KATMANDU: The Hillary Step — a rocky outcrop near the top of Mount Everest — is still intact, Nepali climbers said Wednesday, rejecting a widely reported claim by a British mountaineer that it had collapsed.
The condition of the rock face has been the source of intense speculation among the climbing community since six-time Everest summiteer Tim Mosedale declared it had crumbled.
“The Hillary Step is no more,” Mosedale wrote on Facebook the day after he made the top on May 17.
“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.”
But experienced Nepali climbers said the rock feature — named after the first climber to summit the world’s highest peak, Sir Edmund Hillary — was unchanged.
“The Hillary Step is as it was before, but a large stone above it has fallen,” said Pemba Dorje Sherpa, who reached the peak last Saturday and has summited on 15 other occasions.
“It was easier to reach the summit because of that, but perhaps that confused people into thinking that the step is no more.”
Nine-time Everest summiteer Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, who runs a climbing company and is currently at base camp, said an alternative route being used by climbers could be leading to confusion.
“The fixed lines are more to the right of the step (than before). We’re now walking on the snow whereas before we had to walk on the rocky side. That is the reason for the confusion.”
Mingma has not climbed Everest this year but nine of his Nepali guides and eight clients have made it to the top.
Questions surrounding the condition of the step — the last major obstacle before the summit — emerged last year, with some suggesting that it had been damaged in the earthquake that hit Nepal in April 2015.
The 7.8-magnitude quake triggered an avalanche that flattened base camp, killing 18, and brought the climbing season to a premature close.
Geologist Amod Mani Dixit, who heads the Katmandu-based National Society for Earthquake Technology, said it was unlikely the earthquake would have shifted rocks on Everest, which stands 450 kilometers (280 miles) east of the epicenter.
Separately, an expedition organizer said Wednesday that rescuers found bodies of four climbers on Everest, taking the season’s death toll to 10 as experts warn cut-price mountaineering outfits are putting clients at risk.
The climbers were found inside a tent at camp four — at 7,950 meters — on Tuesday by a rescue team who were there to retrieve the body of a Slovak climber who died on the mountain on Sunday.
Everest’s Hillary Step intact, say climbers
Everest’s Hillary Step intact, say climbers
Bangladesh’s religio-political party open to unity govt
- Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years
DHAKA: A once-banned Bangladeshi religio-political party, poised for its strongest electoral showing in February’s parliamentary vote, is open to joining a unity government and has held talks with several parties, its chief said.
Opinion polls suggest that Jamaat-e-Islami will finish a close second to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in the first election it has contested in nearly 17 years as it marks a return to mainstream politics in the predominantly Muslim nation of 175 million.
Jamaat last held power between 2001 and 2006 as a junior coalition partner with the BNP and is open to working with it again.
“We want to see a stable nation for at least five years. If the parties come together, we’ll run the government together,” Jamaat chief Shafiqur Rahman said in an interview at his office in a residential area in Dhaka, days after the party created a buzz by securing a tie-up with a Gen-Z party.
Rahman said anti-corruption must be a shared agenda for any unity government.
The prime minister will come from the party winning the most seats in the Feb. 12 election, he added. If Jamaat wins the most seats, the party will decide whether he himself would be a candidate, Rahman said.
The party’s resurgence follows the ousting of long-time Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in a youth-led uprising in August 2024.
Rahman said Hasina’s continued stay in India after fleeing Dhaka was a concern, as ties between the two countries have hit their lowest point in decades since her downfall.
Asked about Jamaat’s historical closeness to Pakistan, Rahman said: “We maintain relations in a balanced way with all.”
He said any government that includes Jamaat would “not feel comfortable” with President Mohammed Shahabuddin, who was elected unopposed with the Awami League’s backing in 2023.
