Bestselling author Jon Krakauer is hitting back at a vocal online critic.

On Thursday, February 6, Krakauer, 70, that he will publish an and about his bestselling book Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.

The purpose of the project, Krakauer told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, was to refute what he calls “egregious allegations” made by a . In 2024, Tracy, a California lawyer, recorded a series of his own videos to YouTube that called into question multiple elements of Krakauer’s book.

“I believe standing up for the truth is a moral imperative, even when doing so takes a personal toll and is likely to fail,” Krakauer told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “If you watch my videos, or read the text versions, I’m pretty sure you will see why I took the trouble to post them.”

In his Instagram post announcing the project, Krakauer called Tracy’s videos “bullshit” and an “irresponsible misrepresentation of what happened on Everest in 1996.”

In a statement provided to șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, Tracy refuted the claim. He said that Krakauer’s video series simply creates “more confusion” around the Mount Everest disaster. “Krakauer has already agreed to make numerous revisions to his book and this undermines the claim that my videos are bullshit,” he wrote.

Into Thin Air is Krakauer’s first-person account of the deadly 1996 climbing season on Everest, when 12 people died on the mountain, the most in a single season up to that date. Krakauer joined a guided ascent while reporting a story for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű about the growth of commercial expeditions to the peak. He climbed Everest with the guiding company șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Consultants, which was led by New Zealand mountaineer Rob Hall, and he reached the summit on May 10.

But a storm battered the peak shortly after Krakauer and others began their descent, and in the ensuing melee eight climbers and guides, including Hall, perished. Krakauer and others were able to safely descend.

Krakauer’s account ran in șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű in September 1996, and the first edition of the book was published in AprilÌę1997.

The book garnered international acclaim upon its release, and it hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. In 1998 it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the General Nonfiction category. The book was adapted as a TV movie in 1997, and it became the basis for the 2015 Hollywood film Everest.

But Krakauer’s account was also subject to criticism and pushback upon the book’s release. In 1997, a Russian climber named Anatoli Boukreev, who was also on Everest in May 1996, co-authored his own version of events in a book titled ÌęAnd over the years, other writers and Internet commenters have sought to debunk elements of the story.

Tracy launched his YouTube channel in 2018 as a way to explore the mysterious 1924 disappearance of climbers George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine on Mount Everest. But in April 2024, he published a video titled “” that generated 80,000 views. Tracy went on to record 17 total videos about the book, including ones titled “Correcting the Record on Krakauer’s Statistics,” and “Response to Jon Krakauer: The Subtle Art of Misdirection.”

“Krakauer has admitted numerous substantial errors in his book and previous interviews,” Tracy wrote toÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. Tracy sentÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű a of mistakes he says are in the book. In Krakauer’s first video, he admits that Tracy’s sleuthing pointed out inaccuracies in the book, and that he intends to update future editions to address them.

But Krakauer’s videos also present point-by-point rebuttals to Tracy’s more serious assertions. The first video, titled “” addresses the impact that bottlenecks had on the ascent.

After Krakauer announced the YouTube series, a handful of prominent mountaineers and journalists voiced their support in the comments section on his Instagram page.

“Words matter. I’m glad you are defending yours but I’m sorry you have to,” wrote Melissa Arnot Reid.

“Jon, I truly believe that you did your very best to tackle this challenging story,” wrote climber Ed Viesturs, the first American to ascend the world’s 14 highest peaks. “You were meticulous in piecing together this complicated event and did your due diligence.”

Viesturs, 65, was also on Everest during the 1996 climbing season and helped rescue some of the survivors from the storm. “Into Thin Air is still the definitive account of the events on the Everest in the spring of 1996,” Viesturs added.

Others, however, are curious why Krakauer has chosen to acknowledge Tracy.

Scott Carney, an investigative journalist, told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű,Ìę“By Krakauer calling attention to this, he’s raising Tracy’s profile. It seems counterproductive.”

But Krakauer toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that sometimes journalists should address their online critics. “These days, people seem way too willing to surrender the online discourse to domineering [people] trying to gaslight us,” he said.

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The price to climb the world’s tallest peak is on the rise.

On January 21, the reported that the government of Nepal will raise the permitting fee for foreign climbers hoping to ascend Mount Everest during the busy spring season from $11,000 to $15,000. The announcement has yet to appear in the Nepal Gazette, the government publication in which official laws and regulations are published.

If the fee structure is made official, it will mark the first time that Nepal has raised the price to ascend Everest since 2015. According to the The Kathmandu Post, the new fee—which represents a 36-percent increase—will go into effect on September 1, meaning that climbers ascending Everest during the 2025 spring season will still pay the current price.

Foreign climbers ascending the peak in spring aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch: the permit fee for domestic Sherpa climbers will double, from $550 to $1,100. And permits for the less-popular fall and winter seasons will also go up by 36 percent, rising to $7,500 and $3,750, respectively, for foreign climbers.

Guides told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that the fee increases are unlikely to dampen the demand to climb Everest.

“Permit price is not the issue,” said Argentine guide Willie Benegas, who has climbed Everest 13 times. “Maybe a price increase of $10,000 or $15,000 would have an impact on climbers coming from emerging markets, like India and China. But not $4,000.”

Climber Alan Arnette, who chronicles the history of Everest expeditions on his website, agreed. “Higher permit fees may impact price-sensitive climbers who choose low-cost guides,” Arnette said. “But likely won’t affect Western climbers who prefer guides costing $75,000 or more. Overall impact seems minimal.”

The rise in permitting fees comes as no surprise—in 2023 Nepal government officials announced their intentions of raising the price in 2025. When government officials first revealed the fee increase, they attributed it to the cost of removing dead bodies from the peak.

“We are discussing making insurance mandatory in search and rescue operations for all to support the retrieval of bodies from the mountain,” Nima Nuru Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association at the time, told in 2023. “If the dead bodies are not retrieved during that particular time or season, we have urged the government to issue a royalty-free permit to retrieve them at any time during the season or the next year.”

Everest climbers must cover the cost for guides, porters, cooks, gear, food, bottled oxygen, insurance, and transportation to and from Base Camp. Even the most frugal bootstrappers on lower-budget expeditions pay around $40,000 for their shot at Everest. Most climbers pay closer to $60,000. Some Everest expedition operators charge twice that for trips that include luxurious accommodations at Base Camp and multiple Sherpa guides to the summit.

Benegas, who advertises his own guided Everest climbs for $85,000, does not expect to see a downturn in congestion on the peak after the government imposes higher fees. “Climbers will come to Everest regardless,” he said. “The issue is the massive expedition companies bringing 60, 70, 80, sometimes even 100 clients. Regulations need to be on the size of the teams.”

