Everest has brought us another story of miraculous survival. Hillary Dawa Sherpa, missing on Everest for a week and left for dead, managed to crawl back from above Camp 3 to Base Camp, where a garbage-picking patrol found him.
Hillary Dawa at crampon point on the Khumbu Glacier, near Everest Base Camp. photo: SPCC
Crawled down Everest
“This morning, a garbage management team from Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) rescued him near Crampon Point [on the Khumbu glacier], where he was reportedly seen slowly crawling toward Everest Base Camp,” the SPCC reported. “He was frostbitten and speaking very slowly, but alive.”
SPCC workers help Hillary Dawa. Photo: Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee
A helicopter immediately airlifted Hillary Dawa to HAMS hospital in Kathmandu.
Pictures show the 52-year-old Sherpa in an old, ragged suit, bootless, with injured fingers. He seems very weak, but conscious and in a pretty good state after six days descending with no oxygen, no food or water, and no help.
Doctors are treating Hilary Dawa’s injured fingers at a Kathmandu hospital. Photo: SPCC
Hillary Dawa was last seen above Camp 3 — according to reports, at roughly 7,600m at the Yellow Band — on May 29. He was descending with a client who had summited the day before when Hilary Dawa stopped for a break. The client continued down, and nobody saw Hilary Dawa again.
Shockingly, there was no rescue call for him and no search. The climbing season officially ended on May 29, and Sherpas dismantled the route across the Khumbu Icefall on May 31, including several ladders tied to each other across crevasses. How Hilary Dawa managed to make it out alive across that section is an incredible story he will hopefully be able to tell himself when he recovers.
He saw the helicopter
Yesterday, 8K Expeditions made the only attempt to find Hillary Dawa. They deployed a helicopter to scout the route, but didn’t find him. The helicopter team — a pilot, a mountain guide, and one of Dawa’s relatives — probably expected to find Hilary Dawa farther up, between where he was last seen and Camp 1. But Hilary Dawa was by then struggling to find his way down the Khumbu Icefall.
“Yesterday, I saw a helicopter flying over me. I raised both my hands twice from the icefall section, but they didn’t notice me,” Dawa told his rescuers, according to The Tourism Times.
Pemba Sherpa, director at 8K Expeditions, told ExplorersWeb they sent a helicopter to Gorak Shep. The garbage disposal team carried Hilary Dawa there, and the helicopter then brought him to the hospital in Kathmandu.
According to the Everest Chronicle, as Hillary Dawa has regained some strength, he has explained that he fell in a crevasse below Camp 1, at approximately 5,500m. He remained there for two days, surviving on a pack of biscuits and ice, until he somehow summoned the energy to get out.
Hillary Dawa drinking soup at Everest Base Camp. Photo: SPCC
Explanations still needed
Hillary Dawa had participated in a last-minute summit push on Everest at an extremely slow pace, hours before Sherpas were due to dismantle the route. The push got a Sherpa and a client to the summit at 5 pm, after 18 hours struggle from Camp 4. The descent was also long and tough, with some details still unclear, as we explained in a feature story yesterday.
There have been other stories of miraculous survival in the Himalayas, like Australian Lincoln Hall on Everest in 2006 or Indian Anurag Maloo on Annapurna in 2023. They prove searching for missing climbers is always necessary, even for seemingly lost causes. Hillary Dawa was given no such chance.
The conclusion is that this story has ended well, not because Hillary Dawa was rescued, but because he saved himself.
