Dead bodies on Everest are not a rumour or a traveller’s myth. Furthermore, as the BBC reported in a widely cited 2015 study, more than 200 corpses remain on the mountain — some visible to every passing climber, others buried so deep in ice and snow that they may never be found. Moreover, since 1922, when the first documented deaths on Everest occurred during a British expedition, more than 335 people have died on the mountain and a significant proportion of them are still there. Consequently, when climbers lace their boots at Base Camp and look up at the summit, they are looking at the world’s highest outdoor cemetery.
This is not a comfortable topic. The bodies that remain on Everest were once climbers with families, ambitions, and the courage to attempt the world’s hardest mountain. Understanding what happens physically, logistically, and ethically matters for anyone visiting Everest. After more than 34 years operating in the Khumbu region, Alliance Treks is asked this question regularly by trekkers and climbers alike.Consequently, this blog answers it completely, using facts sourced from the BBC, CNN, CBS News, Outside Online, and the Kathmandu Post.
If you are planning an Everest Base Camp trek and want to understand the full reality of the mountain you are walking toward, read on.
As the BBC once wrote, “When Everest takes a life, it also keeps it.” Above 7,000 metres, extreme cold, thin air, and dangerous terrain make body recovery incredibly difficult and sometimes deadly for rescuers themselves. Everest does not distinguish between famous climbers and unknown ones, and more than 200 people now remain permanently on the mountain.
The first recorded deaths on Everest occurred in 1922, when seven Sherpa climbers died in an avalanche during a British expedition. Since then, every era of Everest climbing has seen fatalities. While avalanches and falls dominated the early decades, altitude sickness, exhaustion, and exposure have become more common in the modern commercial climbing era. According to Outside Online, Everest’s fatality rate has declined over time, even as the total number of climbers and deaths has continued to rise.
Nobody knows the exact number of bodies remaining on Everest. The most widely cited estimate is more than 200, though recovery missions, climate change, and new deaths alter the figure each season. According to Outside Online, the highest concentration lies in the Death Zone between Camp IV and the summit, where recovery is most dangerous and expensive.
What is known more clearly is the total death toll. The Himalayan Database records more than 335 deaths on Everest by the end of 2024, with 2023 being the deadliest season on record. While fatalities fluctuate yearly depending on weather and crowding, Everest remains a mountain with an enduring baseline risk despite advances in technology and logistics.
The obvious question is why bodies on Everest are not simply brought down. The answer is that everything above 8,000 metres becomes extraordinarily difficult. A frozen body is not just heavy, it is ice-fused dead weight in an environment where even carrying oxygen cylinders is exhausting. As rescuers have explained, body recovery in the Death Zone is among the most dangerous tasks on the mountain.
The financial reality is equally severe. Outside Online reported that recovering a single body can cost between USD 75,000 and USD 80,000. Nepal’s 2024 recovery mission, which retrieved five bodies and removed garbage, cost more than USD 600,000 and required dozens of military personnel and Sherpa climbers. In many cases, the burden of recovery falls on families or the Nepali state.
The extreme cold and thin air of Everest’s upper slopes create a powerful preservation effect on human remains. In temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius, decomposition nearly stops, causing bodies to freeze rapidly and often become fused to ice and rock. Outside Online reported that recovery teams sometimes spend hours cutting bodies free from the mountain itself. As a result, many bodies on Everest remain remarkably well-preserved even after decades.
The preservation also means that the bodies are recognizable. Furthermore, climbers who pass them know they are looking at a person, not an abstraction. Moreover, in some cases — Francys Arsentiev, known as Sleeping Beauty, is the most documented example, the person is lying in a position that looks like sleep, their features intact, their clothing still bright with colour. Additionally, as CBS News reported citing the BBC’s original estimate, the coloured climbing jackets — red, blue, orange, green — retain their brightness in the freezing dry air, which is exactly why the area below the summit is called Rainbow Valley. Consequently, the mountain becomes both a graveyard and, through the preservation of those it takes, a permanent memorial.