The Kathmandu Post indicated that the new fee structure is just one of a slew of new rules on Mount Everest for 2025 and beyond. Some of the rules are ostensibly aimed at combating pollution, accidents, and crowding. These include a shorter valid permit period, a raise in insurance coverage for high-altitude guides and Base Camp workers, andÌęexpansion of a rule introduced last year requiring climbers to collect and dispose of their own feces.

Perhaps the most impactful change is a rule that every two climbers on Everest and Nepal’s seven other peaks above 8,000-meters must pay for a guide or hire a licensed expedition operator. If the 2:1 climber rule is made official, it will mark the end of solo climbing on Everest.

Adrian Ballinger, whose Alpenglow Expeditions leads Everest expeditions from China, believes that this stipulation is beneficial during the spring season. All climbers on the peak during the preferred window—mid-May through early June—already rely on mountain workers to reach the top, even those ascending without a climbing Sherpa. “No one can truly say they soloed a normal route on Everest during the spring season,” Ballinger said. “Everyone benefits from the work—the fixed ropes, ladders, trailbreaking—being done on the mountain.” The stipulation could represent a financial boon for the local guides and porters who work on the peak.”

China has already adopted a stricter rule, requiring a 1:1 ratio of climbers to guides on its 8,000-meter peaks: Everest, Shishapangma, and Cho Oyu. The country also requires that all individuals use supplemental oxygen when climbing above 7,000 meters. Far fewer climbers ascend Everest from China compared to Nepal. Per The Himalayan Database, a website that charts ascents on Nepal’s 8,000-meter peaks, 91 percent of the 861 Everest summits in 2024 ascended the mountain from Nepal.

Ballinger, who stopped operating Everest trips from Nepal after 2014, said that other rules would better improve the standard of climbing Everest from Nepal. China, for example, also requires climbers to first ascend a 7,000-meter peak before applying for a permit for Everest. “Shit can still hit the fan on Everest,” Ballinger said. “Everyone needs to have experience up there.”

The announcement of new rules comes less than a year after Nepali officials enacted other regulations at Everest aimed at curbing pollution, overcrowding, and even opulence. On February 8, 2024, the Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality, the local governing body that oversees at Nepal’s Everest Base Camp, passed laws requiring climbers to from the peak in plastic WAG bags. Later in the month, the same officials banned large square and dome-shaped tents, prohibited helicopters from flying gear from Base Camp to higher camps on the peak, and required all campers at Base Camp to have a permit.

In May, 2024, Nepali officials on helicopter transport and tent size.

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Born into a family of subsistence farmers in the tiny village of Arughat, Nepal, Purnima Shrestha thought that the mountains around her were out of reach. Her village is a stop on the Manaslu Circuit, en route to the eponymous 8,000-meter peak, but Shrestha’s family didn’t even have running water. As a woman, she was expected to marry young, raise children, and keep the house.

Shrestha decided early that this path wasn’t for her. First she broke from tradition by moving to Kathmandu at 16 to pursue her education. She stayed with relatives until she graduated from secondary school, then enrolled in college to study communications. Later she landed an internship with Hospitality, Food and Wine, kick-starting a career in publishing.

While covering the 2017 Everest Marathon, Shrestha became enthralled with the world’s highest summit. To her it represented a pinnacle of human achievement. “In Nepal and around the world, everyone thinks of Everest when they think of mountains,” she said. The 29,032-foot summit was an outsize goal for the daughter of poor farmers, but Shrestha took it a step at a time. “In the beginning I had nothing,” she said. “I had no experience. No money. I wasn’t even athletic. I had no idea how strong my body was, but I wanted to try.”

So Shrestha took out some loans, started training, and committed herself to climbing. In the seven years since, she has summited eight of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks. This year the 34-year-old became the first woman in history to summit Everest three times in a single season, between May 12 and May 25.

Shrestha didn’t set out to break records. Everest was just the highest, hardest goal she could imagine. “I wanted to see what I was capable of,” she said. After she summited once, she said, “All of my dreams centered on climbing it again. I prayed for a reason to go back.”

With her newfound visibility, Shrestha feels an obligation to be a beacon for change. Through her work, she has witnessed the problems facing her country’s mountaineering industry. Chief among them are the backbreaking labor Sherpa guides, porters, and other mountain workers undertake, along with the physical risks and scant benefits. “You can only do this job as long as your body allows,” Shrestha said. “It’s difficult, and there’s no security or insurance. This generation of mountain workers don’t want the next generations to get into the industry. It’s not sustainable.” Shrestha says that she hopes the Nepalese government will consider providing insurance and other benefits, such as a retirement fund, for mountain workers.

Success isn’t guaranteed when it comes to the world’s highest peaks, where avalanches, storms, and altitude can stymie the most capacious lungs and ironclad wills, but “the important thing is to try,” said Shrestha, particularly as a female climber. “People always make women feel weak, and we internalize this. We convince ourselves we can’t do things, that we’ll fail. I want to tell other women that there’s nothing that limits us.”

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Within the tight knit community of ski mountaineers,Ìęa handful of descents stand alone in terms of sheer difficulty. In 1980, Frenchman Jean-Marc Boivin became the first person to ski down the Matterhorn’s treacherous east face. In 1995, CanadiansÌęPtor Spriceniek and Troy Jungen pulled a coup on the north face of British Columbia’s 12,972-foot Mount Robson. And in 2012, Sweden’s Andreas Fransson braved the Whillans Ramp on Cerro Poincenot in Argentine Patagonia.

But the line considered by some ski mountaineers to be the most difficult on the planet has yet to be skied. This epic descent starts 29,035 feet above sea level—dropping in from the highest point on earth.

The Hornbein Couloir on the north face of Mount Everest is a 1,500-vertical-foot gully whose maw opens just 1,000 feet below the peak’s summit, and then spills mercilessly onto the 5,500-foot slope beneath. The narrow gullyÌęteeters between 45 and 60 degrees in steepness, bends gently in the middle, and then narrows to about the width of a standing human body. This is how American Thomas Hornbein described it, anyway, after he became the first person to ascend it.

Hornbein and fellow American Willi Unsoeld climbed the couloir in 1963 as a serendipitous detour after a failed attempt on the mountain’s west ridge. Less than a dozen climbers have successfully repeated the ascent since, which Hornbein wrote about in a memoir called Everest: The West Ridge. To this day, it remains one of the most technically challenging climbing routes above 26,000 feet in the world, an altitude known as the “Death Zone”.

Has Anyone Attempted to Ski the Hornbein Couloir?

A thin ribbon of white suspended from the heavens, the Hornbein Couloir poses a fantasy ski descent that only two parties have ever attempted. First was the Swiss duo of Jean Troillet and Dominique Perret in 1996, then French snowboarder Marco Siffredi in 2002. Neither group succeeded, and Siffredi died during his attempt.

