The Hillary Step of Mount Everest: Is it gone? What are its implications? Read on for more on it!

Updated On March 18, 2024 | Published By: Shahid | In Career , Lifestyle

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What happened to the famous Hillary Step?

Keswick, Cumbria, UK climber, and instructor Tim Mosedale reached the world’s highest peak on 16^th May 2017 for the sixth time and confirmed that the Hillary step had indeed disappeared. Tim Mosedale likened the loss to the end of an era.

He wrote on his Facebook:

“It is associated with the history of Everest, and it is a great shame a piece of mountaineering folklore has disappeared”

Hillary’s step is the near-vertical 12 m (39 feet) rocky face at the mountain’s southeast ridge and it was supposed to be the last greatest challenge technically for the climbers.

It lies halfway between the South Summit and the true summit. It also becomes a bottleneck since, when there are a number of climbers, they need to wait for as much as 2-3 hours for their turn to climb up this rock to reach the summit.

Last year, pictures posted by the American Himalayan Foundation raised suspicions that the Hillary step had altered.

British mountaineer Kenton Cool who has reached the summit 12 times told BBC that when last year he was below the Hillary step, it did look different. He said he was convinced of this change after looking at Tim Mosedale’s latest pictures of the Hillary Step.

He said:

“It looks like the step has altered, It does not look to be quite the same formidable, vertical step that it was three of four years ago.”

It might be that last year the snow being more, Hillary’s step was covered in snow and hence its disappearance was not completely appreciated.

Mr. Cool has said that it might be difficult to be 100% sure for now.

Tim Mosedale feels that the disappearance could be due to gravity or due to the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

So what does the disappearance mean to the future climbers?

Frequent summit climbers have said that a snow-covered slope is much easier and less risky to climb than a steep rock face. But it could increase the bottleneck and would be a worrisome issue for those battling oxygen and frostbite.

But if the snow subsides, the climb up may be even trickier. Already many climbers have lost their lives during this climb up the world’s highest peak.

There have also been some who have faked their climb by means of doctored photographs and false certificates. These go on to show the extreme hardships involved in reaching the summit, especially in the last part of this adventurous journey.

There have been some Nepali mountaineers who have refuted these claims. They believe that snow is all that has covered the Hillary Step.

The confusion could be due to the different ideas of ‘disappearance amongst the climbers, due to snow cover, or possibly due to locals not wanting to write it off.

Hillary Step and Sir Edmund Hillary

The precipitous cliff in the last phase of the Everest climb (The Hillary Step) has been named after New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary who scaled the 8848 meters peak for the first time with the help of a local Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay on the 29^th May 1953.

Talking about it in his book ‘High Adventure’, the famous explorer and philanthropist Edmund Hillary wrote:

“We had always thought of it as the obstacle on the ridge which could well spell defeat”

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay used the crack between the snow and the rock to climb to the top along this step. Edmund Hillary was part of the Ninth British expedition to Everest led by John Hunt.

His interest in climbing mountains from an early age, his avid reading, his previous climbs, his physical strength, his endurance, and the navigator job in the Royal New Zealand Air Force all came to help in this expedition.

He also reached the South Pole overland and the North Pole. Edmund Hillary also founded the Himalayan Trust to help the local Nepali people and used the funds to build schools and hospitals in this landlocked country. He received various medals for his achievements.

Update

In May 2018, American and non-Nepalese climbers confirmed again that Hillary Step has disappeared. But the Nepalese government does not want guides to talk about it, probably since it is a marketing tool for them and they do not want to let go of it so easily.

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