I can’t imagine having a hobby that involves passing by, and in some cases climbing over, the exposed remains of others who died doing that same activity.
Back in the 90s, I went to see an IMAX film about climbing Everest and at the beginning, I was thinking, “I could do this,” but as it continued my view turned into, “I will never do this. This is insane.”
What’s really scary now is that it’s turned into something where people have to literally stand in line to reach the summit.
A good friend of mine is a professional alpinist who focuses only climbing eight-thousanders with no supplementary oxygen. Through him I’ve met others and learned about this whole community. A number of people are as weird and eccentric as us here in computer-nerd circles; one is tempted to armchair-diagnose some as autistic and climbing as their fixation, so something like Green Boots or the death of peers just won’t stop them. (I envy them that their fixation gives them the physique of a Greek god and stories that can impress any listener, so they often manage to be very socially successful in spite of their quirks.)
A climber who was pivotally involved in the failed rescue efforts for the dead person in this article immediately left on a solo climb of a nearby mountain. He died just over a year later in another climbing incident.
For passing by, that says some about the danger of the hobby and much more about the effort of getting the body back. There's lots of common activities where you might pass by a spot someone died while doing it. Notably, driving a car nearly guarantees it.
Or taking a walk. There’s an intersection two blocks from me where a pedestrian was killed in a hit and run accident shortly after I moved to town. The roadside memorial remained in place for nearly two years (I remember thinking that the people who lived in the house at the corner where the memorial was would probably like to remove it, but didn’t want to appear callous).
The worst part is that even though the intersection has been a 4-way stop for over a decade (the additional stop signs added after the hit and run), I’ve twice nearly been struck by drivers blowing the stop sign after I’ve entered the intersection as a pedestrian.
As a firefighter/EMT I occasionally have to deal with death, and I will even put myself in somewhat dangerous situations (that I've been trained for, and for which I have appropriate PPE) if there's a chance I can save a life.
But putting myself in a situation where the likelihood of dying is quite high for no reason other than to say I did it? No thanks.
Nevertheless I'm glad the family of Mr. Morup is no longer wondering what happened to him.
The stepping over the dead bothers me little, frankly. As a mountaineer, it's hard to imagine a nicer end than dying at the top of a beautiful mountain. Beats the care home for sure.
What horrifies me is the idea of stepping past people who are alive and dying, because... Meh? Because I paid to go the top, not rescue stragglers? People often say they can barely walk forwards, never mind rescue someone, and it's true. But surely if you have any energy left in you, it should go to saving a life. And if it is so touch and go for you, then don't go.
I thought the Guardian might decide not to show a photo of a corpse of someone probably with living friends and close relatives.
Nope, they do it too, like the Daily Mail, but with a big yellow GUI control to reveal it, like a weird macabre vintage "multimedia".
> Use the slider below to show a picture of the body of the climber known as Green Boots where it lies on Mount Everest. Some readers may find the image distressing
Just because the photo has been shown before doesn't mean it needs to be shown now, especially now that it's been identified, in in this context.
Let us pay tribute to the courage of our Tibetan friends.
"The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is a central armed police force in India, under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is responsible for guarding India's border with Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It was formed in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of 1962"
Known simply as 'Green Boots' because of his distinctive bright green mountaineering footwear still protruding from the snow and ice, the remains have now been identified as Indian climber Dorje Morup, 47.
For decades, many mountaineers believed the body belonged to fellow Indian climber Tsewang Paljor, 28. The DNA comparison has now ended that long-running mystery.
The identification was confirmed by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) ahead of a bid to recover the body from Everest's notorious 'death zone' at an altitude of more than 8,000 metres.
Well, rest in peace. If they do remove him, I hope nobody else loses their lives in the process. I understand they often don't bring people down because of the difficulty and danger of carrying something has heavy as a person at that altitude.
"Rainbow Valley" is a region near the top with many bodies, so-called because of the variety of coats and other gear. Most photos on Google are AI-generated, though.
Slightly off topic, but I first heard of Green Boots in the book The Climb. I picked it up completely randomly from a used book store six states away from home and wow what a find! It is a riveting story start to finish and I recommend it to everyone who is looking for a great read. My partner got her hyper fixation on high altitude mountaineering from it despite having no interest in ever actually climbing a mountain herself from reading it.
If you haven’t yet I highly recommend checking it out.