The Death Zone begins above 8,000 metres, where oxygen levels are too low for the human body to acclimatize and survival becomes a process of physical decline. At these altitudes, cognitive function deteriorates rapidly, while the risk of deadly conditions such as HACE and HAPE rises sharply. National Geographic reports that the most common causes of death on Everest include altitude sickness, falls, exhaustion, and avalanches. Most fatalities occur during the descent, when climbers are depleted, low on oxygen, and affected by altitude-related disorientation. As a result, the stretch between Camp IV and the summit contains the majority of Everest’s dead.
As National Geographic reported in its 2025 coverage of Everest regulations, the most common causes of death on the mountain are acute mountain sickness, falls, illness, exhaustion, and avalanches. The descent is consistently more dangerous than the ascent.
Over the decades, some bodies on Everest became known by the nicknames climbers gave them as grim landmarks. The most famous is Green Boots, believed to be Indian climber Tsewang Paljor, who died in 1996. His body remained in a cave near 8,500 metres on the northeast ridge and became a navigation marker for climbers approaching the summit. The site itself became known as Green Boots Cave.
The story of Francys Arsentiev is equally haunting. In 1998, she became the first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen but died during the descent. Her body remained visible on the south route for nine years and became known as Sleeping Beauty before a recovery team moved her to a less exposed location in 2007, giving her one of the rare formal farewells seen on Everest.
| Known As | Year | Identity | What Happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green Boots | 1996 | Tsewang Paljor (believed) | Indian climber lost during descent. Sheltered in a cave at approximately 8,500 meters on the northeast ridge. The body became a well-known waypoint for climbers for decades and is believed to no longer be visible. |
| Sleeping Beauty | 1998 | Francys Arsentiev, USA | The first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. She died during descent without oxygen support. Her body remained visible for years until it was moved and wrapped in an American flag by the Tao of Everest Campaign in 2007. |
| The German Woman | 1979 | Hannelore Schmatz, Germany | The first German woman to summit Everest. She died at around 8,200 meters during descent. Her body remained on the south route for many years before storms eventually pushed it further down the mountain. |
| George Mallory | 1924 | George Mallory, UK | British mountaineer who died during his 1924 Everest expedition attempt. His remarkably preserved body was discovered in 1999, seventy-five years later. The recovery team covered the site with a cairn. Whether Mallory reached the summit before his death remains one of mountaineering’s greatest mysteries. |
According to Wikipedia’s documented record of Green Boots and Francys Arsentiev, sourced from multiple published mountaineering accounts, these bodies were visible to thousands of climbers and became a deeply contested symbol of Everest’s ethics.
Rainbow Valley is the informal name for an area just below Everest’s summit where the bodies of climbers in brightly coloured gear remain visible against the snow and rock. As Wikipedia describes, the name comes from the vivid red, blue, yellow, orange, and green down suits worn by climbers, which remain strikingly visible due to extreme cold preserving their colour. The contrast between these bright colours and the reality of death has made Rainbow Valley one of the most unsettling symbols of Everest, widely seen as a place of reckoning rather than beauty.
CBS News, reporting on climate change impacts on Everest, noted that Nepal Army Major Aditya Karki — who led the 2024 recovery mission — said warming temperatures are making bodies in Rainbow Valley and other parts of the mountain increasingly visible as snow and ice retreat. Areas once buried under metres of snow are now being exposed across the upper mountain. Karki added that this expanding visibility is one reason Nepal has increased its focus on body recovery and waste removal efforts, as glacial change continues to reshape the mountain’s landscape.
Body recovery on Everest is among the most dangerous tasks on the mountain. Outside Online’s 2024 reporting notes that retrieving a single body above Camp IV can cost between USD 75,000 and USD 80,000 and requires skilled Sherpa teams working within narrow weather windows that can close without warning.
