KATHMANDU, Nepal — For more than two weeks, hundreds of mountaineers who had traveled to the foot of Everest found themselves stalled at base camp, waiting for the “icefall doctors” — the elite team of Sherpas deployed by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee — to complete their annual task of laying ropes and ladders across the Khumbu Icefall. This year, that task was delayed far beyond the usual mid-April completion date by a massive, unstable block of ice known as a serac that loomed over the only viable path to the higher slopes.
The SPCC finally opened the route on April 29, but with a warning that the ice block “has multiple cracks and may collapse at any time” and a strong urging that climbers and expedition operators “exercise extreme caution.” The new trail passes directly beneath the serac, a feature that is likely to remain for the season.
The Khumbu Icefall — a constantly shifting glacier riddled with crevasses and dotted with overhanging ice chunks the size of 10-story buildings — is already considered one of the most dangerous sections of the ascent. In 2014, a collapsing serac triggered an avalanche that killed 16 Nepali guides.
Lukas Furtenbach, a veteran guide whose company has 40 international climbers, 11 guides, and 90 Sherpas on the mountain, said the hazard is real and not something to dismiss. “Anyone who says they’re not concerned is either inexperienced or not paying attention,” he said from base camp. “The serac is a real, objective hazard. The Icefall is constantly changing, but right now it’s not just more broken — it’s also forced into a line that passes under unstable features.”
Furtenbach’s team is mitigating the risk by reducing loads, moving through the Icefall at carefully timed intervals, and depending on its Sherpas and guides for real-time risk assessment.
Other expedition operators are echoing that caution. Ang Tshering Sherpa of Kathmandu-based Asian Trekking said climbers are being advised to limit their movement to the early morning, when the ice is still frozen and relative stability is greater. “In the afternoon it becomes dangerous as weather gets warmer, with the risk of ice melting and falling,” he said. “It is very necessary to be cautious this year.”
The melting of the Himalayan glaciers is a long-term concern that has drawn high-level international attention. In 2023, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres traveled to Nepal’s Everest region to warn of the devastating consequences of climate change on the mountain range. Scientists have documented accelerated glacial loss across the Himalayas, and the behavior of the Khumbu Icefall is widely understood to be influenced by warming temperatures.
Despite the heightened danger, the number of climbers on the south side of Everest this season is roughly in line with recent years, according to Ang Tshering Sherpa. While the number of Western climbers has decreased — partly due to the ongoing war in Iran and higher travel costs — there has been an increase in clients from China and other Asian nations. The route from the Chinese side of Everest remains closed, concentrating all expeditions on Nepal’s south side.
Climbing Everest has never been without peril, and the mountain has drawn thousands of people to its slopes since New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay made the first recorded summit on May 29, 1953. This year’s climbers, faced with an unstable serac and a late start, are betting that the coming good-weather window will let them add their names to that history.