He survived – seven days without food, without bottled oxygen, without help. According to Nepalese media reports, early this morning local time, staff from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) discovered Dawa Sherpa, also known as Hillary Sherpa, who had been missing until then, near the so-called Crampon Point in the Khumbu Icefall—the spot near base camp where climbers heading for Mount Everest put on their crampons.
Dawa crawled toward base camp, completely exhausted and with frostbite on both hands. The 52-year-old was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Kathmandu. Doctors stated that Dawa’s condition is stable.
His family had already begun the multi-day mourning ceremony for the climber, whom they believed to be dead. That Dawa survived his week-long odyssey on Everest is nothing short of a miracle.
A rest stop turned into an odyssey
Last Friday – the day the Everest season was officially declared over – two Sherpas and two clients of the Nepalese operator Himalayan Traverse were still descending from the South Col. At an altitude of about 7,500 meters, Dawa sat down on a rock and told him to go ahead, British climber Chris Thrall reported on Instagram two days ago. Thrall said he followed the Sherpa’s instructions because he assumed the Sherpa would quickly catch up with him again.
But Dawa didn’t show up either during a break lasting several hours at Camp 3 at 7,300 meters or the next day at Camp 2 at 6,400 meters. The British man explained that he had had to help the other client, a Polish climber, on the descent. The climber was suffering from frostbite on his fingers and had run out of bottled oxygen, while Thrall himself had only half a tank left, he said.
Dawa was abandoned
When they arrived at Camp 2, they radioed in their situation and were instructed to descend through the Khumbu Icefall, says Thrall. No rescue operation for Dawa Sherpa was initially launched, nor was a helicopter search conducted for him. To put it bluntly: Dawa was abandoned.
It wasn’t until 3 June, six days after his disappearance, that a rescue helicopter took off to search for him – without success. At that point, Dawa Sherpa said he was already in the Khumbu Icefall and was desperately trying to find a way through the labyrinth of crevasses. He waved, but the helicopter crew did not see him.
The ladders spanning the large crevasses in the icefall had already been removed. The fact that Dawa, in his condition, managed to make it almost to base camp at around 5,300 meters despite the many crevasses is an incredible feat.
Family plans to sue those responsible
According to the website The Tourism Times, his wife, Damu Sherpa, announced that she would file a lawsuit against everyone responsible for leaving her husband to fend for himself in the death zone.
The family asked the authorities for help immediately after Dawa was reported missing, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. “Imagine if a foreigner, not Dawa, was left alone on Everest – what would the reaction be?,” asks Damu.
A valid question that cries out for an answer. And there are many more questions that need to be addressed so that a case like Dawa’s does not happen again. For example: Why was anyone even still climbing toward the summit so late, when the end of the season had been publicly announced? What happened to the second Sherpa in the Himalayan Traverse group? Why didn’t the agency immediately sound the alarm and insist on a rescue operation? Why didn’t the authorities at base camp respond? Were they even still there?
The fact that Dawa Sherpa is still alive is solely due to his incredible will to survive—and a great deal of luck. Had he not had both, he would have become the sixth fatality of this spring season on Mount Everest.
Update 5 June: The Polish client has since spoken out and leveled serious accusations against the tour operator Himalayan Traverse. “I have serious doubts about the company that organised this expedition. Everything, including the summit push, was delayed and poorly managed,” Mariusz Chmielewski told the newspaper Kantipur. There was virtually no communication, and there was also a shortage of food, water, and bottled oxygen.
According to Nepalese media reports, Dawa Sherpa said that during his descent, he had eaten only a few cookies that other climbers had left behind at Camp 3. Near Camp 1, he slipped into a crevasse and was stuck there for more than two days. Because snow had fallen into the crevasse, he was eventually able to free himself.
Apparently, Dawa had actually only been hired to work at base camp. It is said that he had never climbed Mount Everest before.