Climbing Everest is hard. Recovering a body from near its summit will be even harder

The lime-green boots shine vividly against the dazzling white snow. A man in a knitted fleece smiles as he carefully attaches crampons in preparation for his historic ascent of the world’s tallest mountain.

The grainy, 30-year-old video is the last known footage of a climber whose identity has remained a mystery to all but a small circle of mountaineers since he died in a ferocious storm near the top of Mount Everest in 1996.

The storm claimed eight lives and inspired Jon Krakauer’s best-selling first-hand account “Into Thin Air.” But the deaths and incredible stories of survival on the Nepal side of Everest have overshadowed one of the enduring mysteries of that day — the fate of three Indian climbers trying to summit the mountain via the more challenging approach from Tibet.

For decades, the frozen body of one of those men has lain exposed, curled up as if asleep, at the spot where he died around 300 meters below the summit. For generations of climbers he has been known simply as “Green Boots” — due to those green Koflach shoes that protrude from the ice.

Courtesy of Harbhajan Singh

But last year, in a covert, high-altitude operation, a small team of Sherpas successfully retrieved DNA samples from his corpse and gave him back his name.

“Green Boots” is Dorje Morup, a mountaineer who grew up in northern India, near the border with Tibet, and served in a specialized Indian border police force. He was 47 when he died.

Now that India has confirmed who he is, the race is on to bring Morup home.

This year India’s government began searching for an elite team of Sherpas to embark on a risky mission: to bring back his body from the mountain’s death zone, where there is so little oxygen that humans cannot breathe unaided for long.

“People knew ‘Green Boots’ as a landmark, but they didn’t know the person behind that title,” said Dawa Steven Sherpa, Nepali mountaineer and CEO of expedition company Asian Trekking.

Footage obtained exclusively by CNN and testimony from those who were on the mountain paint a more detailed picture than before of Morup, the man who died serving his country and is now the goal of one of mountaineering’s grimmest challenges.

It may be mission impossible.

Several diplomatic hurdles will need to be surmounted before any recovery effort can take its first steps. And scaling Everest to above 8,000 meters and bringing down a body that has been frozen in ice for three decades will push any team to its limit.

The mission also raises another difficult question: do you risk more lives to bring home a dead body?

Heavy breaths are interspersed by the sound of crunching snow, as shaky, never-before-seen video pans to a team of climbers, several wearing green boots, traversing a white-snow field. Ahead, black dots move in formation like ants as Everest’s imposing upper flanks loom above them.

It’s spring 1996 and the climbers are hoping to become the first Indian team to summit Everest from its more challenging northern route. Their day jobs are with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), a specialized force tasked with guarding the peaks and passes of India’s 2,167-mile (3,488-kilometer) long Himalayan border with China.

Formed in the aftermath of a disastrous mountain war with China in 1962, the ITBP operates in some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth. It recruits prominently from communities living in India’s high Himalaya mountains.

Alongside Morup were two other Indian climbers who hailed from Ladakh, a remote mountainous territory bordering Tibet: Tsewang Paljor and Tsewang Smanla.

The three were “class-one mountaineers” who were close “like family,” according to one of their fellow climbers.

The never-before-seen expedition footage captures the camaraderie and humor among the team. Inside a tent, one man serves food from a steaming saucepan. He’s one of the team leaders, and as he hands out the plates the rest of the team joke about the inversion of hierarchy.

In another scene, a group of climbers are chatting together next to a cluster of tents. “When I get up there, I’m going to do this,” one man says, making a drinking gesture.

But getting up there would prove deadly.

Hundreds of miles from the snow and ice of the Himalaya, a modest house in the plains of India’s Punjab state holds memories of the last hours of Morup’s life.

It’s the home of veteran mountaineer Harbhajan Singh, a leader on the ill-fated expedition, and one of the last people to see Morup, Paljor and Smanla alive.

Old furniture fills the rooms, giving the place the domestic, lived-in feel of a family home that has grown with its occupants. However, the medals, photographs and awards hung in the hall tell an extraordinary story of a life spent never far from danger in the mountains.

