An avalanche did, to save me.
In the final days of May, a Nepali cook named Dawa Sherpa descended alone from near the summit of Everest — a mountain he had never before climbed — and fell into a crevasse where he would remain, unseen and unheard, for the better part of a week. He survived on biscuits, frozen chocolate, and ice broken with his teeth, until an avalanche, of all things, filled the void and gave him a floor to climb from. His survival is a testament to human endurance, but it is also a mirror held up to the systems that placed an unprepared man in an unforgiving place — and then failed to find him when he disappeared.
- A cook with no Everest summit experience was sent as a guide, fell into a crevasse during descent, and lay injured and invisible for seven days while the world above moved on.
- His satellite phone was dead, his walkie-talkie batteries gone, and a rescue helicopter passed directly overhead without spotting him — the gap between being alive and being found had never felt wider.
- He survived on pocket biscuits and ice he broke with his teeth, rationing hope alongside calories in a dark, smooth-walled pit with no way up.
- An avalanche — the mountain's most feared force — became his unlikely rescuer, filling the crevasse with snow and giving him one brutal hour of climbing to reach the surface.
- He emerged with frostbite, a fractured thigh, and severe dehydration, crawling toward Base Camp on a rope he found by chance, until a waste-management crew discovered him at dawn.
- His survival has ignited a government investigation into rescue failures and the dangerous practice of deploying untrained staff during Everest's increasingly crowded and commercially pressured climbing seasons.
Dawa Sherpa was a cook. When Himalayan Traverse Adventure needed a guide for their spring Everest expedition, they sent him anyway — a man who had never summited the mountain. On May 28, he climbed to around 8,400 meters before turning back in darkness. His oxygen ran out at 7,900 meters. He told his British climbing partner to keep going, and then he was alone.
He made it to Camp Three, cooked porridge through a howling night, and pushed on. By the time he reached Camp Two, the rest of the team had already descended and raised an alarm he couldn't answer — his satellite phone was dead, his walkie-talkie batteries gone. He decided to push for Base Camp in one go, crossing the Khumbu Icefall.
That's where he fell. Slipping from a ladder while carrying a 28-kilogram bag, he dropped into a crevasse, hit his head, injured his leg, and landed on a flat shelf of ice far below. The walls were smooth. There was no way out.
For two nights he sat in the cold and dark, eating biscuits and frozen chocolate from his pockets, breaking ice with his teeth to wet his mouth. On June 3, he heard a helicopter pass overhead. He was too deep to be seen. "I would wonder if I would live or die," he said later, "just hoping that someone would come. But no one came — instead, an avalanche did, to save me."
The avalanche filled the crevasse with snow. It took him an hour of desperate climbing — crampons biting into ice, body failing — to crawl out. He found a rope and followed it downward toward Base Camp. On the morning of June 4, a team from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee found him.
Doctors in Kathmandu treated him for frostbite, severe dehydration, and a fractured thigh bone. The full timeline revealed he had been alone for an entire week. His survival brought celebration, but also fury — from family, from the mountaineering community, from a public asking why a cook had been sent as a guide, why rescue had been so slow, why the helicopter had passed without finding him. The Nepali government launched an investigation. Sherpa, for his part, was unambiguous about his future: "I will not go to the mountains now," he said. "Maybe just for some trekking."
Dawa Sherpa was a cook, not a mountaineer. But when Himalayan Traverse Adventure needed a guide for their spring Everest expedition, they asked him anyway—despite the fact that he had never summited the mountain before. On May 28, he climbed as high as the Balcony, around 8,400 meters, before turning back with three others as darkness fell. By the time he reached 7,900 meters on the descent, his oxygen had run out. He told his climbing partner, British climber Chris Thrall, to keep going without him. Then Sherpa was alone.
He made it to a tent at Camp Three, around 7,100 meters, where he heated water and cooked porridge through a night of howling wind. The rest of the team had already descended and raised an alarm. But Sherpa's satellite phone wouldn't work, and his walkie-talkie batteries had died. By the next day, when he reached Camp Two, everyone else had moved on. He decided to push for Base Camp in a single push, crossing the Khumbu icefall—a fractured, treacherous maze of ice and crevasses.
That's where the mountain took him. Sherpa slipped from a ladder and fell into a crevasse, still clutching a 28-kilogram bag filled with eight empty oxygen cylinders and a client's sleeping bags. His hands gave out. He let the bag drop into the darkness and fell after it, hitting his head but landing on a flat section of ice below. His leg was injured. He was trapped in a deep crevasse with smooth, unclimbable walls.
For two nights, he sat in the cold and dark. He had biscuits and frozen chocolate in his pockets, and dried coffee. He broke ice with his teeth and wet his mouth. On June 3—six days after he'd been left behind—he heard a helicopter pass overhead. But he was too deep to be seen. "I would wonder if I would live or die, just hoping that someone would come and rescue me," he said later. "But no one came—instead, an avalanche did, to save me."
The avalanche filled the crevasse with snow. It took him an hour of desperate climbing, using his crampons to grip ice and snow, to crawl out of the hole. When he reached the slope above, he knew he would survive. He found a rope and followed it downward, crawling toward Base Camp. On the morning of June 4, a team from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee—a Nepali group that maintains routes and cleans waste on Everest—found him.
Doctors in Kathmandu treated him for frostbite, severe dehydration, and a fractured thigh bone. The timeline that emerged was even more harrowing than first reported: Sherpa had actually collapsed from exhaustion on May 29, meaning he had been alone on the mountain for an entire week. A helicopter had passed overhead while he lay in the crevasse, unable to signal, unable to be seen.
His survival sparked celebration among climbers, but also anger. Family members and the mountaineering community questioned why a cook with no summit experience had been sent as a guide, why rescue efforts had been delayed, why a helicopter had passed without finding him. The Nepali government launched an investigation. When asked if he would return to the mountains, Sherpa was clear: his time climbing for work was finished. "I will not go to the mountains now, maybe just for some trekking," he said.
Citações Notáveis
I told him to keep going, and that I will come. But when my oxygen ran out, I couldn't move my hands or feet.— Dawa Sherpa, describing his final moments with his climbing partner before being left alone
I will not go to the mountains now, maybe just for some trekking.— Dawa Sherpa, on whether he would return to mountaineering
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why was a cook sent up the mountain as a guide in the first place?
The expedition company needed a guide and Sherpa was available. He was already there, already employed. No one seems to have thought carefully about whether he was ready for it.
And when he ran out of oxygen on the way down, what made him think he could still make it?
He didn't think. He was exhausted, alone, and his communication equipment didn't work. He just kept moving because stopping meant dying.
Two nights in a crevasse. How does someone survive that mentally?
He had chocolate and biscuits. He had ice to melt in his mouth. He had the sound of a helicopter overhead that never came. He had hope and fear in equal measure.
The avalanche that saved him—was that luck or something else?
It was luck. Pure luck. An avalanche is a disaster. In this case, it filled the hole he was trapped in and gave him a way out. He could have been buried instead.
What does he do now?
He goes home. He doesn't climb mountains anymore. He's done with that life.