Though the north side of Everest features several potentially skiable routes, the Hornbein Couloir is the most direct among them, draining into the Japanese Couloir below it to comprise the nearly arrow-straight, 8,000-vertical-foot North Face Direct route (sometimes called the Super Direct)—which, though seldom climbed, is where climbers sometimes establish three camps.

Jean Troillet used exactly none of those in 1986, when he and climbing partner Erhard Loretan made one of the few successful climbs of the Hornbein, in alpine style—using no fixed ropes, porters, or supplemental oxygen, and carrying everything they needed with them in one 43-hour push from Advanced Base Camp and back.

The ascent is widely considered one of the greatest achievements in modern mountaineering, setting a speed record, and offering a mind-bending new perspective on the viability of going fast and light at extreme elevations. But it offered another perspective to Troillet, too.

He and Loretan sat on the summit alone for an hour-and-a-half, and he couldn’t help but note, “The north face was covered in perfect powder, and we told ourselves it would have made a beautiful descent.”

After sliding back down the entire route “on their butts” for three hours, Troillet postulated that a snowboard could be a great mountaineering tool. So he went to Canada and learned to “surf,” as he calls it, and began incorporating it into his craft.

Ten years later, Troillet returned to Everest with Perret and an idea to ski what would then have been the first descent of Everest—via the Hornbein Couloir.

The 1996 Attempt Leaves More Questions than Answers

With two cinematographers, a photographer, and a team of Sherpas to help maintain Base CampÌęand shuttle food by yak from a monastery at 18,000 feet, Troillet and Perret spent 76 days on the mountain, waiting out the late-summer monsoons for the perfect moment to attack the north face.

While the more popular south side of the mountain requires navigating the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, the north side has a much simpler approach. Its 8,000-foot face erupts from the head of the Rongbuk ice flow at 21,000 feet in one straight push to the top of the world. This allows climbers to confront it head-on from Advanced Base Camp.

Perret, a 1990s freeskiing phenom who is now 62, remembers making two attempts to ski the Hornbein via the North Face Direct. On the first, he told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, they turned around at about 23,300 feet. On the second, they bailed at 27,230 feet—near the bottom of the Hornbein. He distinctly remembers getting to peer up the daunting couloir before turning around.

“You’re below it and you see this little mouse-hole opening in a giant wall of cliffs,” he recalls.

On both attempts, Perret says, violent winds, massive snow and ice fall, and multiple avalanches made it impossible to continue. He remembers skiing back down the Japanese Couloir to return to Advanced Base Camp, with Troillet on a snowboard.

There are, however, no photos or video of theirÌędescent. Google Earth places the ascent elevation he claims near the top third of the couloir, and not the bottom.

Other accounts of the expedition offer conflicting narratives. Troillet, now 72, doesn’t recall either attempt on the Hornbein, nor having descended the Japanese Couloir. To his memory, he and Perret climbed the north ridge to about about 27,890 feet, and skied from 26,250 feet, after some down-climbing.

Videographer John Falkiner recalls the north ridge and the first effort on the Hornbein, but not a second, and remembers it requiring a combination of crampons and skis to descend.

Photographer Mark Shapiro says no significant skiing happened at all. But one photo of his that appeared in a 1996 Powder magazine article shows the teamÌęascending the North Face Direct, to the climber’s left of the Japanese Couloir, confirming at least one attempt on the Hornbein.

Any definitive records are sparse, belong to the analog era, and are imprecise. First-hand memories are also nearly 30 years old by now. Troillet, for his part, made his last go at a 26,000-foot peak when he was 68 and suffered a stroke while waiting out a week’s worth of bad weather in base camp, which he says took him years to recover from.

In 2000, a jury of French sports journalists proclaimed Perret “the best freeride skier of the century,” partly citing his efforts on Everest.

The ski history of Everest’s north side since then has remained short. In 1996—the same year as Perret and Troillet’s expedition—Tyrolean ski-alpinist Hans Kamerlander also ascended the mountain’s north ridge, skiing back down from 28,030 feet. He isn’t believed to have completed the whole descent on skis, however.

In 1997, Troillet returned without Perret, and managed to snowboard the north ridge uninterrupted from roughly 28,540 feet—650 feet higher than where he and Perret had made it.

Jump to 2001, and 22-year-old Siffredi pulled off the first and only complete descent of the mountain’s north side, solo, via the Norton Couloir, a wide gulley perpendicular to the Hornbein Couloir, guarded by massive seracs. It marked the second-ever complete descent of Everest, after Slovenian Davo Karničar skied the first complete descent of the south side in 2000.

Siffredi returned in the fall of 2002, with a notion to snowboard the Hornbein. He climbed the north ridge once again, but this time tried to ride down the convex hanging slope from the summit to the entrance of the couloir: a needle in a haystack of deadly cliffs, according to Perret. Siffredi was last seen somewhere around 28,000 feet. He was 23 at the time of his death, and his body has never been found.

Though the south side of Everest has been skied many times now, Siffredi’s track remains the last one down the north side, and the Hornbein remains—to the best of anyone’s knowledge—unskied and unridden.

Red Tape and Bottled Oxygen

Despite the failed attempts, Troillet still believes the Hornbein Couloir can be skied.

“If there’s enough snow, it goes, but it might take one rappel,” he figures. “And then to do it in proper style you would ski the Japanese Couloir after, which can have really great snow in it. It did when we were there in 1986, and it would have made for great snowboarding.”

Enough snow to fill in the Hornbein, but not wipe out the face below it, is the formula that Troillet describes.ÌęBut therein lies the rub, since too much snow is exactly what turned Troillet and Perret around in 1996, according to Perret.

The Himalayan monsoon season ends in late September, leaving the mountains primed for skiing. However, more snow also creates moreÌęchallengingÌęclimbing conditions and higher avalanche danger.

Hazards in the Himalayas have been ratcheting up with climate change. Crevasses in the ice falls are getting wider and deeper, while warmer temperatures have made rock and ice fall more frequent. Historical routes have become more technical, including over the Khumbu Icefall, the most common way to the summit.

Traffic jams from commercial expeditions on the south side of Everest have likewise compounded the dangers there. The Nepali supreme court recently ordered a on permits for the mountain, for which the Nepali Department of Tourism is responsible for, but has yet to meaningfully enact. Skiers climbing Everest from the north side will still encounter a crowded summit from guided parties climbing the Khumbu route.

Conversely, the Tibetan, or north side of the mountain, is controlled by China, and nowadays is mired in restrictive bureaucracy that makes a modern-day attempt on the Hornbein Couloir even harder.

Climbers hopeful for permits for Everest’s north side have been navigating an opaque permitting process since China officially reopened it to foreign nationals in 2024 after the pandemic. Multiple parties from around the world have reported being denied permits, splintering some groups, and shutting down others outright.

