Has Mount Everest’s iconic ‘Hillary Step’ collapsed?

The loss of Hillary Step could potentially make the world's highest peak more dangerous for mountaineers.

New Delhi | May 22, 2017 10:06 AM IST

2 min read

A view of the Hillary Step on Mount Everest. (Everest Expedition)

One of the most iconic features of Mount Everest, Hillary Step, has collapsed, according to mountaineers. Named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the first mountaineer to scale the world’s highest peak in the year 1953, the Step is reported to have disappeared following the disastrous 2015 Nepal earthquake. British Mountaineer Tim Mosedale confirmed the development after he reached the summit on May 16.

Describing the loss of Hillary Step as “the end of an era”, Mosedale told BBC news, “It is associated with the history of Everest, and it is a great shame that a piece of mountaineering folklore has disappeared.” Talking about the reasons for its disappearance, Mosedale added that it could be because of Nepal earthquake. “It could well just be gravity, but I would suspect the earthquake was the cause,” he told BBC.

The photographs of Hillary Step was posted last year by the American Himalayan Foundation, but due to the thick snow cover, it could not be confirmed. “It was reported last year, and indeed I climbed it last year, but we weren’t sure for certain that ‘The Step’ had gone because the area was blasted with snow,” Mosedale said in a Facebook post. He later said that ‘The Step’ is definitely not there this year. “This year, however, I can report that the chunk of rock named ‘The Hillary Step’ is definitely not there any more,” he wrote.

The report cites mountaineers who have claimed that the disappearance of the 12 m step which stood on mountain’s southeast ridge is likely to make the climb on snow-covered slope easier, but spells danger for those battling conditions of low oxygen and frostbite, as it could create a bottleneck near the top of the mountain. “Not sure what’s going to happen when the snow ridge doesn’t form because there’s some huge blocks randomly perched hither and thither which will be quite tricky to negotiate,” A Facebook post by Everest Expedition said.

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