A Sherpa guide named Dawa Sherpa, reported missing for a week on Mount Everest, has been found crawling toward base camp and reunited with his family. The guide was last seen on May 29, descending the mountain behind his client, but did not reach the base camp, even though his client did. As the climbing season ended and the route was dismantled, the delay in organizing a search party left the family in distress.
Pemba Sherpa from 8K Expeditions, coordinating the search, reported that a cleaning crew located Dawa Thursday morning around the snowy Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp. He was delivered to safety and provided with food and water. A rescue helicopter transferred him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where he was met by his wife and daughter, who had already started funeral rituals for him.
His wife, Damu Sherpa, shared the surprise and relief upon hearing from local news and a trusted source that he was alive. Though Dawa had been missing for days, organizing helicopters to locate him faced delays. His daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, mentioned skepticism until confirming his identity via photographs during the funeral ritual.
The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee’s team, responsible for arranging and dismantling climbing routes each season, spotted Dawa near Yellow Band, above Camp 3, located at an elevation of 7,200 meters. Base camp sits at 5,300 meters.
Dawa, 52, employed by Himalayan Traverse from Kathmandu, guided a Polish climber at the time of his disappearance. Originating from Okhaldhunga, a town south of Everest, Dawa’s survival is hailed as miraculous by Nepal’s mountaineering community.
This is nothing short of a miracle surviving so many days on the mountains facing such harsh conditions
said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a prominent community figure. Sherpas, renowned for their resilience, have evolved from yak herders to sought-after guides, dominating Himalayan climbing.
May marked Everest’s busiest climbing season, seeing over 1,000 climbers scale the peak, spurred by an ice block cleared after a two-week delay. Previously conquered on May 29, 1953, by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the 8,849-meter high mountain continues to challenge adventurers.