This photograph taken on May 20, 2026, shows mountaineers climbing a slope lined up during their ascent from the Hillary Step to summit Mount Everest in Nepal.
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.
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.