Now 70, the retired ITBP inspector general points out Morup, Paljor and Smanla in video shared with CNN during a visit to his home and smiles as he flips through photo albums.

He had climbed before with them in the Indian Himalaya and was amazed by their strength. “I have not seen them tired,” he said. As the team collapsed into their tents at the end of each grueling day on Everest, it was invariably Morup, Paljor and Smanla who still had the energy to brew tea and revive spirits, he remembered.

Morup was easygoing and a “silent worker,” said Singh.

“Whenever we were given any task, like fixing the ropes, he would always volunteer. He was technically very sound, physically very sound.”

The first time the team saw Everest was awe-inspiring, Singh said. “I bowed my head out of respect,” he added. “It was very beautiful.”

But the team was not there to admire the scenery. There was a job to be done, and national prestige at stake. A successful Indian ascent of Everest from the north side “was a matter of pride,” he said.

Several other teams were on the mountain, including from Japan, Norway, and a British team making a documentary with actor Brian Blessed.

“It was wonderful,” Singh said. “Everyone was excited.”

After weeks of arduous climbing, Singh led a six-man team, including Morup, Paljor and Smanla above the final camp located at 8,300 meters (27,000 feet). They were just over 500 meters from the summit.

Their task on May 10, Singh said, was to open up a route to the Second Step and test the stability of a ladder fixed to the rock face. The step is an almost vertical 40-meter bottleneck, and the most technically challenging part of the climb.

Beyond was the last stretch to the summit, typically about a four-hour climb in normal conditions. If the weather was good, they could make a summit attempt, Singh said.

But it was late in the day and despite favorable weather reports, Singh said he could see clouds forming above Everest: An omen that bad weather was on its way. He decided not to proceed.

“If you try you will not be able to come back,” Singh had told Morup, Paljor and Smanla.

But the three decided to push on and later phoned base camp to say they were making an attempt for the summit.

“I was the last one (to see them alive),” Singh said. “They had a cup of tea at the Second Step… As they were going up, I saw them fixing the rope. I thought, ok they will come back,” he added.

At such heights with so little oxygen, “you cannot judge whether you will be trapped,” Singh said. “You have only one aim: I have to climb Everest.”

Singh and another climber turned back for the high camp. By the time they reached the safety of the tents at 6 p.m., Morup, Paljor and Smanla had radioed base camp. They had summited.

“All of us were very happy,” said Singh. “But it was very short-lived.”

The storm quickly rolled in, catching many climbers on both sides of the mountain off guard.

On the Nepal side, American mountaineers Scott Fischer and Doug Hansen died, as well as New Zealand’s Rob Hall and Andy Harris, and Japan’s Yasuko Namba.

Down at Advanced Base Camp on the Tibetan side, the anxious Indian team could see two headlamps light up their descent high on the mountain. “One of the beams spiraling downwards, toward the Second Step. Then darkness, as they went out of our lives,” the expedition’s senior deputy leader PM Das said in a written account.

The Second Step would have been “very challenging” to descend in those conditions, said Jon Gangdal, a Norwegian climber leading a separate expedition on the north side of Everest and who was in contact with the Indian team.

“What hits the mountain so high are these jet stream winds,” he told CNN. Those winds are full of snow and ice, and bring gusts of 150-200 kilometers per hour, plunging temperatures to minus 60 to 80 degrees Celsius (minus 79 to minus 112 Fahrenheit).

“And the higher you are, the stronger the winds are,” Gangdal said. Exposure, coupled with a lack of oxygen, rapidly becomes an “extremely dangerous” situation, he added.

Before the summit attempt, Gangdal described a feeling of “competition” between the Indian and Japanese teams to be the first to summit that season. Summit fever – an irrational drive to reach to the top, whatever it takes – may have taken over the climbers, he believes.

At base camp, “everybody is only heading for one thing, summit, summit, summit,” said Gangdal, author of “Guilt and Glory: Climbing with Sherpas.”