The China Tibet Mountaineering Association issues both climbing and skiing permits, without a clear quota. However, the Chinese government states that, “In 2019, a total of 362 people climbed the north slope of Qomolangma [Everest]: 142 foreign climbers, 12 Chinese ones, and 208 Nepalese Sherpa support personnel.”

In addition to climbing and skiing permits, plus a Chinese visa, authorities also require a Tibetan travel permit, and an alien’s travel permit for the Tibet Region. None of which are cheap. It costs tens-of-thousands of dollars just to look at the north side of Everest.

Then there are other new rules that make it even more complicated to try the Hornbein. There’s a one-to-one guide-to-client ratio required at altitudes above 23,000 feet, and supplemental oxygen is also now mandatory, which can be tough for skiing—the extra weight and face mask are cumbersome and claustrophobic.

Americans Hilaree Nelson and Jim Morrison did however ski the Lhotse Couloir with oxygen masks in 2018—a formidable 2,500-foot 50-degree hallway dropping from the summit of the fourth-highest mountain on earth—so it’s not impossible.

The Greatest Line Never Skied

If you ask Perret, he’d tell you that rules are meant to be broken.

“It’s the most magnificent and challenging line,” he beams. “I hope whenever someone does it, they do it in alpine style. 
 You carry oxygen to basecamp to keep up appearances, and no one’s going to chase you up the mountain from there, you can just leave them behind.”

Of course, testing the forgiveness of the world’s most authoritarian super power by eschewing porters and supplemental oxygen to ski in alpine style is a daunting extra layer to fold into an already perilous and costly expedition. But, the world’s most ambitious ski line is out there, dangling in the Death Zone, and that’s what it might take.

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On November 14, Jenni Lowe, president of the Alex Lowe Charitable Foundation (ALCF) and widow of climbing legend Alex Lowe, announced that the nonprofit she founded in his name will officially dissolve before the end of 2025. The nonprofit’s assets—including the iconic Khumbu Climbing Center—will go to the Juniper Fund, a Nepal-based charity helmed by celebrity mountaineers Melissa Arnot Reid and David Morton. Jenni Lowe first initiated the handoff process about a year ago.

“It just felt like time,” she told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “I’m approaching 70 years old, and I feel as though I’m ready to change direction in my life.”

The ACLF has been a force of change in the Khumbu region of Nepal since its founding 25 years ago. Jenni Lowe initially launched the ALCF alongside leading alpinist Conrad Anker to help indigenous mountain communities and to honor her late husband, Alex Lowe, after he was killed in an avalanche on Shishapangma in 1999. At the time, Alex Lowe was considered one of the best alpinists of his generation, establishing bold first ascents in Antarctica, Baffin Island, and in the Himalaya. He was only 40 when he died, and he left three young sons behind.

The cornerstone of the ALCF’s work was The Khumbu Climbing Center, a facility that helps provide safety education to Sherpa guides and other members of indigenous climbing community. Together with Anker, Jenni Lowe helped build the KCC from the ground up. Since its launch in 2003, the facility has provided life-saving training to hundreds of climbers.

From here on out, the KCC will continue under the umbrella of the Juniper Fund, a well-regarded nonprofit that has worked alongside the ALCF for more than a decade. The Juniper Fund’s mission to support the families of Himalayan high-altitude workers, especially those grieving loved ones killed in the mountains, dovetails with that of the ALCF. That made the hand-off an easy decision, Lowe told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.

“The Juniper Fund does amazing work,” Lowe said. “When I started the ALCF, I was this young widow, and I had deep compassion for the women over there who I saw as in my shoes. The Juniper Fund stepped in to provide support to those families in a beautiful way.”

Lowe hopes the transfer of assets from the ALCF to the Juniper Fund will be complete by the end of 2025. That includes all monetary assets, the building that houses the KCC, and other resources. The ALCF’s board of directors will continue to be involved throughout this process, Lowe said.

Arnot Reid described the transfer as an opportunity to build on the Juniper Fund’s existing mission. But, she said, it’s important to emphasize that the KCC isn’t getting passed off, per se; it’s a powerful organization in its own right, and it’s simply getting a new financial backer.

“The KCC is run in Nepal by Nepalis, and it’s an incredibly successful and really well-run organization,” Arnot Reid said. “They don’t need our intervention to run the incredible programs they already have; they just need our support financially and awareness-wise to continue to bring their mission to people who aren’t aware of it.”

Arnot Reid said the Juniper fund is committed to supporting the KCC’s existing work and has no plans to alter or add to it at this time. Instead, the Juniper fund will work closely with the organization’s Nepali representatives and follow their lead.

But while the work will remain the same, Arnot Reid says Jenni Lowe’s leadership will certainly be missed.

“Jenni is a role model for me,” Arnot Reid said. “She worked really hard to make things happen in a space where people said it wasn’t possible, or ‘We can’t do that,’ and she did it with grit.”

That’s something Lowe is equally proud of: she said in her time at ALCF, the nonprofit accomplished more than she could have ever dreamed of.

“In the beginning, it was just a way for me to walk through the grief of losing Alex. I had no idea what I was getting into when I first started the foundation, but it was a huge gift to my life,” Lowe told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “I love that community and I’ll miss them. But I feel satisfied and happy with what we’ve done. It’s time to make my world a little smaller.”

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On October 4, 2024, American climber Tracee Metcalfe trudged toward the summit of 26,335-footÌęShishapangma in Tibet. It was freezing, the snow was deep, and winds gusted up to 30 miles per hour. Metcalf, 50, was on the edge of her comfort zone.

“If there wasn’t so much at stake for a lot of people, we might have considered turning around,” Metcalfe told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “Or at least, I would have.”

Metcalfe was a member of a guided expedition with the Nepali company called Imagine Nepal, alongside other paying clients and guides. She and the Imagine Nepal team picked their way around a knife-edge ridge, with nothing but air thousands of feet below them on either side. As they completed the traverse, the group reached the peak’s summit. The climbers celebrated as they took turns standing on the pinnacle. Metcalfe, however, was too focused on the impending descent to party. “It wasn’t this crazy, sublime moment like you might think—but none of my summits have been,” she said. “I have a hard time being in the moment up there.”

Metcalf has now been “up there” on all 14 of the world’s mountains above 8,000 meters. In reaching the summit of Shishapangma, she became the first American woman—and just the third U.S. citizen—to complete the achievement, which took her almost a decade. But Metcalfe’s accomplishment on Shishapangma had its roots in tragedy. In 2023, Metcalfe was on Shishapangma when avalanches swept down the flanks, killing climbing guides Mingmar Sherpa and Tenjen Lama, as well as American climbers Anna Gutu and Gina Marie Rzucidlo. Metcalfe and Rzucidlo were friends, and at the time, Rzucidlo and Gutu were each attempting to become the first American woman to complete the 14 peaks. Shishapangma was the final peak for both women.

