Everest route cleared as nearly 1,000 climbers face overcrowding risks

Nearly a thousand climbers are converging on Mount Everest over the next two weeks, and the mountain is not ready for them. A team of elite Nepali guides finally cleared the route on Wednesday morning, fixing ropes and ladders past a massive, unstable chunk of ice that had been blocking the way since the season began. But the delay has compressed the entire climbing window into a dangerously narrow window of opportunity, and experts are warning that the mountain could become a bottleneck where climbers get trapped in queues at altitude, where the air itself becomes lethal.

The numbers tell the story. Almost 500 foreign climbers have received permits to attempt the 8,849-meter peak this year. Most of them will climb with at least one Nepali guide, who do not need permits. That adds up to roughly 1,000 people trying to reach the summit in the span of two weeks or so. The climbing season on Everest normally runs from late April through the end of May, a window that spreads the traffic across several weeks. This year, the serac—a towering, unstable formation of ice—blocked the main route from Base Camp upward, forcing climbers to wait while a specialized team worked to find a way around it. The delay means everyone is now trying to climb at once.

Purnima Shrestha, a prominent mountaineer attempting her sixth summit, told the BBC that the compressed timeline has created a dangerous situation. "Lots of climbers are having to make their attempts in a short period of time," she said. "Delays in the opening of the route have added concerns of possible traffic jams to the peak this year." Mingma G Sherpa, another guide on the mountain, was blunt about the risk: "If the window is limited, the traffic will be intense. Many of the climbers could get into trouble." The trouble he means includes altitude sickness, exhaustion, and the simple physics of too many people in too small a space at 8,000 meters, where the human body begins to shut down.

The situation has been made worse by a decision in Beijing. China has closed the northern route up Everest, which runs through Tibet, to foreign climbers this season. That means all the traffic that might have split between two routes is now funneling down a single path. The southern route, which runs through Nepal, is the only option. The Nepali guides managed to fix ropes from the lower camps upward, but bad weather disrupted their attempt to establish the final stretch from Camp Four to the summit earlier this week. Climbers normally make multiple trips between the four main camps above Base Camp to acclimatize their bodies to the altitude. This year, many have had to skip some of those crucial acclimatization runs because the ropes weren't in place.

Nepali authorities are trying to manage the chaos. Rishi Ram Bhandari, the Secretary-General of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal, said his organization is coordinating with expedition teams to stagger their summit attempts. Khim Lal Gautam, a tourism official at Base Camp, said his department has deployed five officials to work with commercial expedition teams to create a plan that avoids queues near the summit. But coordination on a mountain where weather can change in minutes and climbers are operating at the edge of human endurance is difficult. Nearly 2,000 people are currently at Base Camp, including climbers heading for other peaks in the region.

The human cost has already been measured in lives. Three climbers have died in the past two weeks. Bijay Ghimere, a 35-year-old mountaineer and the first climber from Nepal's Dalit community to summit Everest, died from altitude sickness. Phura Gyaljen Sherpa, just 21 years old, slipped on snow and fell into a crevasse near Camp 3 on Monday. Lakpa Dendi Sherpa, 51, died on his way to Base Camp on May 3rd. These are not anomalies. They are the cost of climbing the world's highest mountain, and they are a reminder that no amount of coordination can eliminate the mountain's fundamental danger.

The permit fees have risen, but the demand has not slowed. Since September, climbers have had to pay $15,000 for a permit, up from $11,000—the first increase in nearly a decade. Tourism to Everest continues to surge despite the higher cost. The mountain has become a destination, a bucket-list item, a test of human will. But this season, that will is being tested in conditions that even experienced guides find worrying. The route is open. The climbers are coming. What happens next depends on weather, on luck, and on whether the coordination efforts can actually prevent the traffic jams that everyone fears.