“As soon as you are on the ridge… you get the feeling that (the summit) is within reach.”

A few days later a second team from the Indian expedition summited Everest.

For Gangdal, who helped try and rouse the team leaders into mounting a rescue, that was the wrong move.

“They should have put in effort to get the bodies down first,” he said.

Maxwelljo40/Creative Commons

Paljor is believed to have fallen off the mountain; his body was never found. Smanla lay above the Second Step before he too disappeared.

And Morup, who managed to descend in the storm, lay near the trail below the First Step in a small limestone cave, his Green Boots visible in the snow.

American climber David Roeske, who summited Everest in 2013 and 2016, said passing Morup was an “opportunity to pay homage” and “felt like you were honoring him and his memory best by pausing there and taking note.”

“It was a beautiful opportunity to remember this man’s experience and life and to move gently and humbly up the mountain yourself… his memory lived on in a very powerful way by being there for so long,” he said.

The upper reaches of Everest are home to many of the more than 300 climbers who have perished on the mountain. Rescues this high are risky and expensive, and helicopters cannot safely fly at such altitudes.

Among them was US climber Francys Arsentiev, who died in 1998 after becoming the first American woman to summit without supplemental oxygen. Her body remained visible for a decade before it was removed from view, and she became known as “Sleeping Beauty” for the peaceful way she rested on the mountain.

Previous attempts to retrieve bodies at such high altitudes have been called off because of the risk of death to the rescuers.

The document issued by the ITBP inviting bids to retrieve Morup’s body does not say why it is trying to do so now, 30 years after his death – although some of the members of the 1996 Indian expedition have since attained high rank in the organization.

“We felt that any brave ITBP mountaineer should be given a dignified farewell,” an ITBP official told CNN in response to queries on the timing of the proposed expedition. “Someone who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty at high altitude should be given that dignity.”

The ITBP official said they identified Morup after carrying out “a detailed examination of the available expedition records, took inputs from surviving expedition members and considered the technical inputs.”

But those in the industry “have always known” Green Boots was Morup, said Dawa Steven Sherpa, whose mountaineering company Asian Trekking outfitted the 1996 Indian expedition.

Proving it was a complex operation.

Dawa said his company “without very much fanfare, without making it too public” launched “a very small expedition to send a group of Sherpas up,” to extract DNA samples from the frozen corpse’s hair and nails.

The team was relying on bottled oxygen so “we needed to act quickly to get whatever DNA samples we could,” Dawa said.

“You do not want to be spending too long doing this, and finishing off your oxygen, or putting yourself in a position where you wasted so much time that you could get the team in trouble.”

Under that time pressure, the team had to carefully handle the precious DNA to prevent the risk of contamination on their descent. A lab in India later confirmed the samples belonged to Morup.

Though there will be challenges, bringing Morup off the mountain is possible, said Dawa.

His body has been frozen solid for 30 years, making him much heavier to move.

But a team of about eight Sherpas could do it – using foam padding and a special stretcher that cocoons the body, Dawa said.

“You’re able to then bring the body down by dragging it, and it will slide over rocks and ice,” he said. “You need a couple of extra hands just to make sure that the body doesn’t slide off down the mountain.”

Complicating the retrieval is the position of Morup’s body, and the risk that it could be damaged or start decomposing on the way down.

“If (limbs are) outstretched, there’s no way to push it back in… It’s frozen solid, so it really does make that really, really hard,” he said. “You could break the limb, if it catches on a rock and then gets twisted.”

Cultural sensitivities around Sherpas handling a dead body would also need to be respected, said Dawa.

“It’s not just any dead body… this is a Ladakhi climber who is very similar in terms of culture and religion in ways that a Sherpa can see himself in that,” he added.

The ITBP official said the mission is now expected to happen during the April-May climbing season of 2027 after “taking everything into account — necessary approvals, clearances and everything else.”

It is unclear whether any companies will make a bid for next year.

Any mission will also need diplomatic buy-in from China, which closed the Tibetan side of Everest to foreign climbers this year.