In the wake of the accident, Metcalfe became the frontrunner to break the record—she already had ascended nine of the peaks. But the deaths left her wondering what compelled her to climb—and whether she wanted to complete the record for herself, or for the history books.

“People started asking, ‘Who has the most in the U.S. now? Who is going to be first?’” she said. “And it was me. I had the most. I tried hard to avoid those questions, because that wasn’t what I was climbing for.”

A Mountaineering Hobby Becomes a Passion

Metcalfe grew up in Los Angeles, and began rock climbing and mountaineering while attending college and medical school in Colorado. She hiked many of the state’s 14,000-foot peaks, and in 2013 began working as an expedition doctor in Alaska on Denali, an experience that motivated her to take on higher mountains in the Himalaya. She climbed Mount Everest in 2016, and in subsequent years ascended other peaks above 8,000 meters.

“It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to go climb the 14 highest peaks in the world,” she said, “but I did want to climb bigger mountains, and I didn’t have a group of climbing buddies.”

The commercial climbing industry, with its guided expeditions to the top of Everest and other high peaks, offered Metcalfe community and structure. She signed up for more trips to Himalayan peaks. She nearly reached the summit of 8,000er Manaslu the fall after she summited Everest. The following year, she summited 22,349-foot Ama Dablam. She returned to 8,000-meter success with Cho Oyo in 2018, Makalu in 2019, Annapurna in 2021, and Dhaulagiri and Kangchenjunga in 2022.

“My friends were all starting families or busy with their jobs, and I wanted to keep climbing mountains,” she said. “But I’m not a professional climber, I’m not totally self-sufficient, and there is such a strong culture and community around these peaks, that it made sense to keep coming back. It flowed and evolved.”

In 2023 Metcalfe traveled to Shishapangma to ascend her tenth 8,000er. By then, the goal of becoming the first American to complete the 14 peaks seemed out of reach—both Rzucidlo and Gutu had 13 and arrived in Base Camp looking to reach the summit first.

“In a way, I was grateful,” Metcalfe said. “Like, ‘Cool, they want to get this record. Let that attention be on them. I’m going to focus on me.”

Being four peaks behind Gutu and Rzucidlo may have saved Metcalfe’s life. Conditions on Shishapangma became dangerous after a storm dumped fresh snow on the summit. On summit day, Metcalfe left Camp II at 22,300 feet elevation alongside Gutu, but the latter soon outpaced Metcalfe and the other Imagine Nepal clients. When the first avalanche killed Gutu and Mingmar Sherpa, Metcalfe and her companions turned back. Rzucidlo, who was further ahead and continued climbing, was killed in a second avalanche. “I can’t put myself in their shoes,” Metcalfe said. “If I was to have found out there was another American woman attempting the summit the same day as me, I don’t know how I would have felt.”

The deaths of Rzucidlo and Gutu were hard for Metcalfe to reckon with, and it showed her just how selfishÌęmountaineering can be at its core. But Metcalfe never considered abandoning the high peaks. “At a certain point, you can’t take the risk away,” she said. “Those avalanches could’ve wiped us out, too.” Metcalfe was also struck by how the deaths impacted the loved ones that Gutu and Rzucidlo left behind. “How shitty is it going to be for my family, my friends, if I end up dead doing this?” she asked herself.

Metcalfe’s relative anonymity in the world outside of mountaineering fueled her desire to return to the peaks. She’s not a climbing influencer with throngs of online followers and incentives to break records. She has just one sponsor—a Los Angeles-based orthopedic surgeon. Metcalfe has covered the lion’s share of her expedition costs out of her own pockets.

“No one is particularly interested in sponsoring a 50-year-old woman who has never achieved anything particularly remarkable and has fewer than 1,000 Instagram followers,” she said.

Pushing for the Record in 2024

So she returned to the mountains in 2024 and ascended five 8,000-meter peaks with Imagine Nepal: Gasherbrum I and II, and Broad Peak in Pakistan’s Karakoram range, and Himalayan peaks Lhotse and Shishapangma.

Metcalfe said that climbing that many mountains in one year had more to do with personal goals than the record. “I turned 50 this year,” she said. “I’m getting a partial knee replacement soon. I’m getting older. I only have so many climbs at this level left in me.”

Metcalfe reached the summit of Shishapangma on October 4. In the days afterward, a staggering number of climbers reached the top of that mountain to complete new records on the 14 peaks. Nima Rinji Sherpa, 18, became the youngest person to summit every 8,000er. A handful of women became the first of their respective nations to complete the 14 peaks: Alina Pekova the first Russian; Dorota Samocko the first Pole; Dawa Yangzum Sherpa the first Nepali; Naoko Watanabe the first Japanese; and Adriana Brownlee the first from the United Kingdom.

Grace Tseng became the first Taiwanese person, Adrian Laza the first Romanian, Alasdair Mckenzie the youngest European, and Shehroze Kashif the youngest Pakistani person.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű asked Metcalfe about the significance of these records. “Being the first doesn’t mean a whole lot to me,” she said. Rather, Metcalfe said that the significance was deeply personal—she endured a decade of climbing, which required dizzying logistics, physical fitness, plenty of cash, and personal grit.

“Yes, it’s cool to say, ‘I’m the first U.S. woman to do it,’” she said, “but I recognize I did it guided, using supplemental oxygen. I’m just proud of this goal because it was important to me.”

Metcalfe said she learned plenty of lessons during her 8,000-meter quest, but the biggest takeaway was the importance of being motivated by internal, and not external, forces. She told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűÌęshe climbed Shishapangma for herself, and not because she sought attention from news outlets or social media followers. She believes this led her to make smarter and safer decisions during her climbs.

Metcalfe also believes her feeling of accomplishment will endure, knowing that she completed a goal for herself and not for others.

“In two weeks, no one’s going to care. If that external motivation, that fame, was driving me, it would fade,” she said. “When it’s internal motivation, when you’re proud of yourself for what you did, nobody can take that away from you.”

Want more of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű’s in-depth coverage of adventure stories like this one?Ìę.

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German mountaineer and writer Jochen Hemmleb was scrolling through Facebook at his home in South Tyrol, Italy, on Friday when he saw a photograph that nearly made him fall out of his chair. The image showed acclaimed climber and filmmaker Jimmy Chin crouching over a weathered hobnailed boot protruding from melting ice. The boot, a photo caption proclaimed, belonged to British adventurer Andrew Comyn “Sandy” Irvine, who disappeared while attempting to scale Mount Everest alongside George Mallory in 1924.

“My initial reaction was to think, ‘So Andrew, this is where you have been,'” Hemmleb told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.Ìę“After my feelings of excitement, my next feeling was of relief and then some closure.”

