In a development that has left mountaineering’s professional hand-wringers utterly bereft of material, a missing Sherpa has performed the ultimate act of defiance against the laws of probability and the BBC’s upcoming documentary schedule by rescuing himself on the treacherous slopes of Everest. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you heard correctly. A Sherpa went missing. And then he simply walked back into camp. The heroism is breathtakingly anti-climactic.
Let us set the scene. A British expedition, festooned with the latest Gore-Tex and enough dehydrated pasta to sink a smaller yacht, had mounted a frantic search for their fallen comrade. Tents flapped in the thin air, satellite phones crackled with concern, and interviews were drafted for the evening news about the ‘perils of the highest peak.’ But then, as if emerging from a particularly unspooky wardrobe, Pemba Dorjee Sherpa (for that is his name, because of course it is) strolled into base camp, asked for a cup of tea, and politely declined to be a tragedy.
‘I fell,’ he explained, with the nonchalance of a man who has just dropped a biro. ‘I waited for the snow to stop. Then I climbed back up.’ And there you have it. The most dramatic non-event in mountaineering history. One imagines the British climbers blinked, their carefully rehearsed expressions of grief and valour dissolving into a sort of confused relief. One particularly excitable expedition runner was reportedly heard to mutter, ‘But we had the hashtag ready.’
This incident lays bare a profound truth about our relationship with Everest. We crave tragedy on the world’s rooftop. We want the roar of the avalanche, the frozen romance of a solitary death, the noble sacrifice of a rescue that goes badly wrong. We do not want a man falling into a crevasse, having a quiet think about his personal choices, and then simply getting on with it. It’s terribly bad manners.
The Sherpa community, of course, have seen it all before. They are expected to perform miracles of endurance, carry the dreams (and oxygen cylinders) of affluent Westerners up a mountain, and then, when things go pit-shaped, to act as the supporting cast in a drama that is rarely their own. This time, Pemba Dorjee has seized the narrative. He has refused to play the tragic hero. He has become the boring hero. And what could be more revolutionary than that?
Let us examine the fallout. The British press, having rushed to print pages of florid prose about the ‘desperate fight for survival,’ now have to write a correction. One can almost hear the sub-editors gnashing their teeth. ‘Sherpa found safe. He was just late. Story filed under “Nope”.’ There will be no memorial service. No charity fund. Just a man drinking a cup of strong tea and wondering what all the fuss is about.
This is, in its own deeply peculiar way, a triumph of human spirit over the machinery of modern adventure. It is a reminder that the mountain does not care for your Instagram story or your sponsorship deal. It is a brute, unfeeling lump of rock and ice, and sometimes it spits out the people who fall into its cracks. Not out of kindness. Out of sheer inconvenience.
So let us raise a glass of something warm (or if you’re in the newsroom, gin) to Pemba Dorjee Sherpa. The man who saved himself because he simply couldn’t be bothered to stay missing. A genuine miracle. The sort that doesn’t need a hashtag. A miracle that is, mercifully, quite dull.