Ties between the two countries remain strained over their long-running Himalayan border dispute , which erupted into a deadly skirmishes in 2020 that saw soldiers from both sides use rocks and iron rods in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

CNN has reached out to the Chinese Mountaineering Association and the Sports Bureau of Tibet Autonomous Region for comment on the proposed mission to retrieve Morup’s body. Repeated calls to the China Tibet Mountaineering Association, which manages permits for Everest’s north route, went unanswered.

“It should have happened 30 years ago,” Gangdal said.

“This is the Indian responsibility to bring this guy down, especially when they learnt that he became like a death marker on the mountain.”

Singh and Dawa say it would be an important achievement if Morup is finally brought home to his family.

“There is closure for families when you bring a body down, when you give it a proper burial,” said Dawa.

“In another way, you are humanizing the person again.”

那双亮绿色的靴子在耀眼的白雪映衬下格外醒目。一位身穿针织羊毛衫的男子面带微笑，小心翼翼地穿戴着冰爪，准备攀登世界最高峰，开启他历史性的征程。

这段画面模糊、已有 30 年历史的视频，是这位登山者最后为人所知的影像资料。自 1996 年他在珠穆朗玛峰顶附近的一场猛烈风暴中丧生以来，他的身份对除少数登山者之外的所有人都是个谜。

这场风暴夺去了八条生命，并激发了乔恩·克拉考尔创作出畅销的第一手回忆录《进入空气稀薄地带》。但是，珠穆朗玛峰尼泊尔一侧的死亡事件和令人难以置信的生存故事，掩盖了那天一个经久不衰的谜团——三名试图从更具挑战性的西藏路线登顶的印度登山者的命运。

几十年来，其中一名登山者的遗体一直冰冷地躺在他遇难的地方，蜷缩着身子，仿佛睡着了一般，距离峰顶大约300米。一代又一代的登山者都称他为“绿靴子”——因为他脚上那双绿色的科弗拉赫登山鞋从冰层中露出来。

承蒙哈尔巴詹·辛格惠允

但去年，一支由夏尔巴人组成的小队在高海拔地区秘密行动中，成功地从他的尸体上提取了 DNA 样本，并让他恢复了原名。

“绿靴子”是多杰·莫鲁普，一位在印度北部靠近西藏边境地区长大的登山家，曾在印度边境特种警察部队服役。他去世时47岁。

既然印度方面已经确认了他的身份，那么现在就该争分夺秒地把莫鲁普带回家了。

今年，印度政府开始寻找一支夏尔巴精英团队，执行一项危险的任务：将他的遗体从山上的死亡地带运回。那里氧气稀少，人类无法长时间不借助任何辅助工具呼吸。

“人们知道‘绿靴子’是一个地标，但他们不知道这个称号背后的人，”尼泊尔登山家、探险公司 Asian Trekking 的首席执行官 Dawa Steven Sherpa 说。

CNN独家获得的影像资料以及当时在山上的人的证词，比以往更详细地描绘了莫鲁普的形象。莫鲁普为国捐躯，如今成为了登山界最残酷挑战之一的目标。

这或许是不可能完成的任务。

在任何救援行动能够迈出第一步之前，都需要克服诸多外交障碍。而且，攀登珠穆朗玛峰8000米以上，并将一具在冰层中冻了三十年的遗体带下来，对任何一支队伍来说都是极限挑战。

这次任务也引出了另一个难题：为了带回一具尸体，你是否愿意冒着更多人的生命危险？

沉重的呼吸声与雪地嘎吱作响的声音交织在一起，一段从未曝光过的晃动镜头缓缓移动，展现出一支登山队，其中几人穿着绿色登山靴，正穿越一片白雪皑皑的雪地。前方，黑色的小点像蚂蚁一样整齐地排列着，珠穆朗玛峰巍峨的山峰在他们上方巍然耸立。

1996年春天，登山者们希望成为第一支从难度更高的北坡路线登顶珠穆朗玛峰的印度登山队。他们的日常工作是在印藏边境警察部队（ITBP）服役，这是一支负责守卫印度与中国之间长达2167英里（3488公里）的喜马拉雅山脉边界沿线山峰和山口的特种部队。

