"Green Boots", the landmark that was a person For roughly three decades, climbers on the northeast ridge of Everest passed a man in a bright-green mountaineering boot and used him as a waypoint. He had a name, almost certainly Tsewang Paljor. He was an Indian Border Security Force constable who died on the mountain during the May 1996 storm, but on the route he was known by the colour of his footwear. The body is now expected to be removed. A retrieval expedition is planned, and the circumstances that kept him there for so long are, for the first time, being addressed in public.