The climbing season is in full swing on Mount Everest, with several dozen climbers and guides headed for the summit amid a window of clear weather.
But news has also come back to Base Camp of injuries, rescues, and even deaths.
On Friday, May 16, word circulated that a climber from India named Subrata Gosh had died on Mount Everest after descending from the summit to the Hillary Step at an elevation of 28,839 feet. Outside confirmed the news with Snowy Horizon Treks and Expedition, the guiding company that Gosh had been climbing with.
“Last night the client summited very late, around 2 A.M. or 3 A.M.,” Bodha Raj Bhandari, chairman of the company, told Outside. Bhandari said that Gosh was unable to descend from the top after reaching the summit.
“His climbing sherpa managed to drag him down to the Hillary Step, where he sat and refused to move,” Bhandari said. “It took them a long time to reach that location.”
According to Bhandari, the climbing sherpa stayed with Gosh through the night, but the duo were unable to communicate with crews lower on the mountain because the radio batteries had died. The pair had enough oxygen to survive the night, Bhandari said, but unfortunately the climbing sherpa was unable to get Gosh to Camp IV at 26,000 feet.
“At around 7 A.M. this morning the sherpa arrived safely in Camp IV by himself. ‘He’s gone,’ is all he said to us,” Bhandari said.
The death marks the second of a foreign climber on Mount Everest this year, and the fourth fatality. On May 14, a 45-year-old Filipino climber named Phillipp Santiago II died at Camp IV while heading toward the summit. Santiago was also climbing with Snow Horizon Treks and Expedition.
“Weather wasn’t a factor in this death either,” Bhandari told Outside. “The climber had a plan to summit, and was just resting in his tent peacefully. He was on oxygen while resting, and just died peacefully. Our team tried CPR but it was ineffective. It was a sudden death.”
Deaths of this nature are not uncommon on Mount Everest during the spring season. Even with the use of supplemental oxygen, climbers can die at extreme altitudes due to exhaustion, pulmonary or cerebral edema, or sudden cardiac arrest. Climbers must limit their time in the so-called “death zone” above 26,000 feet due to the the inherent dangers of a low-oxygen environment.
Earlier this week, multiple climbers had to be evacuated from above Camp III at 24,000 feet due to medical issues caused by the elevation. On Wednesday, May 14, a Czech climber was plucked off the mountain by a helicopter using a long-line winch system.
On Thursday, May 15, another climber was saved via a long-line helicopter rescue from Camp III, Lhakpa Norbu Sherpa from the Himalayan Rescue Association confirmed.
On the Friday, May 16, a helicopter brought a climber from Morocco off the slopes Mount Everest to the Himalayan Rescue Association’s emergency room in Mount Everest Base Camp. The climber was suffering from chest pain and physical weakness. Both rescued climbers are expected to recover, officials told Outside.
The two fatalities are the third and fourth of the 2025 season thus far. Outside was able to confirm that two Nepali mountain workers died earlier in the season, but their deaths went unreported at the time.
Ang Chokpa Sherpa, the program manager of the Juniper Fund, a nonprofit that supports families of deceased mountain workers, identified the two Nepali workers as Ngima Dorji Sherpa and Pem Chhiri Sherpa.
Ngima Dorji Sherpa, who was from Nepal’s remote Makalu region, died earlier in May of a brain hemorrhage while working at Mount Everest Base Camp, Ang Chokpa Sherpa confirmed. His employer, Seven Smmits Treks, attempted a rescue, but he died before receiving further care.
Pen Chhiri Sherpa died on May 4 after suffering a heart attack at Camp I at 19,900 feet, Ang Chokpa said. His employer, TAG Nepal, initiated a rescue, but Pen Chhiri died in Kathmandu. He left behind a wife and a grown son.
Nine climbers died on Mount Everest in 2024, down from 18 in 2023.
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Ben Ayers is a filmmaker, journalist, and adventurer who splits his time between Vermont and Nepal. In 2022 and 2024 he chronicled the Mount Everest climbing season for Outside.
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