印度-西藏边境警察部队（ITBP）成立于1962年与中国爆发的一场灾难性的山地战争之后，其作战区域位于地球上一些最不适宜居住的地区。该部队主要从居住在印度喜马拉雅山脉高海拔地区的社区招募人员。

与莫鲁普一同登山的还有另外两名来自拉达克（与西藏接壤的偏远山区）的印度登山者：泽旺·帕尔乔和泽旺·斯曼拉。

据其中一位登山伙伴说，这三人都是“一级登山者”，关系“像家人一样亲密”。

这段从未公开过的探险影像捕捉到了队员们之间的友谊和幽默。在帐篷里，一名队员正用热气腾腾的平底锅盛饭。他是队长之一，当他分发餐盘时，其他队员都开玩笑说这种等级颠倒的局面。

在另一个场景中，一群登山者在一簇帐篷旁聊天。“等我上去，我就要这么做，”其中一个男人说着，做了个喝酒的手势。

但爬上去会致命。

距离喜马拉雅山的冰雪数百英里之外，印度旁遮普邦平原上的一座简朴房屋里，承载着莫鲁普生命最后时刻的记忆。

这里是资深登山家哈尔巴詹·辛格的故乡，他是那次不幸探险的领队之一，也是最后几个见到莫鲁普、帕尔乔尔和斯曼拉活着的人之一。

房间里摆满了老旧的家具，营造出一种温馨如家、充满生活气息的氛围，仿佛这座房子与居住者一同成长。然而，大厅里悬挂的奖章、照片和奖状却讲述着一段非凡的故事，一段在山中与危险相伴一生的经历。

现年 70 岁的退休 ITBP 监察长在一段与 CNN 分享的视频中指出了 Morup、Paljor 和 Smanla，当时他正在家中接受 CNN 的采访，并一边翻阅相册一边微笑。

他之前曾和他们一起攀登过印度喜马拉雅山脉，他们的体力令他惊叹不已。“我从没见过他们疲惫的样子，”他说。他回忆道，在珠峰上每天艰苦跋涉结束后，当队员们筋疲力尽地回到帐篷时，总是莫鲁普、帕尔乔尔和斯曼拉还有精力煮茶，给大家提振精神。

辛格说，莫鲁普性格随和，是个“默默工作的工人”。

“无论我们分配什么任务，比如修理绳索，他总是自告奋勇。他的技术非常扎实，身体素质也非常好。”

辛格说，他们第一次看到珠穆朗玛峰时，感到无比震撼。“我低头表示敬意，”他补充道，“它太美了。”

但登山队此行并非为了欣赏风景。他们肩负着重任，事关国家荣誉。他说，印度队从北坡成功登顶珠穆朗玛峰“是一件值得骄傲的事”。

当时还有其他几支队伍也在山上，包括来自日本、挪威的队伍，以及一支与演员布莱恩·布莱斯德一起拍摄纪录片的英国队伍。

“太棒了，”辛格说。“每个人都很兴奋。”

经过数周艰苦的攀登，辛格带领一支六人队伍，包括莫鲁普、帕尔乔尔和斯曼拉，到达了海拔8300米（27000英尺）的最后一个营地上方。他们距离峰顶仅500多米。

辛格说，他们5月10日的任务是开辟一条通往第二台阶的路线，并测试固定在岩壁上的梯子的稳定性。第二台阶是一个近乎垂直的40米狭窄通道，也是攀登过程中技术难度最高的部分。

