Mount Everest Sherpa Found Alive After Week Lost Without Food or Oxygen

A Mount Everest sherpa guide, presumed dead after failing to return to base camp, was found crawling down the slopes of the world's highest mountain after surviving about a week without food or oxygen.

Dawa Sherpa went missing on May 29 when he was returning with a Polish climber after failing to reach the 8,849 metre summit.

The 52-year-old was last seen above Camp Three.

His client returned to base camp, but it was not clear how they got separated.

"Dawa survived alone for nearly a week without food, water, or supplemental oxygen navigating the treacherous Khumbu Icefall (even after the fixed ladders were removed for the season)," the Nepal Mount Everest hiking company said in a social media post.

Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search.

He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water.

A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.

Dawa’s family said they had given up hope of finding him alive and were on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts for several days.

The guide's daughter Mhendo Lhamo Sherpa said her father was doing well and undergoing treatment for frostbite and other complications.

“When we first heard about it (the rescue), we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father,” she said.

“He recognised me … is good and speaks.

Dawa and his client were among the last climbers on Everest this season, which ended last month.

The team that spotted him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which lays the ladders and ropes on the route at the start of each climbing season and then removes the equipment and cleans up the site after climbers have left.

Nepal's mountaineering community has hailed Dawa's survival as miraculous.

“This is nothing short of a miracle surviving so many days on the mountains facing such harsh condition,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a leading figure in the community.

“Sherpas are built tough growing up in the mountains,” Ang Tshering said.

“If there was someone else in his place they might not have survived.”

Busiest Mount Everest climbing season on record

Five climbers and guides died on Everest this season, according to officials.

More than 1,000 climbers and their guides scaled Mount Everest this May, which was the busiest climbing season ever on the world's highest mountain.

The season was late to begin this year and many climbers were stranded at base camp after a towering block of glacial ice delayed the opening of the route.

Guides had expressed concern this year about a surge in climbers and the impact of warming temperatures.

A sherpa guide who recently achieved the a record of the most ascents — 32 — warned that the increasing numbers of climbers were creating problems.

“Nepal should only allow no more than 250 climbers that are issued permit to climb from the Nepal side,” Kami Rita Sherpa said.

“It will be good if the government was to limit the number.”

Several photos shared from the mountain this year have shown lines of hundreds of climbers stuck in traffic jams, clipped to fixed ropes and waiting for the chance to reach the summit.

New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay were first to summit the peak on May 29, 1953.