#MountEverest #EverestDeaths #ClimbingTragedy
The Worst Mount Everest Deaths No One Talks About
Timestamps:
0:00 Shriya Shah-Klorfine
3:07 Tsewang Paljor
5:38 Hannelore Schmatz
8:56 Babu Chiri Sherpa
11:17 George Mallory and Sandy Irvine
Some people are born to climb mountains. Others, it seems, are born to die on them. This is the story of Shriya Shah-Klorfine, a 33-year-old woman from Toronto who had a dream of climbing Everest. She was Nepal-born, working in sales and small business, and she framed Everest as a life-defining personal branding project. She even commissioned a custom Canadian-Nepalese flag for the summit. The only problem? She had absolutely NO mountaineering experience.
Rest in peace to the victims.
#cavediving #worstcavedeaths #caves #caving #painfuldeaths #worstwaystodie #diving #animationstory #cavingincidents
💼 For collabs/questions: cavestories63@gmail.com
🔴🤓 Yep, this masterpiece was handcrafted by me, myself, and I. Thinking of copying it? Please don’t. Viewer discretion and common sense advised.
#ExtremeSurvival #DarkHistory #ShockingStories #MountainClimbing #TrueStories #DocumentaryStyle #UntoldStories
The Worst Mount Everest Deaths No One Talks About
Timestamps:
0:00 Shriya Shah-Klorfine
3:07 Tsewang Paljor
5:38 Hannelore Schmatz
8:56 Babu Chiri Sherpa
11:17 George Mallory and Sandy Irvine
Some people are born to climb mountains. Others, it seems, are born to die on them. This is the story of Shriya Shah-Klorfine, a 33-year-old woman from Toronto who had a dream of climbing Everest. She was Nepal-born, working in sales and small business, and she framed Everest as a life-defining personal branding project. She even commissioned a custom Canadian-Nepalese flag for the summit. The only problem? She had absolutely NO mountaineering experience.
Rest in peace to the victims.
#cavediving #worstcavedeaths #caves #caving #painfuldeaths #worstwaystodie #diving #animationstory #cavingincidents
💼 For collabs/questions: cavestories63@gmail.com
🔴🤓 Yep, this masterpiece was handcrafted by me, myself, and I. Thinking of copying it? Please don’t. Viewer discretion and common sense advised.
#ExtremeSurvival #DarkHistory #ShockingStories #MountainClimbing #TrueStories #DocumentaryStyle #UntoldStories
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Shriya Shah Chlorphine
00:03Some people are born to climb mountains.
00:06Others, it seems, are born to die on them.
00:09This is the story of Shriya Shah Chlorphine,
00:13a 33-year-old woman from Toronto who had a dream of climbing Everest.
00:18She was Nepal-born, working in sales and small business,
00:22and she framed Everest as a life-defining personal branding project.
00:26She even commissioned a custom Canadian-Nepalese flag for the summit.
00:31The only problem? She had absolutely no mountaineering experience.
00:36Okay, let that sink in. No experience.
00:40But she had money.
00:42She paid over $100,000 to Utmost Adventure Trekking,
00:46a Kathmandu-based company that, according to other operators on the mountain,
00:51was just as inexperienced as she was.
00:53The owner, Ganesh Takuri, had even told her she was below average as a climber.
01:00But he took her money anyway.
01:01On the evening of May 18, 2012, Shriya left the South Call at 7.30pm,
01:08beginning her summit push.
01:10It was a notoriously bad season.
01:12The route was crowded, with long queues at bottlenecks like the Hillary Step.
01:16Four climbers would die that day.
01:19Eleven would die that spring.
01:21She climbed for 17 hours straight and reached the summit around 2pm on May 19th.
01:27She had made it.
01:29But she was dangerously slow, and she had burned through her oxygen supply.
01:33At one point on the route, Thakuri himself tried to turn her around.
01:37She refused.
01:39He gave her his last bottle of oxygen and let her continue.
01:42She spent time on the summit, celebrating, taking photos with her custom flag,
01:47while her oxygen ticked away.
01:50On the descent, near the balcony at around 27,560 feet,
01:55about 820 feet above Camp 4, she collapsed.
01:59She had been climbing for 27 hours.
02:02She was completely exhausted.
02:04She was still clipped into the fixed line when she uttered her final,
02:08heartbreaking words to her Sherpa.
02:10Save me.
02:11She died there, still attached to the rope.
02:14The next morning, other climbers had to step around her body to continue descending.
02:19A widely reported image of the 2012 season.
02:23Her body remained on the mountain for 10 days,
02:26before a Sherpa recovery team moved her down to a lower camp,
02:30where she was flown to Kathmandu and later cremated.
02:33The recovery cost tens of thousands of dollars.
02:37Her death sparked a firestorm of controversy.
02:40Her husband blamed the guiding company, Utmost Adventure Trekking,
02:44for letting her climb.