后面的路程是通往山顶的最后一段，通常情况下需要攀登大约四个小时。辛格说，如果天气好的话，他们可以尝试登顶。

但当时已是傍晚，尽管天气预报显示天气良好，辛格说他看到珠穆朗玛峰上空开始聚集云层：这是恶劣天气即将到来预兆。他决定不再继续攀登。

“如果你们尝试，就回不来了，”辛格曾对莫鲁普、帕尔乔尔和斯曼拉说。

但三人决定继续前进，后来打电话给大本营说他们正在尝试登顶。

“我是最后一个见到他们活着的人，”辛格说。“他们在第二级台阶喝了杯茶……他们往上走的时候，我看到他们在固定绳索。我想，好吧，他们会回来的，”他补充道。

辛格说，在高海拔、氧气稀薄的地方，“你无法判断自己是否会被困住”。“你只有一个目标：我必须登上珠穆朗玛峰。”

辛格和另一名登山者返回了高海拔营地。当他们下午6点到达安全的帐篷时，莫鲁普、帕尔乔尔和斯曼拉已经通过无线电联系了大本营。他们已经登顶。

辛格说：“我们当时都非常高兴，但好景不长。”

暴风雪迅速袭来，让山两侧的许多登山者措手不及。

在尼泊尔一侧，美国登山家斯科特·费舍尔和道格·汉森，以及新西兰登山家罗布·霍尔和安迪·哈里斯，还有日本登山家难波靖子不幸遇难。

在西藏一侧的前进营地，焦急的印度登山队看到两束头灯照亮了他们下山的路。“其中一束光束螺旋式向下照射，朝着第二台阶的方向。然后，黑暗降临，它们消失在我们的视野中，”探险队高级副队长PM Das在一份书面报告中写道。

挪威登山家乔恩·甘达尔（Jon Gangdal）带领着一支独立的探险队在珠穆朗玛峰北坡攀登，他与印度登山队保持着联系。甘达尔表示，在那种情况下，第二步的下降将会“非常具有挑战性”。

“袭击这座高山的正是这些喷射气流，”他告诉CNN。这些气流裹挟着冰雪，带来每小时150至200公里的阵风，使气温骤降至零下60至80摄氏度（零下79至零下112华氏度）。

“海拔越高，风力就越大，”甘达尔说。他补充道，暴露在高空环境中，再加上缺氧，很快就会变成“极其危险”的情况。

在登顶尝试之前，甘达尔描述了印度队和日本队之间一种“竞争”的氛围，双方都想成为当季第一个登顶的队伍。他认为，登山者们可能被一种非理性的登顶欲望——不惜一切代价也要到达顶峰——所控制。

《罪恶与荣耀：与夏尔巴人一起攀登》一书的作者甘达尔说，在大本营，“每个人都只有一个目标，那就是登顶、登顶、登顶”。

“一旦你踏上山脊……你就会感觉（山顶）近在咫尺。”

几天后，印度探险队的第二支队伍登顶珠穆朗玛峰。

对于曾试图激励队长们组织营救行动的甘达尔来说，这是一个错误的举动。

他说：“他们应该先努力把尸体弄下来。”

Maxwelljo40/知识共享

人们认为帕尔约尔从山上坠落，他的遗体一直没有找到。斯曼拉在第二级台阶上方躺过，之后也消失了。

而设法在暴风雪中下山的莫鲁普躺在第一级台阶下方的小石灰岩洞穴里，他的绿色靴子在雪地里清晰可见。

2013 年和 2016 年登顶珠穆朗玛峰的美国登山家大卫·罗斯克表示，经过莫鲁普峰是一个“致敬的机会”，“感觉在那里停下来默默缅怀他，就是对他最好的纪念”。

“这是一个美好的机会，让我们能够缅怀这位先生的经历和人生，并谦逊地、温和地攀登这座山峰……他的记忆以一种非常强大的方式在那里停留了这么久，”他说。

珠穆朗玛峰高海拔地区埋葬着300多名遇难登山者中的许多人。在如此高海拔地区进行救援风险极高且费用昂贵，直升机也无法安全飞行。

其中包括美国登山家弗朗西斯·阿森蒂耶夫，她于1998年去世，此前她成为首位不借助辅助氧气登顶珠穆朗玛峰的美国女性。她的遗体在山上停留了十年才被移走，她因在山上安详的长眠姿态而被人们称为“睡美人”。