The difficulty is extreme: above 8,000 metres, the human body is already in severe physiological decline, and even small additional weight significantly increases risk. As Nepal Army Sherpa teams have explained, carrying an 80-kilogram frozen body is almost impossible for two people at that altitude. In practice, recovery often involves chipping bodies out of ice, securing them to improvised sleds, and carefully dragging them down terrain where many climbers have already died.
| Factor | Reality |
|---|---|
| Recovery team size | 12 military personnel and 18 Sherpa climbers participated in the 2024 Nepal Army recovery mission. |
| Bodies recovered per mission | Five bodies were recovered during the 2024 mission, all located above Camp IV. |
| Cost per body | Recovery costs ranged between USD 75,000 and USD 80,000 per body, according to Nepal Army Major Aditya Karki in 2024. |
| Total 2024 mission budget | The total mission budget exceeded USD 600,000, including large-scale garbage removal operations. |
| Oxygen above 8,000m | Even two climbers can struggle to carry a single 8-kilogram oxygen cylinder at extreme altitude, while a frozen human body can weigh more than 80 kilograms. |
| Risk to recovery teams | In 1984, two Nepali climbers lost their lives while attempting to recover a single body from Everest. |
| Insurance requirement | All Everest climbers are legally required to carry rescue and body recovery insurance before receiving climbing permits. |
| Enforcement | Despite the regulation, enforcement has reportedly remained inconsistent, according to reporting by Outside Online. |
As reported by Outside Online citing Nepal Army Major Aditya Karki’s 2024 mission brief, the cost per body recovery from Everest’s upper reaches is USD 75,000 to USD 80,000, with total mission costs exceeding USD 600,000. In 1984, two Nepali climbers died in the attempt to retrieve a single body.
Nepal has been running a formal mountain cleanup programme since 2019, operated by the Nepali Army in partnership with the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC). Furthermore, as CNN reported in April 2024, the army’s Mountain Cleanup Campaign collected 110 tonnes of waste from Everest between 2019 and 2023, with a further estimated 10 tonnes targeted for removal in the 2024 season. Moreover, the 2024 mission also prioritised the recovery of five bodies — all located above Camp IV, chosen for their relative proximity to the main climbing route. Additionally, CNN noted that 12 Nepali military members, supported by 18 Sherpa climbers, arrived at Base Camp on April 14, 2024 to begin the work.
The cleanup programme has also faced criticism. CBS News, citing BBC Nepali, reported that some senior Sherpa climbers, including Kami Rita Sherpa, argue that high-altitude recovery work should rely primarily on experienced Sherpas rather than army personnel. They point to the extreme risks involved in operating above the higher camps.
Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Association told the BBC that recovering heavy equipment and bodies from upper Everest is extremely difficult and dangerous, often requiring Sherpas to risk their lives. He added that the weight and conditions make many recoveries appear nearly impossible. This debate highlights ongoing tensions over who should bear the responsibility and risk of Everest’s cleanup efforts.
For decades, bodies on Everest were hidden beneath snow and ice, but climate change is now exposing them. CBS News (June 2024), citing Nepal Army Major Aditya Karki, reported that warming temperatures are revealing bodies and debris across the upper mountain as glaciers retreat. Even the Khumbu Icefall is becoming more unstable, with shifting ice formations altering established routes, as noted by National Geographic. The mountain is effectively uncovering its own past.
This exposure brings both emotional and practical consequences. Families may suddenly learn that long-missing climbers have been found again, reopening old grief. At the same time, changing glacial conditions are increasing present-day risks, with events like the 2024 cornice collapse highlighting instability on the mountain. Outside Online notes that expedition planners now increasingly factor glacier change into route planning as Everest continues to evolve in unpredictable ways.
The presence of dead bodies on Everest reflects unresolved questions within modern mountaineering. On one hand, recovery is extremely dangerous and expensive, making removal often impractical. On the other hand, the commercial expedition system places climbers on the mountain in conditions where logistical support exists to reach high altitudes, but not always to ensure safe return.
The Kathmandu Post has reported on ongoing debates around increasing permit requirements and enforcing prior experience rules, with the aim of reducing fatalities. The underlying argument is that stricter entry standards could lower death rates and, in turn, reduce the number of bodies left on the mountain. In this sense, the issue of Everest’s dead is closely tied to who is allowed to climb in the first place.