I've only read Into Thin Air, but that book makes Boukreev (author of The Climb) seem like an unreliable narrator. I have zero interest in high altitude mountaineering (I prefer lower altitude rock climbing) but I should probably check out The Climb to get both sides.
The Climb was a great response to it and according to my partner who then read more books about that year’s expeditions it is much closer to what happened than Into Thin Air.
Greenboots is so iconic. Other people use him as a marker. Glad he got some attention. It’s always seemed a shame that it’s impossible to give him a proper burial.
Greenboots has been laying there frozen in the snow since the 90s. It even became a landmark for other climbers. Im glad they managed to at least identify the poor soul. Who knows how much longer he’s going to rest there..
> The Indo-Tibetan Border Police is soliciting bids from high altitude recovery agencies for a mission to retrieve the remains of a climber long known only as "Green Boots" from the mountain's northern slope
Conrad Anker covered his body in scree. Subsequent expeditions have been unable to locate it. There's speculation that it was secretly removed from the mountain for political reasons.
Serious question. When climbers are walking by bodies, do they check if they are still alive or need help? Is there nothing that could be done anyways? Face down means don’t bother checking?
Any human not moving in Rainbow Valley is presumed dead?
I imagine you’re trying to keep yourself alive and keep your eyes forward, and realize you can’t do anything to help them anyways.
There was a case of a climber (David Sharp) that was having issues and found shelter in the vicinity of green boots, and the theory was that part of why he died is that the 40 climbers who passed by him without stopping just assumed he was green boots and didn't pay attention.
What’s really scary now is that it’s turned into something where people have to literally stand in line to reach the summit.
https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-porter-death-k2-norwegia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Boukreev
For passing by, that says some about the danger of the hobby and much more about the effort of getting the body back. There's lots of common activities where you might pass by a spot someone died while doing it. Notably, driving a car nearly guarantees it.
The worst part is that even though the intersection has been a 4-way stop for over a decade (the additional stop signs added after the hit and run), I’ve twice nearly been struck by drivers blowing the stop sign after I’ve entered the intersection as a pedestrian.
But putting myself in a situation where the likelihood of dying is quite high for no reason other than to say I did it? No thanks.
Nevertheless I'm glad the family of Mr. Morup is no longer wondering what happened to him.
What horrifies me is the idea of stepping past people who are alive and dying, because... Meh? Because I paid to go the top, not rescue stragglers? People often say they can barely walk forwards, never mind rescue someone, and it's true. But surely if you have any energy left in you, it should go to saving a life. And if it is so touch and go for you, then don't go.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/22/mt-everest-gre...
Nope, they do it too, like the Daily Mail, but with a big yellow GUI control to reveal it, like a weird macabre vintage "multimedia".
> Use the slider below to show a picture of the body of the climber known as Green Boots where it lies on Mount Everest. Some readers may find the image distressing
Just because the photo has been shown before doesn't mean it needs to be shown now, especially now that it's been identified, in in this context.
Let us pay tribute to the courage of our Tibetan friends.
"The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is a central armed police force in India, under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It is responsible for guarding India's border with Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It was formed in the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of 1962"
Known simply as 'Green Boots' because of his distinctive bright green mountaineering footwear still protruding from the snow and ice, the remains have now been identified as Indian climber Dorje Morup, 47.
For decades, many mountaineers believed the body belonged to fellow Indian climber Tsewang Paljor, 28. The DNA comparison has now ended that long-running mystery.
The identification was confirmed by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) ahead of a bid to recover the body from Everest's notorious 'death zone' at an altitude of more than 8,000 metres.
"Rainbow Valley" is a region near the top with many bodies, so-called because of the variety of coats and other gear. Most photos on Google are AI-generated, though.
If you haven’t yet I highly recommend checking it out.
> The Indo-Tibetan Border Police is soliciting bids from high altitude recovery agencies for a mission to retrieve the remains of a climber long known only as "Green Boots" from the mountain's northern slope
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mount-everest-green-boots-body-...
That said, you’re ultimately correct that it’s in the article, but I appreciated it. :)
Any human not moving in Rainbow Valley is presumed dead?
I imagine you’re trying to keep yourself alive and keep your eyes forward, and realize you can’t do anything to help them anyways.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/david-sharp
It's why green boots was moved (and is no longer a landmark), and David Sharp was also moved.