02:45The company blamed her for ignoring their guides' direct orders to turn around.
02:50But the facts remain.
02:51A woman with no experience, blinded by summit fever,
02:55made a series of fatal decisions.
02:57I'm doing this thing because I wanted to give a message that follow your dream.
03:03You have one life.
03:05Live your life.
03:08Sewang Paljor.
03:09There are landmarks on Mount Everest that you won't find on any map.
03:14For 18 years, the most famous one was a pair of bright green boots,
03:18and the man who was wearing them.
03:20His name was Sewang Paljor, a 28-year-old from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police.
03:26In 1996, he was part of an Indian team trying to summit Everest.
03:32On May 10th, Paljor and two teammates made it to the top.
03:36But they made a fatal mistake.
03:38They reached the summit at 3.30pm, way past the 2pm turnaround time.
03:44They were running on fumes.
03:46And they were running out of daylight.
03:49As they started down, the mountain turned on them.
03:52A monster blizzard rolled in, with 100 mph winds and temperatures dropping to 40 below.
03:59In the dark, in the blinding snow, they got lost.
04:03They found a small cave, a limestone alcove at 27,900 feet, and crawled inside to escape the storm.
04:12It was a fatal decision.
04:15Sewang Paljor curled up in a fetal position, and the mountain took him.
04:20Hypothermia, exhaustion, lack of oxygen.
04:24He never got up.
04:25And here's where the story gets really disturbing.
04:28Because he was on the main climbing route, his body just... stayed there.
04:33For 18 years.
04:35He became a landmark.
04:37A gruesome, unavoidable signpost.
04:40Climbers would literally say,
04:42Yo, peeps! We're at Green Boots!
04:44To mark their progress.
04:46People took pictures with him.
04:47Yes, seriously.
04:49And some even sat next to his frozen body to rest.
04:52He wasn't a person anymore.
04:54He was a thing.
04:56It started a huge debate.
04:58How can we just leave him there?
05:00Is this what climbing has become?
05:02Finally, in 2014, his body was moved.
05:06Some say he was buried.
05:08Some say he was pushed off a cliff.
05:10The cave is empty now.
05:12But the legend of Green Boots remains.
05:15And what about his teammates?
05:18One of them, Sewang Smanla, was found frozen nearby.
05:22The other, Dorje Marup, was never seen again.
05:25The 1996 storm killed eight people.
05:29But it was Sewang Paljor, the man in the green boots,
05:32who became the most haunting symbol of just how brutal Everest can be.
05:40Hanalora Schmutz.
05:42Some bodies on Everest become landmarks.
05:46But for years, one body was a warning.
05:49A frozen sentinel, sitting upright, leaning against her backpack as if she were just taking a short rest.
05:56Her eyes were open, and her hair would blow in the wind.
06:00Her name was Hanalora Schmutz, and she was the first woman to die on the upper slopes of Mount Everest.
06:08Let me explain to you exactly what happened.
06:11It was October 1979.
06:15Hanalora, a 39-year-old German climber, was on Everest with her husband, Gard.
06:20He summited on October 1st and returned safely, but he brought a warning.
06:26The weather was turning nasty.
06:28He urged her to wait, but Hanalora refused.
06:31No!
06:32On October 2nd, she started her own push for the top with American climber Ray Janais
06:38and several Sherpas, including a guide named Sundar Sherpa.
06:42The weather was atrocious.
06:44Winds were howling, snow was falling, and the temperature plunged to minus 30 degrees Celsius.
06:51But she kept going.
06:53At 1.30 p.m., she made it.
06:56She stood on top of the world.
06:59But now, she had to get down.
07:02The descent was a nightmare.
07:04They were moving too slowly, exhausted, running out of oxygen, and caught in the darkness of the death zone.
07:12The Sherpas pleaded with them to keep moving.
07:15Stopping meant death.
07:17But Hanalora and Ray were too weak.
07:20They collapsed at 28,000 feet, deciding to spend the night in the open.
07:25Sundar Sherpa, loyal to the end, stayed with them.
07:30By morning, Ray Janais was dead.
07:33The cold had taken him.
07:35Hanalora was barely alive.
07:38With Sundar's help, she struggled just 330 feet further down before she collapsed for the final time.
07:45Her last words were a desperate plea.
07:49Water.
07:50Water.
07:52Then, she died.
07:55Sundar had to leave her there, a decision that saved his life but cost him most of his fingers and
08:01toes to frostbite.
08:02And Hanalora sat there, frozen, her eyes open, her hair blowing in the wind.
08:09For years, she was a grim landmark on the southern route.
08:14But the tragedy wasn't over.
08:16In 1984, Nepalese police inspector Yogendra Bahadur Thapa and Sherpa guide Ang Dorje tried to recover her body.
08:27During the attempt, both men fell to their deaths.
