Everest guide found alive after six days missing above Camp III
Dawa Sherpa was discovered crawling near the Khumbu Icefall after a week-long ordeal above 7,000 metres, prompting questions over delayed search efforts and high-altitude procedures.
Dawa Sherpa, a Nepali climbing guide who went missing above Camp III on Mount Everest, has been found alive after what appears to have been an extraordinary and unassisted descent from extreme altitude.
He was located early this morning near Crampon Point by a team from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), which was conducting waste-management work in the Khumbu Icefall. Staff reportedly found him crawling toward base camp and assisted him down to Gorakhshep, from where he was airlifted to a Kathmandu hospital.
“He managed to survive for almost a week, and he is miraculously in good health,” said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which helped secure permits for the expedition involving foreign clients, though the climbing operation itself was run by Himalayan Traverse.
Doctors said his fingers had suffered frostbite-related peeling but that the injuries were not as severe as initially feared. “He will be fine in a couple of days,” Sherpa added after visiting him in hospital, where his wife and daughter also arrived.
Dawa, also known locally as “Hillary Dawa,” had been assigned as a Camp II cook but joined a Polish client as a guide during the summit rotation. According to a video account by fellow climber Chris Thrall, the Polish climber turned back before the summit.
Thrall reached the summit at around 5pm on May 29 and met Dawa and the Polish climber at Camp IV during his descent. The group reportedly spent the night together before the Polish climber descended ahead of them.
Dawa is then said to have fallen behind as the team descended, with oxygen supplies running low and most expedition staff already returning to base camp ahead of the end of the climbing season on May 29, when SPCC begins removing ladders from the Khumbu Icefall.
SPCC staff Bhim Bhattarai and Durga Rai found him in an extremely weak condition near Crampon Point but conscious.
There was no formal search-and-rescue operation for the first six days of his disappearance, as the two companies involved—one that obtained the climbing permit and the other that organised the expedition— passed responsibility back and forth.
A helicopter search team, including pilot Bibek Khadka, cameraman Pranav Sherpa and Dawa’s relative Ang Kami Sherpa, was deployed on Wednesday after 8K Expeditions launched a formal search operation.
Even a delayed summit rotation typically lasts around five days, but Dawa remained on the mountain for roughly a week under deteriorating conditions, traversing the Khumbu Icefall after ladders had already been removed for the season. The descent from Camp IV to base camp normally takes a single day.
“He must have set a record for a solo descent from near 8,000 metres without food or water,” said Pasang Dawa Sherpa, a friend from his home village.
“He is a good guy. I have worked with him on several expeditions on Everest. This is a miraculous survival. What a happy ending,” Pasang added.
Dawa spent six days alone on the mountain after becoming separated from his group near the South Col, traversing sections of the Khumbu Icefall after ladders had been removed for the season.
His survival has drawn surprise among fellow climbers. “Looks like they didn’t casually give him the nickname ‘Hillary’,” joked Kunga Sherpa, another climber from his home village.