The discovery of Irvine’s boot sent shockwaves throughout the global mountaineering community when published the news on Friday morning. Irvine and Mallory vanished on Everest’s upper slopes 31 years before Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people known to reach the top, in 1953. According to a press release accompanying the story, a team comprised of Chin and filmmakers Erich Roepke and Mark Fisher found the boot in Tibet on a section of the Central Rongbuk Glacier just below Everest’s imposing north face this past September. The boot contained a partial sock, and the garment had Irvine’s initials and last name stitched to it.

“Any expedition to Everest follows in the shadow of Irvine and Mallory,” Chin said in a release.

Hemmleb, 53, is a global authority on Irvine and Mallory, and told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű he became obsessed with it when he was just 16 years old. He has written 20 books about the world’s highest peak and those who have sought to climb it, and three of his titles are about the missing mountaineers.

The discovery had an even greater impact on a small group of climbers, writers, and historians who—like Hemmleb—have fixated on Irvine and Mallory. The two were part of an expedition to become the first to reach the highest point on earth, and they vanished less than 1,000 feet from the top. An eyewitness said they were “going strong” to the top at the time of their disappearance. Nobody knows whether or not they reached the 29,032-foot top, or how, exactly, they died.

Much like the disappearances of Amelia Earhart or Jimmy Hoffa, the enigma of Mallory and Irvine has ballooned over the decades, at times drowning out contemporary accolades on the peak. It’s the focus of more than a dozen books and documentary films. And over the years, it has spurred more than a few debates.

“This discovery brings out my whole fascination with the story all over again,” Hemmleb said. “It’s just such an emotionally gripping tale.”

In 1999 Hemmleb was part of an American expedition to Everest to try and locate Mallory and Irvine for a documentary film produced by Nova. Following Hemmleb’s research into their route, a team led by legendary climber Conrad Anker found Mallory’s preserved remains on a ledge at 27,000 feet on the peak’s north face.

“The name tag etched onto the Irvine’s sock is nearly identical to the one Conrad found in 1999,” Hemmleb said. “It feels like Andrew is on the level with Mallory now, like he’s stepped out of the shadow.”

But Hemmleb toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that Irvine’s discovery, while significant, does not solve some of the remaining questions at the heart of the Mallory expedition—specifically, whether or not the men ever reached the top, and how, exactly, they died. Another inquiry left unanswered: whether their remains were originally discovered decades ago by Chinese climbers—and whether that discovery was kept secret.

“It’s a seminal find, for sure,” Hemmleb said. “But as far as solving the mysteries is concerned, I am doubtful this will tell us much.”

Questions That May Never Be Answered

Like Hemmleb, American climber and author Mark Synnott was shocked by the discovery of Irvine’s boot. Synnott, whose 2021 book The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest,Ìęrecounts the mystery, said he awoke to a flurry of calls and text messages.

“It feels like another hugely important piece of the puzzle,” Synnott toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for a discovery like this.”

But Synnott echoed Hemmleb’s sentiment that the boot does little to answer the remaining questions that he and other historians have. In 2019, Synnott led a trip to the Chinese side of Everest. He brought aerial drones to scout the peak’s slopes, as well as GPS coordinates that suggested the final known location of the duo. He sought to locate Irvine’s body, and to find the pocket camera that the men were carrying, which could prove whether or not they reached the top. He came home empty-handed.

During his research, Synnott heard rumors that Chinese expeditions had come across bodies high on the mountain’s flanks in the sixties and seventies, and that they had salvaged the camera and attempted to develop the film. After publishing his book, Synnott said he was contacted by a former U.S. State Department worker who told him that his wife, a former British diplomat, had heard directly from Chinese officials that early expeditions on Everest did locate the bodies. Synnott wrote about the ordeal in the book’s postscript, and about the revelation on Salon.com

China has never acknowledged that its climbing teams found Irvine or Mallory. In 1960, a Chinese team led by Wang FuzhouÌębecame the first to reach the summit via the Northeast ridge. Evidence that Mallory and Irvine reached the top would rob the Chinese of the first ascent of Everest’s north side, Synnott said.

“For me, this doesn’t change my theory that the Chinese found Irvine,” Synnott said. “There’s a lot of information out there—too much for people to just throw it away and say it’s not true.”

But not everyone agrees. British historian Mick Conefrey toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that the likeliest explanation is that Mallory and Irvine died in a fall while retreating from a storm, having never made it to the top. Over the years, their bodies were blown down the peak by winds or melting ice, and then deposited at lower elevations.

“I’ve never believed the theories involving the Chinese,” he said. “When there’s a vacuum, when something is unresolved, you can speculate about it.”

Earlier this year Conefrey published the book Fallen: George Mallory and the Tragic 1924 Everest Expedition,Ìęwhich is framed as a “myth-piercing study.”ÌęHe examined documents and testimonies from the expedition, as well as news clippings afterward.

Conefrey said that the myths and rumors about the two began several months after news of their deaths on the peak. “Once the last eyewitness said they were going strong, the story became supercharged,” he said. “They didn’t just die in an accident—they were on their way to the top.”

But Conefrey argues that the 1999 discovery of Mallory’s body is proof that the climbers died well shy of the summit—and that they were simply taken down the peak by natural forces. He also referenced the diaries of one of the other expedition members, Edward “Teddy” Norton, for his opinion.

“Norton said he thought Mallory had turned back because he realized it was too dangerous—he was well aware of the dangers and wouldn’tÌęhave taken undue risks,” Conefrey said. “That was Norton’s assessment, and people seem to have forgotten about that.”

While the discovery of Irvine’s boot may not quell the disagreements, it does lay bare an element of the mystery. Nearly 100 years since they went missing, Irvine and Mallory continue to stoke the passion and interest of anyone who comes across their story. Hemmleb, Conefrey, and Synnott told me that’s not likely to change anytime soon.

“The spirit of these men and how passionate they were about pushing the boundaries of human potential,” Synnott said. “You can still feel that spirit of adventure in us, and trace it back to them.”

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On September 19, 34-year-oldÌęAmerican mountain runner Tyler Andrews ascended Nepal’s 26,781-foot Manaslu in a mind-bending 9 hours and 52 minutes. The time shaved more than two hours off the previous speed record on the peak, set in 2023 by Nepalese climber . Before that, Francois Cazzanelli, an alpinist and guide from Italy, summited in 13 hours, in 2019.

Manaslu is one of the world’s 14 peaks above 8,000 meters. These mountains have traditionally been the realm of mountaineers and professional high-alpine guides, not trail runners.

But Andrews believes that’s about to change. “I think we’re going to start seeing more mountain runners going this way,” Andrews told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű from Manaslu base camp.

