More Than 200 Dead Bodies Have Been Left Behind on Mount Everest, and Many Mark the Path to the Summit

More than 300 people have died in their attempts to scale Mount Everest. And the peak’s death toll keeps climbing. 2023 marked one of its deadliest years on record, and during the spring 2024 climbing season, nine people went missing or died. Yet, year after year, climbers continue to try their skills—and test their luck—in summiting the highest mountain on Earth.

Since exploration of Everest began in the early 20th century, the mountain’s popularity has grown, and with it, the number of fatalities has also risen. Today, as many as 200 bodies remain frozen on the peak.

When a member of a climbing party dies, it is routine to leave their body behind. “What most teams do out of respect for that climber, they will move the body out of sight,” mountaineer coach Alan Arnette, who summited Everest in 2011, tells CNN’s Kara Nelson.

But frozen bodies are extremely heavy and unwieldy, and at high altitudes, climbers’ capacity to lift weight is compromised. So, many bodies don’t get moved away. As Frank Jacobs wrote for Big Think in January, “such respect is rare, because the harsh conditions on Everest afford so little margin for it.”

Indeed, the living pass the frozen, preserved dead along Everest’s routes so often that many bodies have earned nicknames, and some serve as trail markers. In recent years, the Nepali Army has conducted expeditions to remove some of the bodies and clean tons of trash from the mountain, with four bodies and a skeleton retrieved this spring.

Why Everest is a killer

Mount Everest is a harsh environment rife with hazards. Climbers can be buried by avalanches or fall into deadly crevasses. They can also suffer from frostbite, altitude sickness and sheer exhaustion.

Most deaths on Mount Everest occur at elevations above 26,000 feet, in an area known as the “death zone.” Here, the air is so thin—and oxygen is so scarce—that it can feel “like running on a treadmill and breathing through a straw,” wrote mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears.

When confronted with such a low concentration of oxygen, cells in the body start to die. Climbers’ brains and lungs can’t get enough oxygen to function properly, and their skills become impaired, increasing the chance that they make mistakes.

Now, more people are attempting to scale Everest, and the Nepali government issued a record-high 478 climbing permits in 2024. Congestion on the mountain has led to dangerous bottlenecks that force people to spend more time in the “death zone.” In 2019, a backlog of climbers caused delays, and at least two climbers died at the summit afterward. But some Sherpas say the problem isn’t just the numbers—it’s that more novice climbers are attempting to summit without fully understanding the risks.

Additionally, climate change has created more hazardous conditions by causing the retreat of glaciers, exacerbating rockfalls on exposed slopes and making weather more unpredictable, ABC News’ Julia Jacobo wrote last year.

Bodies used as landmarks

Many of the dead bodies in view of Mount Everest climbers have received nicknames over the years, such as “the German,” the “Saluting Man,” the “Icefall Body” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

Perhaps the most famous, though, is the body of “Green Boots,” who died in 1996 and is believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an accomplished climber from India. During his expedition, a harsh blizzard hit, and Green Boots became separated from his party. He died near a cave that all climbers must pass as they ascend. For a long time, people used Green Boots as a morbid waypoint marker to gauge how near they were to the summit. But in 2014, a Chinese expedition moved his body to a less prominent location.

In 2006, English climber David Sharp joined Green Boots. He stopped in the now-infamous cave to rest. His body eventually froze in place, rendering him unable to move but still alive. Over 40 climbers passed by him as he sat freezing to death. His plight might have been overlooked as passers-by assumed Sharp was the already dead Green Boots. Eventually, some heard faint moans, realized he was still alive, and, too late, attempted to help him stand.

Some climbers request that, if they die during their hike, their bodies be left on the mountain. Australian climber Jason Kennison, for instance, had stated in writing that that was his desire before he died near the summit in 2023, per Outside magazine’s Ben Ayers and Tulsi Rauniyar. But his body was slated for removal this year as part of a Nepali Army-led program to clear trash and bodies from Everest.

Efforts to clean up the mountain

As ice melts, Everest's 'death zone' gives up its ghosts * FRANCE 24 English

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Though cleanup efforts have been ongoing since 2019, this year marked the first time Nepali authorities planned to recover up to five bodies from the peak. At the end of the operation, they had brought four bodies and a skeleton down from high altitude areas.

“Seeing a dead body on Everest is gruesome,” Nepali Army Major Aditya Karki tells Outside magazine. “Last year, a number of clients were distressed by passing the bodies of dead climbers on their climb. This can have long-lasting psychological effects and impact their well-being, which we want to prevent.”

Transporting a body down the mountain is expensive, dangerous and painstakingly slow. Digging out one of the recovered bodies took two days, reports Binaj Gurubacharya for the Associated Press. And moving a second one took 18 hours of work.

The mission also retrieved 11 tons of garbage, which had been frozen in layers. Much of it came from older expeditions, before climbers were required to carry away their trash. The oldest items collected—rechargeable batteries for flashlights—dated to 1957, per the AP.

During the 2024 climbing season, the government mandated that people carry their own excrement in poop bags. Another change for this year’s season required all climbers to wear GPS tracking chips sewn into their jackets, which will help search and rescue efforts, if necessary.

Rachel Nuwer | | READ MORE

Rachel Nuwer is a freelance science writer based in Brooklyn.

Carlyn Kranking | | READ MORE

Carlyn Kranking is the assistant web editor for science and innovation.