Nepali climber alive after 6 days missing on Everest

A Nepali climbing guide who went missing on Mount Everest for six days and was believed dead has been found alive after crawling alone almost to Base Camp, officials told AFP on Thursday.

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His wife had even begun to offer last rite prayers for his soul, she told AFP at the hospital in the capital Kathmandu, where he is recovering from “some frostbite” but is conscious.

Mountaineer Dawa Sherpa -- who is in his 50s, and is better known as “Hillary”, like famed climber Edmund Hillary -- vanished on the upper reaches of the world’s highest mountain in bitter conditions, early on May 30.

He was found on Thursday morning close to Base Camp by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), a Nepali team that helps set routes on Everest and clean up waste left behind.

“He was found by a team of SPCC this morning close to the base camp -- he was crawling down,” Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which was overseeing search and rescue efforts, told AFP.

A helicopter flew him to Kathmandu, where an AFP team saw him carried out on a stretcher.

“He is awake and undergoing treatment,” Nishant Dhakal, a doctor in the intensive care unit of Kathmandu’s HAMS Hospital, said.

“We are managing his frostbites, cold injuries, hydration and trauma. He is being further evaluated and will be in our ICU.”