His belief stems in part from his own experience on the peak, and from changing dynamics he’s seeing in the world of ultrarunning and the pursuit of fastest known times. Andrews is part of a new generation of mountain runners seeking out increasingly bigger, more challenging, and more daunting speed records. “If you start with the Colorado fourteeners, then go to the Alps, then the Andes, the natural progression is to the Himalayas and the 8000ers,” he told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.

And Andrews also believes that changes within Fastest Known Time, the organization that tracks running speed records, which is owned by șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű,Ìęwill attract more elite runners to the Himalayas. Traditionally, FKT has not approved records set on Manaslu and other 8,000-meter peaks. “8000-meter peaks were sort of their own category,” says Buzz Burrell, co-founder. “We mostly left them alone.”

The organization does track these records on North American and even European peaks, such as Denali and Mont Blanc.

Instead, ascents on Nepal’s highest mountains, including those resulting in speed records, have historically been tracked by the Himalayan Database. But that’s changing, and Andrews is one reason behind the shift. He actually works part-time for Fastest Know Time as Regional Editor for Latin America and the Himalayas. Part of his job is to create routes and then help FKT track records on them.

“I think in the past, the team didn’t want to be trying to verify routes that required rock climbing because you can’t just use a GPS watch to track something that’s vertical,” Andrews says. “But Manaslu is not like that, so tracking it is really no different than other mountains on there, like Cotopaxi or Denali.”

When Andrews returns from Manaslu base camp—he’s currently supporting a friend attempting a ski descent—he will submit his GPX data to Fastest Known Time for approval. He also plans to submit his data to the Himalayan Database.

Manaslu and 26,864-foot Cho Oyu in Tibet are considered the easiest of the 14 8,000-meter peaks. On Manaslu, the nine-mile route from base camp to the summit requires less technical climbing than harder peaks, like K2 or Nanga Parbat. Still, Manaslu isn’t easy. The trail gains nearly 11,000 feet of elevation, requires the use of fixed ropes in many sections, and travels over steep sections of snow and ice. Climbers must also survive in what mountaineers call the “Death Zone”—elevations above 26,000—because there’s not enough oxygen for human beings to survive more than a day or two.

Andrews ran up Manaslu without using supplemental oxygen, and he did so with an extremely lightweight setup. He wore a pair of waterproof trail running shoes designed to shed snow, a puffy jacket, lightweight pants, and a windbreaker. He carried a 30-liter backpack containing bare essentials: harness, helmet, goggles, ice axe, water, snacks, and energy gels.

He credits a perfect weather window and an uncrowded mountain with allowing him to go as fast and light as he did. “It’s part of the risk and gamble and calculus that you have to do as an athlete up there when you’re going for a mountain record,” Andrews says. “Every gram counts.”

Andrews’ record comes more than a decade after famed Spanish ultrarunner Kilian Jornet began his Summits of My Life project, a four-year expedition to traverse the world’s highest mountain ranges. From 2012 to 2017, Jornet ticked off many of the world’s most high-profile peaks in a fast and light style, shattering long-held mountaineering speed records as he went.

In 2013 he ran straight up 15,780-foot Mont Blanc, typically a two-day mountaineering ascent, in less than 5 hours while wearing shorts and a t-shirt. In 2017 he ascended Mount Everest twice in the same week.

Jornet’s ascents prompted some trail runners to take on similar challenges, setting off a flurry of mountain-top FKTs, and inspiring a new generation of endurance athletes.

Similarly, Andrews thinks the time is right for athletes to “push back on some of the conventional wisdom” for ascending 8,000-meter peaks. Instead of ascending Manaslu overnight, as is typical (“so you don’t get roasted by the sun”), Andrews did it mostly during daylight, which allowed him to use more conventional footwear, due to the warm temperatures.

Andrews also brought a stationary bike to base camp, which he said was “absurd.” But the device enabled him to get his heart rate higher than he would have while running.

But Andrews cautions that Himalayan ascents aren’t for untested trail runners. “I didn’t just step off the track and onto an 8,000-meter mountain,” he says. Andrews has been mountaineering for 15 years, and much more seriously in the last five. In recent years he’s ascended 22,841-foot Aconcagua in Argentina, 19,347-foot Cotopaxi in Ecuador, and 22,349-foot Ama Dablam in Nepal, among other peaks.

He lives and trains at high altitude, splitting time between Flagstaff, Arizona and Quito, Ecuador. And Andrews has extensive experience running at higher altitudes in the Andes.

Prior to Manaslu, Andrews ran dozens of trails above 16,000 feet in the Himalayas. His FKT on Manaslu was his second attempt on the mountain in two years. He didn’t summit the first time. “I got my ass kicked,” Andrews says. “But I learned a lot.” Both times, he hired expert local outfitter Dawa Steven Sherpa of Asian Trekking to manage logistics.

For 2025 and beyond, Andrews hopes to add more Nepali trails to the Fastest Known Times database. “There’s an absolute smorgasbord of mountain trail running here,” he says. “Really epic beautiful routes that most people do in a few days to a few weeks that ultrarunners could do in a single push.”

He plans to skip Cho Oyu—Chinese officials recently required climbers to use supplemental oxygen—and will instead focus on speed records on the Nepali side of the border. And there’s one trail atop his list.

“I’d like to try Everest,” he said.

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Video footage of Mount Everest continues to get crisper, clearer, and more dizzying. If climbing to the roof of the world on your own two feet seems out of reach, you can now take to the skies—virtually—and see the summit for yourself.

On July 10, Chinese drone manufacturer DJI released a stunning video of the world’s highest peak. The four-minute clip takes viewers on a high-definition aerial ride from Base Camp, at 17,598 feet, all the way up to the mountain’s 29,032-foot summit. The video was filmed via a DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone—yep, a device you canÌępurchase at your local Best Buy.

As a self-proclaimed geek of Everest footage, I wholeheartedly recommend this video. No, it’s not quite as breathtaking as the virtual reality filmÌęThe QUEST: EVEREST VR, which I viewed earlier this year. But it does surpass the 2022 drone video of Mount Everest, which was also filmed with a DJI device.

The latest video provides a complete overhead view of the route to the top of Mount Everest. The device follows the traditional Western Cwm route from Nepal—the same one that hundreds of climbers followed this past May to access the summit. Along its trip, the devices flies over the landmarks that Everest aficionados like myself have committed to memory: the Khumbu Icefall, Geneva Spur, Balcony, and Hillary Step, just to name a few. The video shows the Khumbu Glacier’s dangerous ice towers, the soaring walls above the Western Cwm, and the sheerness of the Lhotse Face. It also captures the incredible vertical rise that climbers must tackle after leaving Camp IV at 26,000 feet en route to the top.

There are four separate video clips that are edited together to complete the entire journey.

