Nepali Climber Survives Week Alone on Everest After Avalanche Creates Escape Route

Nepali mountaineer Dawa Sherpa survived seven days alone on Mount Everest after falling into a crevasse while descending from Camp Two. He lived on biscuits, chocolate, dried coffee and ice until an avalanche filled the crevasse with snow and created a path out.

Sherpa, 57, had been working as a cook for Himalayan Traverse Adventure when the company asked him to substitute as a guide. On May 28 he reached the Balcony at 27,559 feet before turning back with three other climbers. He fell behind after his oxygen ran out and spent the night at Camp Three in high winds.

The next day he continued toward Base Camp but slipped from a ladder in the Khumbu icefall while carrying an empty oxygen cylinder bag. He landed in a 25-foot crevasse, fracturing his thigh and injuring his head. With no working satellite phone or radio, he remained trapped for two nights.

3 a helicopter passed overhead but could not see him.

The following day an avalanche deposited snow into the crevasse. Sherpa used the new snow to climb out over roughly one hour and followed a rope line down the mountain. On the morning of June 4 members of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee found him near Base Camp.

He was airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment of frostbite, dehydration and a fractured thigh bone. Sherpa told AFP he had given up hope of rescue until the avalanche occurred. "But no one came — instead, an avalanche did, to save me," he said.

More than 1,000 climbers reached the summit this spring, the busiest season on record, according to preliminary government figures. The government collected more than $7 million in Everest climbing permits. On May 21 a record 274 climbers reached the summit in one day.