08:30The woman who wouldn't leave had claimed two more lives.
08:35Eventually, a storm swept Hanalora's body from the mountain and she was gone.
08:41But her story remains.
08:43A chilling tale of a woman who ignored a warning.
08:46A guide who sacrificed his health.
08:49And a tragedy that echoed for years, pulling two more men into the void with her.
08:57Babu Chiri Sherpa.
08:59There are climbers.
09:01There are great climbers.
09:03And then there was Babu Chiri Sherpa.
09:06He was an absolute legend.
09:08A rock star of the Himalayas.
09:10He came from a poor Sherpa farming family in Solukumbu and started as a trekking porter at 16.
09:16By the age of 35, he had summited Everest 10 times.
09:21He held the record for the longest continuous time on the summit without oxygen.
09:2521 hours in May 1999.
09:29Without even sleeping.
09:30Two weeks later, he went back up and summited again.
09:34His fastest ascent from base camp to summit was 16 hours and 56 minutes.
09:39A speed record that still stands today.
09:42Depending on how you count it.
09:44But Babu wasn't just chasing records.
09:47He had a dream.
09:48He wanted to build schools for poor children in his home region.
09:52And he had already started a project before his death.
09:55He was a man who climbed to give back.
09:58Imagine this.
09:59You're at Camp 2 at 21,300 feet.
10:03It's a relatively safe place.
10:05A city of tents in the western Coombe, the Valley of Silence.
10:09For Babu, this was like his backyard.
10:12On April 29, 2001, it was a rest day.
10:17Around 4 p.m., he told others he was going out to take some photos near camp.
10:22He left without crampons.
10:24It was just a short walk.
10:26Searchers later traced his footprints to a fresh hole in the snow.
10:29He had stepped onto a snow bridge, a thin crust covering a hidden crevasse.
10:34And in an instant, it collapsed.
10:37The legend.
10:38The man who had survived 21 hours on the summit without oxygen.
10:43The man who had climbed Everest 10 times.
10:46Fell 30 to 100 feet.
10:49A rescue team, including guide Willy Benegas and other Sherpas,
10:53was lowered into the crevasse around midnight.
10:56They confirmed he was already dead.
10:58At first light, they began the full recovery.
11:01The cause of death was blunt force trauma from the fall.
11:05His body was flown to Kathmandu, where senior Nepalese officials,
11:09including the king, paid tribute.
11:12They called his death a national loss and honored him as one of the greats.
11:18George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.
11:21Imagine this.
11:23It's 1924.
11:25No one has ever stood on top of the world.
11:29Mount Everest is a complete mystery.
11:31And two men, George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, are about to vanish into thin air,
11:37creating a puzzle that would haunt climbers for a hundred years.
11:42Mallory was 37, one of Britain's greatest climbers,
11:45on his third attempt at Everest.
11:48Irvine was just 22, an Oxford student and rower.
11:52He wasn't chosen for his climbing skills.
11:54He was chosen because he was a mechanical genius who could fix the expedition's oxygen equipment.
12:00On June 8th, 1924, they left their highest camp and headed for the summit.
12:06Below them, their teammate Noel Odell was climbing up in support.
12:12At 1250 PM, after hours of thick cloud, the mist suddenly cleared.
12:17Odell looked up and saw two tiny black dots high on the northeast ridge, moving strongly, climbing over a prominent
12:26rock step.
12:27They were close.
12:29Very close.
12:31Then, the clouds rolled in again and they were gone.
12:34No one ever saw them alive again.
12:38So, what happened up there?
12:41Did they make it?
12:42Did they conquer the brutal second step, a near vertical rock wall at 28,200 feet that many thought impossible
12:51in 1924 boots and gear?
12:53Did they stand on the summit 29 years before Hillary and Tenzing?
12:58For 75 years, it was a complete mystery.
13:02Then, in 1999, climber Conrad Anker found something on the north face.
13:08A body, frozen solid, face down, arms stretched out.
13:14It was George Mallory.
13:16His body told a story.
13:18A broken leg, a puncture wound in his forehead, a snapped rope around his waist.
13:24He and Irvin had been roped together when they fell.
13:27But the two things that could solve the mystery were missing.
13:31The camera Mallory was carrying and the photo of his wife, Ruth, that he had promised to leave on the
13:37summit.
13:37The camera was gone.
13:39The photo was gone.
13:42Some say that's proof he made it.
13:44Why else would the photo be missing?
13:46Others say it was just lost in the fall.
13:49In 1933, another expedition found Irvin's ice axe on the ridge, a sign of a catastrophic fall.
13:57And in 2024, a National Geographic team claimed they found a boot with A.C. Irvin stitched on it.
14:05But the discovery remains unverified.
14:08The camera, the only thing that could prove they summited, has never been found.
14:13Did they make it to the top?
14:16We'll probably never know for sure.