Mount Everest's climbing season is finally underway, but its most notorious obstacle is opening under a cloud. Nepal's rope-fixing teams on Tuesday finished establishing the route through the Khumbu Icefall, clearing the way from base camp to the first two camps up the mountain after a roughly 2 1/2-week delay, reports Outside. More than 400 climbers and sizable Sherpa support teams can now start acclimatization rotations, guiding companies say, with summit pushes on Everest, Lhotse, and Nuptse to follow.
What's unresolved, however, is how safe the passage is. The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee says the route passes beneath a massive, damaged serac—an ice tower about 180 feet wide and 90 feet high—described as riddled with cracks and capable of collapsing "at any time." Route specialists known as the Icefall Doctors spent weeks waiting for the serac to fall, and while some of it did, a portion still looms. The fixers then scouted alternatives, including one that would have required 10 vertical ladders near a rockfall zone—before ultimately concluding that the current path under the unstable serac was the least risky option left in a shrinking climbing season.
A Sherpa organizer tells Reuters that nearly 20 Sherpas have already traversed the hardest part of the icefall and made it to the first camp. Climbers are now being ordered to move fast through the danger zone, carry lighter loads, and use ladders one person at a time, per Outside. "As climbers navigate the route, utmost caution is urged, particularly in the serac-affected section," Nepal's tourism department noted on X. "Wishing all a safe ascent." As for what may be driving organizers to open the route despite these dangers, the BBC reports that this year's climbing season is expected to bring in around $6.1 million in revenue for Nepal's government, according to tourism department stats.
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