India Plans Daring Mission to Bring Home Everest's Most Famous Frozen Climber

A Grim Landmark for Three Decades

The body, named after the distinctive lime-colored boots the climber was wearing, has lain in a cave at around 8,500 meters — nearly 27,900 feet — since May 1996, when a catastrophic blizzard killed eight climbers on the world's highest mountain. For generations of Everest climbers ascending from the Tibetan side, passing "Green Boots" has been an unavoidable, sobering ritual. Now, India wants him home.

India's Indo-Tibetan Border Police is soliciting bids from high-altitude recovery agencies for a mission to retrieve the remains from the mountain's northern slope, with a tender document stating the contracted team must bring the body to Delhi by October. The mission marks a significant shift — from treating the dead as permanent fixtures of the mountain to honoring them with the dignity of a proper return.

A Name Finally Confirmed

Green Boots was long widely believed to be 28-year-old Tsewang Paljor, an Indo-Tibetan Border Police member who was among a group that attempted to summit Everest on May 10, 1996, when they were hit by a sudden storm near the peak chronicled in Jon Krakauer's book "Into Thin Air." Three climbers from the group continued the ascent despite the worsening conditions, and none returned. Green Boots is the only one of the three whose remains have been found.

The tender documents showed the body being identified as Indian soldier Dorje Morup, one of Paljor's fellow climbers. The Guardian and the French news agency AFP said they had seen documents showing DNA testing confirmed the remains were Morup's. It is a stunning revelation that reframes three decades of mountaineering lore — the man whose boots became a landmark had never even been correctly identified.

The Dangers of Bringing Him Down

The operation would be one of the most technically demanding recovery missions ever attempted on Everest — described as "double the danger of normal climbing" by Tshiring Jangbu Sherpa, the founder of Nepal-based Everest Sherpa Expedition, who told CBS News, "For the whole rescue team this is high risk." He estimated it could take a highly trained, 10-person team up to a week to recover Green Boots' body.

The winning bidder must field at least six highly experienced Sherpas skilled in technical retrieval above 8,000 meters, secure permission from Chinese authorities in Tibet who control the north side, arrange cross-border transport through Nepal, and complete the legal repatriation of the remains to India. The north side is controlled by China, so the operation needs Tibetan-side permission, while the logistics and repatriation route run through Nepal, adding a cross-border layer. The work can only happen in a narrow weather window, and even then a sudden storm — like the one that killed the team in 1996 — can shut the mountain down.

A Mountain Still Holding Its Dead

More than 300 people have died on the mountain since expeditions started in the 1920s, and many bodies remain. Many are hidden by snow or swallowed by deep crevasses, but others are starting to emerge as climate change thins snow and ice. Nepal's army has run an annual high-altitude cleanup since 2019, bringing down tonnes of rubbish and several bodies, and in late 2025 Nepal announced a five-year Everest Cleaning Action Plan for 2025 to 2029, with trials of heavy-lift drones that can ferry loads from the high camps.

If the mission succeeds, it would be one of the highest body recoveries ever attempted on Everest and would finally return a climber who has marked the route for almost 30 years. For Dorje Morup's family, and for a nation that sent him up that mountain, it would mean something far more personal than a logistical achievement — it would mean closure, long overdue, at the highest possible cost to retrieve it.