KATHMANDU, MAY 4 For seven days, Dawa Sherpa had nothing - no food, no bottled oxygen, no rescue team looking for him. Somewhere between the death zone and the Khumbu Icefall, the 52-year-old Sherpa guide from Okhaldhunga was alone on the world's highest mountain, fighting to stay alive. On the morning of June 4, he was found crawling toward Everest Base Camp. Left behind The story begins on the evening of May 29, the last day of Nepal's spring climbing season. Dawa, a guide with Himalayan Traverse Pvt. Ltd., was accompanying a Polish client descending from the South Col after the client abandoned his summit bid due to frostbite. The Polish climber moved ahead, falling in with other descending climbers toward Camp II. Dawa was left behind near the Yellow Band, just above Camp III, alone. He never made it down to Camp II that night. Himalayan Traverse Managing Director Dawa Sherpa - a different man sharing the same name - confirmed at the time that the guide had been left alone near the Yellow Band while other climbers reached Camp II safely. 'They waited for Dawa until the next day, but he didn't come,' he said. What followed in the days after was perhaps the more damning part of the story: no search and rescue was launched. Not by Himalayan Traverse. Not for six days. On May 31, the expedition's members returned to base camp - some by helicopter, others on foot - and the seven ladders across the treacherous icefall section were removed. Dawa was still up there. Abandoned by his own The circumstances surrounding his abandonment carry an uncomfortable subtext about how the industry operates. Himalayan Traverse had not obtained its own Everest permit. Instead, it had shared a permit with 8K Expeditions - a common cost-cutting arrangement in Nepal's climbing industry that allows agencies to divide steep royalties, liaison officer fees, and base camp expenses. The permit-sharing meant that when the crisis unfolded, questions of responsibility became muddied. 'Himalayan Traverse obtained an Everest permit through 8K Expedition, but it handled the expedition entirely on its own,' said Lakpa Sherpa, Managing Director of 8K Expeditions, who noted his company had officially closed the Everest season on May 29. When no rescue materialised from Himalayan Traverse, 8K stepped in - not out of obligation, but out of circumstance. On June 3, Lakpa mobilised a helicopter search, accompanied by a member of Dawa's own family, flying up to 7,300 metres. They found nothing. Dawa's family was unequivocal about where the blame lay. His disappearance near Camp III, a family member said, was the result of sheer negligence by the expedition handling agency. Seven days. No food. No oxygen. What Dawa endured in those seven days defies easy description. Stranded at extreme altitude without supplemental oxygen, in temperatures that kill far better-equipped climbers, he began moving - slowly, painfully - downward. He crossed the icefall section on his own, navigating crevasses that the removed ladders had previously bridged. On June 3, a helicopter carrying Captain Bibek Khadka, guide Pranav Sherpa, and Dawa's relative Ang Kami Sherpa swept the mountain. Dawa saw it from the icefall. He raised both arms twice. The helicopter did not see him. He kept moving. The following morning, a garbage management team from the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee spotted him near Crampon Point, crawling toward base camp. SPCC Chief Executive Officer Tshering Sherpa confirmed the rescue. 'Dawa is suffering from frostbite and speaks very slowly,' he said. How a man crosses the Khumbu Icefall alone, without ladders, after seven days without food or supplemental oxygen at that altitude, is a question rescuers are still grappling with. 'How Dawa crossed the deep crevasse along the icefall section with no ladders is both scary and amazing,' said SPCC rescuer Durga Rai. An Altitude Helicopter has been dispatched from Lukla by 8K Expeditions to fly him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu for treatment, 8K Expedition informed. 'This is a miraculous survival,' Tshering said. A record season's darkest story The Spring 2026 Everest season will be remembered for its numbers. A record 494 climbers across 51 teams held summit permits. Unofficial summit tallies point to more than 1,000 ascents - the highest single-season total in Everest history. Royalties crossed Rs 1.07 billion, the first season under the new $15,000 permit fee. Five deaths were confirmed on Everest. A sixth was nearly added. The season also quietly underscored a structural tension in how Nepal's climbing industry functions - where permit-sharing arrangements can obscure accountability, and where the guides who make every ascent possible can, in the worst moments, find themselves entirely alone. Dawa Sherpa survived in spite of all of that. Seven days. No food. No oxygen. No rescue. Just the will to come down.