is when a person, nearly always a man, brings their partner on a hike to a remote location with plans to abandon her in order to end the relationship.

It sounds too horrific to be true, but TikTok users have shared their stories with exactly this scenario.

And in several situations, an alpine divorce ended in the ultimate tragedy. In 2025, an Austrian peak known for its challenging climb became the final resting place of a 33-year-old woman who was intentionally abandoned by her partner.

The tragic tale played out after Thomas Plamberger and his partner, Kerstin Gurtner, went climbing Austria's highest peak, aiming to visit the Breakfast Place, a challenging hike under the best of conditions. And the middle of January in Austria is far from the best of conditions.

Unfortunately, Kerstin would never make it home. When the weather turned poor, they had a chance to turn back and make it out alive.

Instead, The Times reports, "They pressed on, however, beyond the 'point of no return' climbing up the treacherous Stüdlgrat ridge in temperatures that sank as low as minus 20C once windchill was factored in."

Reports say Plamberger abandoned Kerstin on the hike "to seek help," but she froze to death only 50 meters from the top of the Grossglockner.

Plamberger was arrested and charged with gross negligent manslaughter, the outlet reports. He was later convicted.

But the story doesn't end there. According to The Daily Dot, the trial revealed that Plamberger had tried to do the same thing to a different partner two years prior.

Luckily, that woman survived. Her tale joins the harrowing tales of dozens of women on social media who say they were also lured into the wilderness by men they trusted and then abandoned. While they lived to tell the tale, Kerstin is a heartbreaking reminder that not everyone survives alpine divorces.