Who Was Green Boots? Mount Everest’s Most Haunting Mystery

For

nearly three decades, climbers on Everest’s north side knew him less as a man than as a marker. The body in bright green boots, lying high on the mountain near one of the main summit routes, became part of Everest’s dark geography. People passed him on the way up. Some used him to understand where they were. Others tried not to look too closely. Over time, a dead climber became a landmark, and a person became a nickname.Now India’s planned mission to retrieve the remains known as “Green Boots” has reopened one of Everest’s most unsettling questions: who was he really?Also Read: Who Was Jaswant Singh Khalra, The Man Who Inspired Diljit Dosanjh Satluj?

A Body That Became A Landmark

The climber known as Green Boots is believed to have died during a disastrous Indian expedition in 1996, one of the deadliest years in Everest’s history. His nickname came from the distinctive footwear visible on the body, which lay for years near the northeast route used by climbers attempting the summit from the Tibet side.That location made him impossible to forget. Green Boots became, in mountaineering accounts, a grim checkpoint. The image was disturbing not only because a body remained on the route, but because repeated exposure slowly turned death into direction. Everest did not merely keep him. It absorbed him into its map.

Billi Bierling, director of the Himalayan Database, has said she felt conflicted about the way Green Boots became a reference point for climbers. Her discomfort goes to the heart of the story. A name, a family, a life and a final struggle were reduced to a pair of boots and a place on the mountain.

The 1996 Indian Expedition

The mystery begins with a six-member Indian expedition in 1996. Three climbers, Dorje Morup, Tsewang Paljor and Tsewang Samanla, died after bad weather hit near the summit. Some members of the team had turned back, while the others pressed on. The three who continued never returned alive.Since then, Green Boots has often been identified by mountaineers as Tsewang Paljor, a young climber from Ladakh who was part of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police expedition. But India’s ITBP, which is now expected to conduct the recovery mission, reportedly believes the remains may be those of Dorje Morup instead. The force has said its view is based on an earlier assessment exercise, while also stating that reports of DNA confirmation are not accurate.

That uncertainty gives the mission an emotional complexity. India may be trying to bring home one of its fallen climbers, but the question of which fallen climber remains unresolved.

Why The Identity Still Matters

At one level, the mystery seems technical. DNA, location, clothing, expedition records and eyewitness accounts might eventually settle it. But the question is larger than identification. It is about dignity.For years, Green Boots stood in for all the namelessness Everest can impose. The mountain makes climbers famous in life if they summit, and anonymous in death if they cannot be recovered. The body became part of global Everest folklore, yet the man himself remained suspended between possible names.

Was he Paljor, as many climbers have long believed? Was he Morup, as ITBP now reportedly thinks? Or does the uncertainty itself reveal something uncomfortable about how quickly the dead can become symbols when they remain beyond reach?For the families of the 1996 climbers, this is not folklore. It is unfinished grief. A recovery mission, if successful, could provide a measure of closure. But without confirmed identification, it also risks reopening old wounds.

India’s Difficult Mission

Recovering a body from Everest is not simply a matter of will. It is one of the most dangerous operations in high-altitude mountaineering. Green Boots is believed to be above 8,500 metres, inside the so-called death zone, where oxygen levels are drastically lower, and the human body begins to fail under prolonged exposure.The recovery could require a specialised high-altitude team, oxygen support, ropes, permissions and careful coordination. Veteran Everest chronicler Alan Arnette has said such an operation could need six to ten people and may cost between $100,000 and $150,000.

The location makes the task even harder. Green Boots is believed to be near the route between the First and Second Steps on Everest’s northeast side, an already technical section. After 30 years, the body may be frozen into the mountain, possibly covered by snow and rock. Separating it from the ice, then transporting it through dangerous terrain, would test even experienced climbers.

The China and Tibet Complication

Because Green Boots lies on the north side of Everest, any mission would involve a different set of geopolitical and logistical realities from recoveries on the Nepal side. The operation may require coordination with Chinese authorities, and movement from Tibet to Nepal and then India would involve permissions at several levels.There is also the religious dimension. Many of the high-altitude workers likely to be involved may be Tibetan Buddhists, and experts have raised concerns that physically extracting a body frozen into the mountain could conflict with beliefs around disturbing the dead. The very act intended to restore dignity could be seen by some as a form of desecration.That is why the Green Boots mission is not only a recovery operation. It is also an ethical question. Should the dead be brought home if it means exposing the living to danger? Should a body that has rested on the mountain for three decades be moved, or left where death found it? Who gets to decide what dignity means at 8,500 metres?

Everest’s Cruel Memory

Green Boots is not the only body to become part of Everest’s tragic mythology. The mountain has claimed hundreds of lives since it was first summited in 1953. According to the Himalayan Database, at least 344 people had died on Everest up to the beginning of the 2026 climbing season, and more than 200 bodies are reported to remain there.Some have become known by names, others by locations, clothing or stories told by passing climbers. This is one of Everest’s cruellest transformations. It turns human beings into warnings, markers, rumours and legends.Also Read: Vikram Batra and Anuj Nayyar, The Kargil War Captains Who Made Point 4875 ImmortalIndia’s attempt to recover Green Boots may finally reverse that process. It may restore a name where there has long been a nickname. It may bring a climber back from the mountain that turned him into a symbol. But first, the mission must confront the mystery that has haunted Everest for nearly 30 years.Who was Green Boots? The answer may matter less to the mountain than to the people still waiting below. For them, recovery is not about legend. It is about bringing someone home.