此前在高海拔地区搜寻遇难者遗体的尝试均因救援人员面临生命危险而被取消。

印度边境警察部队发布的邀请投标寻找莫鲁普遗体的文件没有说明为什么在莫鲁普去世 30 年后才尝试这样做——尽管 1996 年印度探险队的一些成员后来在该组织中获得了很高的职位。

一名印藏边境警察部队（ITBP）官员在回应CNN关于此次探险计划时间的询问时表示：“我们认为，任何一位勇敢的印藏边境警察部队登山队员都应该得到体面的告别。在高海拔地区执行任务时英勇牺牲的人，理应得到这份尊严。”

ITBP官员表示，他们在“详细审查了现有的探险记录，听取了幸存探险队员的证词，并考虑了技术方面的考量”后，确认了莫鲁普的身份。

但业内人士“一直都知道”绿靴就是莫鲁普，登山公司 Asian Trekking 为 1996 年的印度探险队提供装备的达瓦·史蒂文·夏尔巴 (Dawa Steven Sherpa) 说。

这证明这是一项复杂的行动。

达瓦表示，他的公司“没有大张旗鼓地宣传，也没有公开宣布”，发起了一次“规模很小的探险，派出一群夏尔巴人上去”，从冰冻尸体的头发和指甲中提取 DNA 样本。

达瓦说，由于团队只能依靠瓶装氧气，所以“我们需要迅速行动，尽可能多地获取 DNA 样本”。

“你不想在这件事上花费太长时间，耗尽氧气，或者让自己陷入浪费太多时间而给团队带来麻烦的境地。”

在时间紧迫的情况下，团队必须小心处理珍贵的DNA样本，以防止在下潜过程中受到污染。印度的一家实验室后来证实，这些样本属于莫鲁普。

达瓦表示，虽然会面临挑战，但将莫鲁普从山上带下来是可能的。

他的身体已经冰封了30年，变得非常沉重，难以移动。

但达瓦说，大约八名夏尔巴人组成的团队就可以做到这一点——使用泡沫垫和一种能将身体包裹起来的特殊担架。

“然后你可以拖着尸体往下走，它会滑过岩石和冰面，”他说。“你需要几个人帮忙，以确保尸体不会滑下山坡。”

莫鲁普遗体的位置使得打捞工作变得更加复杂，因为遗体在下落过程中可能会受损或开始腐烂。

“如果（树枝）伸直了，就没办法把它掰回去……它冻得硬邦邦的，所以真的非常非常难，”他说。“如果树枝被石头勾住然后扭曲，你可能会把它弄断。”

达瓦表示，对于夏尔巴人处理尸体的文化敏感性也需要得到尊重。

“这不仅仅是一具普通的尸体……这是一位拉达克登山者，他的文化和宗教与我们非常相似，夏尔巴人可以从中看到自己的影子，”他补充道。

ITBP官员表示，在“考虑到所有因素——必要的批准、许可和其他一切因素”之后，预计此次任务将在2027年4月至5月的登山季节进行。

目前尚不清楚明年是否会有公司参与竞标。

任何登山任务都需要获得中国的外交支持，中国今年已经关闭了珠穆朗玛峰西藏一侧的登山通道，禁止外国登山者进入。

两国关系因长期存在的喜马拉雅山脉边界争端而依然紧张，该争端在 2020 年演变为致命的冲突，双方士兵在残酷的肉搏战中使用了石头和铁棍。

CNN已联系中国登山协会和西藏自治区体育局，就拟议的莫鲁普遗体搜寻行动寻求置评。CNN多次致电负责珠峰北坡登山许可证发放的中国西藏登山协会，但均无人接听。

“这件事本该在30年前就发生了，”甘达尔说。

“印度有责任将这个人绳之以法，尤其是在他们得知他已经成为山上的死亡标志之后。”

辛格和达瓦表示，如果莫鲁普最终能回到家人身边，那将是一项重要的成就。

“把遗体运下来，妥善安葬，对家属来说才是一种慰藉，”达瓦说。

“从另一个角度来看，你又把这个人人性化了。”