Chronicling a solemn descent from Mt Everest: Deliverance from 27,000 feet

Two mountain climbers died near the top of Mount Everest in 2016. Their bodies lay frozen there for a year. Then a journey began to bring them home

Five Sherpas surrounded the frozen corpse. They swung axes at the body’s edges, trying to pry it from its icy tomb. They knocked chunks of snow from the body, and the shattered pieces skittered down the mountain. When they finally freed a leg and lifted it, the entire stiff and contorted body shifted, down to its fingertips.

The sun was shining, but the air was dangerously cold and thin at 27,300 feet above sea level. A plume of snow clouded the ridge toward the summit of Mount Everest, so close above. When the Sherpas arrived — masks on their faces,