Tough call for family of Hyderabad mountaineer to leave body in Himalayas

Hyderabad: For the family of Arun Kumar Tiwari, a 53-year-old mountaineer from Hyderabad, the decision to leave his mortal remains on the slopes of the Himalayas was an agonising one.

Tiwari, a senior director at a leading IT firm in the city, died near the Hillary Step just below the summit of Mt Everest while descending the mountain last week. He had fallen ill during the descent and was being assisted by four Sherpa climbers at the time, according to Nepal-based Pioneer Adventures, which organised the expedition.

“He is in Lord Shiva's abode," said a close relative of Tiwari's family. "The process of bringing the body down would leave it very badly damaged by the time it reaches us. Such operations on Everest are also not known to be successful," the relative added.

The family's resignation was informed not only by grief, but by grim practical realities. Retrieving a body from the Hillary Step, a near-vertical rock face at roughly 8,790 metres is a perilous and prohibitively expensive undertaking. It requires a team of eight to twelve highly skilled Sherpas and large quantities of bottled oxygen.

Situated squarely within the "Death Zone," the area offers barely enough oxygen to sustain life, leaving both the deceased and any would-be rescuers perpetually on the brink of exhaustion, frostbite, and altitude sickness, said sources in the mountaineers community in the city.

Tiwari was an accomplished mountaineer with an impressive record. He had previously summited Mt Elbrus in Russia, Mt Denali in the United States, and Mt Aconcagua in Argentina, in addition to numerous other peaks. He was trained by Boots and Crampons, a Hyderabad-based company that organises expeditions and treks across the world, and whose co-founder, Bharath Thammineni, was the point of contact through whom the family conveyed their difficult decision.

Tiwari's death was not an isolated tragedy. His fellow mountaineer Sandeep Are, 47, also died of health complications while descending Everest on the same day.

According to expedition organisers, Tiwari had already been physically weakened when he reached the summit on May 21. His condition deteriorated sharply near the Hillary Step, and despite reported warnings from his Sherpa guides to turn back, he proceeded.

In 2025, Tiwari had been forced to abandon a summit attempt after falling ill at 7,200 metres. This time, he was determined to finish the climb, which ultimately cost him his life. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.