DJI is at the forefront of drone experimentation on the world’s highest peak. Earlier this spring, the company tested its cargo drone, the FlyCart 30, at Base Camp. Working alongside Nepali officials, DJI engineers piloted the device over the Khumbu Icefall up to Camp I at 19,900 feet while carrying two oxygen tanks. Officials believe the flying devices may someday be used to ferry gear onto the mountain and takeÌętrash back down. For now, the aerial devices will be used mostly for creating vertigo-inducing videos to stare at on your lunch break.

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The spring climbing season on Mount Everest came to an official close in late May when monsoons once again crept up the Khumbu Valley and shrouded the world’s highest peak in clouds.

The world’s highest peak saw both ambitious climbers breaking new records and images of conga lines clogging the summit ridge this year. But this season’s most notable statistic may be the dramatic downturn in fatalities from the record high in 2023. Nine climbers perished or went missing in 2024, down from 18 a year ago. Why? Experts cannot agree on one specific reason.

Government officials confirmed six deaths during the season, and three others are considered “missing,” however they are presumed to be deceased. The downturn in fatalities came amid a busy year on the peak. According to Rakesh Gurung, managing director of Nepal’s Department of Tourism, the agency issued 421 permits to foreign climbers in 2024—down from 478 last year—and approximately 600 people reached the summit, between climbers, high-altitude guides, and other mountain workers.

What Made Everest Less Deadly This Year?

Gurung attributes the decrease in deaths to new safety regulations imposed by regional Nepali lawmakers—rules that required —as well as to greater oversight by government officials. “Recognizing the tendency for climbers to push their limits despite deteriorating health at high altitudes, field officers actively engaged with climbers at various camps, emphasizing the importance of safety measures,” he told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “There was a heightened sense of vigilance and caution among guides and operators.”

Yellow band on Mt Everest (8848.86 m), 20.05.2024. Video ©: Rajan Dwivedi.

— Everest Today (@EverestToday)

Expedition operators toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that there is some truth to Gurung’s perspective.

Thaneswhar Guragai, general manager of Seven Summit Treks, believes the tragic deaths in 2023 forced Nepali expedition operators to boost safety measures this year. Some forbade clients who were unprepared from venturing to the summit, he said.

“This year the Nepali companies are more cautious about their reputation. If the climber and the guide are not ready, they won’t send them up to the summit,” he toldÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.Ìę“When the situation is not ready, it’s not like in the past when they would still send the clients. If the client decides to go up, we will stop them and bring them back.”

But others pushed back on Gurung’s assertion that the government’s new safety protocols had a dramatic change. “I never saw the Recco system in anyone’s clothing or gear, and I don’t think it would help,” said American guide Garrett Madison.

Did Weather Impact Safety?

Instead, Madison and Guragai pointed to the weather on Everest for creating safer conditions in 2024 than last year. In 2023, temperatures plunged well below freezing during the two-week climbing window, and climbers had to battle extreme cold for most of the ascent. In 2024, some climbers reached the summit wearing baseball caps.

This year climbers enjoyed an early weather window, and several dozen reached the top on May 13. But then high winds and snowfall descended on the peak, pushing the majority of climbing teams to summit when the weather cleared on May 21st. Huge crowds formed on the fixed ropes in the days after, but those climbers enjoyed clear skies and warm temperatures.

“Overall the 2024 season was much warmer than the 2023 season,” Madison said. “So it seemed like less people got sick from colds, viruses, etc, and there were fewer weird fatalities.”

Bili Bierling, manager of the website, Himalayan Database, which tracks ascents on 479 peaks in Nepal, believes climbing teams may have also benefitted from a more intangible factor: good fortune. “The conditions and the weather were very stable this year—the number of deaths is sometimes pure luck, sometimes the conditions,” she said.

Everest Season Still Wasn’t Perfect

But this spring was far from flawless, and nine deaths is still higher than the annual death total in recent years. According to The Himalayan Database, three people died on Everest in 2022, while five died in 2021, 11 perished in 2019, and five died in 2018. Austrian guide Lukas Furtenbach believes most of the fatalities this year were preventable and could have been avoided with “regulations, uniform minimum standards and mandatory safety protocols.”

One rule guides proposed was limiting climbers from scaling the peak without using supplemental oxygen. Of the nine dead, four were climbing without the use of supplemental oxygen. Mongolian climbers, Usukhjargal Tsedendamba, 53, and Purevsuren Lkhagvajav, 31, were found just below the summit. According to Bierling, who tracks climbers on the 8,000-meter peaks, neither man had previous climbing experience in Nepal, and both were attempting the peak without supplemental oxygen. A Kenyan climber named Cheruiyo Kirui, 40, also died near the summit while climbing without oxygen—his guide, Nawang Sherpa, has yet to be found. And Romanian climber Gabriel Tabara, 48, was found dead in his tent while attempting to ascend 27,940-foot Lhotse without oxygen.

“There could be a minimum amount of oxygen cylinders for each person, also no solo climbing, clients of guided expeditions are at no point on the mountain left alone and many other basic things,” Furtenbach wrote to șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. “Fourteen of 18 from last year and six of nine from this year died because of a lack of oxygen at some point above Camp III.”

Two other fatalities were also preventable: Pas Tenji Sherpa and his client Daniel Paul Paterson fell to their deaths when an ice cornice collapsed. The two had unhooked themselves from the fixed ropes to navigate a traffic jam on the summit ridge when the accident occurred.

Records Tumble Across the Himalayas

Climbers set several ascent records on Everest in 2024, with notable expeditions completed by Nepali climbers. Photojournalist Purnima Shrestha became the first woman to summit three times in a single season, and Dawa Finjok Sherpa, also of Nepal, became the first person to record four ascents in the same year. Phunjo Lama, another Nepali, shattered the women’s speed record by climbing from Base Camp to the summit in 14 hours and 31 minutes, and finishing the round trip in 24 hours and 26 minutes.

These ascents came amid a flurry of Nepali accolades in the Himalayas this spring. Nima Rinji Sherpa, an 18-year-old Nepali climber, became the youngest person to summit 28,169-foot Kanchenjunga, marking his 13th ascent of an 8,000-meter peak. Nima Rinji is hoping to become the youngest person to ascend all 14 8,000-meter peaks, and he is now tied with 19-year-old Frenchman Alasdair McKenzie. who has also climbed 13.

Near Everest, a team of Nepali climbers completed a rare ascent of 26,864-foot Cho Oyu from the steep Nepali side. The peak straddles Nepal’s border with China, and most climbers ascend it from China. The successful expedition came after Gelje Sherpa and others had attempted for several years to climb the peak from the Nepali side.

For the first time in four years, China opened the north side of Mount Everest to international climbing expeditions. However, the official announcement was delayed until early May, prompting a number of companies to shift their ascents to the more crowded Nepal side. Overall, north side ascents went smoothly, and a handful of international companies enjoyed having the mountain to themselves.

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