India Seeks to Recover Dorje Morup From Mount Everest

India is preparing for a potentially dangerous recovery mission to bring home Dorje Morup, an Indo-Tibetan Border Police mountaineer who died near Mount Everest's summit on May 11, 1996. Identified last year through DNA samples collected by Sherpas, Morup had been known to climbers for decades as Green Boots because of his distinctive lime-green mountaineering shoes.

Morup was 47 when he died during an expedition attempting to reach Everest's summit from the northern route through Tibet. His body has remained exposed near the spot where he died, approximately 300 meters below the summit, according to CNN.

India's government began seeking an experienced Sherpa team this year to retrieve his remains from the mountain's death zone, an area above 8,000 meters where oxygen levels are too low for humans to survive for long without assistance. The operation would require exceptional climbing skills and careful planning.

Diplomatic obstacles must also be addressed before a recovery attempt can proceed. The mission presents substantial risks because the team would need to navigate extreme altitude and remove a body that has been frozen in the mountain's harsh conditions for three decades.

Dawa Steven Sherpa, a Nepali mountaineer and chief executive of Asian Trekking, said identifying Morup had helped restore the human story behind a figure long recognized by climbers.

"People knew 'Green Boots' as a landmark, but they didn't know the person behind that title," Sherpa said.

The identification has renewed attention on three Indian climbers who disappeared during the deadly 1996 Everest season. Morup, Tsewang Paljor and Tsewang Smanla were members of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, a specialized force responsible for guarding India's Himalayan border with China.

The force was established after the 1962 war between India and China and recruits heavily from communities in the high Himalayas. Morup's teammates Paljor and Smanla came from Ladakh, a mountainous territory bordering Tibet.

Previously unseen expedition footage obtained by CNN shows the climbers preparing for their ascent, sharing meals and joking together at camp. The recordings provide additional insight into the team's relationships before the expedition ended in tragedy.

A fellow climber described the three men as highly skilled mountaineers who maintained a close personal bond, comparing their relationship to that of family members.

Harbhajan Singh, a veteran mountaineer who led part of the expedition, was among the last people to see Morup, Paljor and Smanla alive. Now 70 and retired from his position as an inspector general in the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Singh recalled the climbers' physical endurance in footage shared with CNN during a visit to his home in Punjab, India.

"I have not seen them tired," Singh said.

Singh had climbed with the three men in the Indian Himalayas before the 1996 expedition. Photographs, medals and other memorabilia in his home document his mountaineering career and preserve memories of the climbers who died on Everest.

The expedition had aimed to make the team the first Indian group to reach Everest's summit using the challenging northern approach. Morup, Paljor and Smanla died during a severe storm that struck the mountain on May 11, 1996, amid a wider disaster that claimed eight lives and later became the subject of Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air.

Recovering Morup's remains would give his family and country an opportunity to bring him home, but the proposed operation remains complicated by the mountain's extreme conditions, diplomatic requirements and the danger facing any recovery team.