Some climbers resolve this before they go. Furthermore, those who plan serious high-altitude expeditions sometimes leave written instructions that if they die on the mountain, they accept remaining there. Moreover, others have family members who have made recovery attempts regardless of cost and danger. Additionally, the BBC’s reporting on the mountain described the ethical landscape honestly: Everest’s dead are there because the living who surround them face an impossible calculation between their own survival and retrieval of the dead. Consequently, most climbers who pass a body on Everest do so with grief and a private acknowledgement that the same logic applies to themselves if things go wrong.
The Kathmandu Post has documented Nepal’s regulatory proposals — including experience requirements and the new rule that bodies must be brought down from the mountain. The Telegraph also reported that regulations now include a requirement for climbers to have their bodies recovered, backed by mandatory insurance coverage.
According to a 2015 study cited by the BBC and widely referenced by CNN, CBS News, and Outside Online, more than 200 bodies remain on Everest. Furthermore, this estimate has been updated somewhat by recovery missions since 2015, but the BBC’s figure remains the most frequently cited reference point in international media. Moreover, the exact number is unknown because many bodies are buried under ice and snow and have never been located. Consequently, 200-plus is a working estimate rather than a precise count.
The primary reasons are physical and financial. Furthermore, above 8,000 metres, carrying the weight of a frozen human body is physiologically close to impossible — as Nepal Army climber Tshiring Jangbu Sherpa told Outside Online, two people can barely carry an 8-kilogram oxygen cylinder at that altitude. Moreover, the cost of a single body recovery is USD 75,000 to USD 80,000 per body, with total mission costs running over USD 600,000. Additionally, recovery attempts have themselves resulted in deaths, most notably in 1984 when two Nepali climbers died during a retrieval effort. Consequently, bodies are left where they fall in most cases, moved slightly off the main route at most.
Green Boots is the informal name given to a body on the northeast ridge of Everest, believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber and Indo-Tibetan Border Police officer who died in 1996. Furthermore, his body sheltered in a small cave at approximately 8,500 metres and became used by climbers as a distance reference on the approach to the summit. Moreover, Wikipedia’s documented entry on Green Boots notes that the cave became known by his informal name for years. Additionally, there are reports in recent years that the body may no longer be clearly visible, though its exact current status is unconfirmed.
Rainbow Valley is an area below Everest’s summit on the northern side of the mountain where the bodies of deceased climbers in colourful climbing gear lie visible against the snow and rock. Furthermore, as CBS News and multiple other international outlets have reported, the name comes from the vivid colours of the mountaineering suits — red, blue, yellow, orange, green — that retain their brightness indefinitely in the cold, dry conditions. Moreover, climate change is making the area increasingly visible as melting ice exposes previously buried remains, as Nepal Army Major Aditya Karki confirmed to CBS News in 2024.
Yes. Furthermore, the Nepal Army has been running a Mountain Cleanup Campaign since 2019 that includes body recovery as well as garbage removal. Moreover, as CNN reported in April 2024, the 2024 mission recovered five bodies from above Camp IV with a budget exceeding USD 600,000. Additionally, new regulations introduced alongside the 2026 permit fee increase now formally require that the bodies of climbers be brought down from the mountain — backed by mandatory rescue and recovery insurance. Consequently, Nepal is taking increasingly formal and funded steps to address the issue, though the scale of the challenge means progress is measured in individual recoveries rather than wholesale clearance.
The dead bodies on Everest are not a footnote to the mountain’s story. Furthermore, they are part of it — a record, written in ice and coloured nylon, of the full price of human ambition at extreme altitude. Moreover, understanding that reality honestly does not diminish the extraordinary achievement that every successful summit represents. Additionally, it makes the achievement more meaningful, not less, because it places it in the actual context of what the mountain asks. Consequently, if you are planning to go to the Khumbu region — whether to trek to Base Camp or to attempt something higher — go with accurate information, proper preparation, and a company that has been navigating this landscape honestly for 30 years.
Alliance Treks offers fully guided Everest Base Camp treks with experienced teams who know the Khumbu region in every season and every condition. Contact us at www.alliancetreks.com to plan your journey.
Alliance Treks & Expedition Pvt. Ltd. Once is not enough for naturally and culturally Himalayas
