Guide missing for week on Mount Everest found crawling at base camp: “Nothing beats a miracle”

A Sherpa guide who went missing last week while descending Mount Everest with his client has been found alive, according to the team that led the search for him. His survival amid treacherous conditions on the world’s highest peak has been hailed as a “miracle” by Nepal’s mountaineering community.

Dawa Sherpa, 52, was found while crawling down the camp and has been reunited with his family, who said they had given up hope of his return.

“This is not a miracle to live so many days in the mountains facing such a difficult situation,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a community leader. “Sherpas are built hard growing up in the mountains…. If there was anyone else in their place they would not have survived.”

Dawa was last seen on May 29 coming down the mountain, but he did not reach the camp even though his client did. The two were among the last people to climb this mountain as the climbing time was over and the route was broken up again.

Dawa was found by a cleanup team Thursday morning while crawling on the icy slopes surrounding the Khumbu Icefall, just above the camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, who is coordinating the search.

He was immediately brought down to safety and given food and water. A helicopter rushed him to the HAMS Hospital, Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who had begun to perform burial rituals, were waiting for him.

“We first heard that he is still alive in the local news and someone we know called about the fact that… he is being humiliated,” said his wife, Damu Sherpa.

Although Dawa has been missing since last week, there has been a delay in organizing a search team. No reason was given for the delay, but when helicopters were sent to look for him, they could not find him.

His family had given up hope. Dawa’s daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, said they were on the second day of the funeral, which lasts for several days.

“When we first heard about this (the rescuers), we were not sure that that person was really our father,” said Mendo Lhamu. “So to be sure we asked for pictures to be sent and then we were sure and we were very happy.”

Dawa’s wife told AFP that she had started praying for her husband’s soul one last time before hearing of his survival. He said he was awake at the hospital and recovering from “a cold.”

The team that saw him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which places ladders and ropes on the trail every time the climbing season starts and then takes out the equipment and cleans the area after the climbers have left.

Dawa was last seen in a place called Yellow Band above Camp 3, which is at 23,622 feet. The base camp is at 17,388 meters.

Dawa works for a small company in Kathmandu called Himalayan Traverse, and he was guiding a Polish climber. He comes from the town of Okhaldhunga, south of Everest.

Members of the Sherpa community were mostly yak herders and traders who lived deep in the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them guides and porters, eventually allowing them to dominate the Himalyan climbing business.

More than 1,000 climbers and their guides scaled Everest in May, marking the busiest climbing season ever for the world’s highest mountain. It got off to a late start due to heavy snow on the trail just above the camp which took almost two weeks to clear.

Passengers set the record straight on May 21, when 274 of them successfully climbed the Nepalese side of the mountain in one day, officials said. Experts have warned of the potential dangers of overcrowding, especially after that two climbers died during that record-setting day.

The increase in popularity not only increases the traffic on the mountain, but also means that hikers are more likely to be among the groups attempting the trek, one sherpa. he told AFP.

“There is a need for the authorities to control this population,” said Kami Rita Sherpa. “They should only allow quality climbers – there should be a limit.”

Everest’s highest peak at 29,032 meters was first climbed on May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay.