The year the mountain broke

A traffic jam captured on May 22, 2019, in the harshest place on Earth. Hundreds of climbers and sherpas lined up on the final leg to the peak. As progress slowed, the chance of death grew.
* 877 summits / 854 climbers (Some sherpas went up twice or even three times).

The firsts

Those first mountaineers first took on the 8,848-meter summit in the early 1900s. Sir Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first to reach the top – 20 years after the attempts. Few others followed. In 1975, Japan's Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the top. Three years later, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first to the peak without supplementary oxygen.

High on success

In the 1980s and 1990s, adventurers funded their Everest expeditions through article, book and movie deals. An article-turned-book-turned film by John Krakauer added to the hype, along with an IMAX film about the mountain. More people started dreaming of the top of Everest.

Headways

Mountaineering's growing popularity drove outfitters to improve equipment. It became warmer, more windproof and less heavy.

More guide companies started competing for the business of guiding people up the mountain, driving package prices down.

Mount Olympic

By 2008, telecommunication access was reliable enough that China live-streamed an expedition to the top of the mountain. It was part of the Olympic torch relay to celebrate the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.

Nature's wrath reigns

But just as the Himalayan peak started look like a walk in the park, Mother Nature reminded the world people are not supposed to be here. Avalanches and earthquakes killed dozens of climbers, mostly sherpas sent ahead to lay the ropes.

Weather window

In any year, the period in which the wind, temperature and precipitation are manageable is very short. The best balance is typically at the end of the monsoon season in May.

Window for success

Nearly all climbers who have reached the summit have done so in this window. Today, most plan to set off for the peak in this time as a result.

Winds persist

But in Spring 2019, high winds persisted into the ideal weeks, reducing the number of days with conditions allowing for a summit. This also delayed the necessary work required to enable climbers to reach the top.

A mad rush

As a result, hopefuls took to the mountain in a race against the return of the winds. It was reported that on May 22, 2019, 223 climbers went for the summit, causing waits on the way up as well as down.

Enter the death zone

The line ups started on a narrow trail through the snow above 8,000 meters. Here the atmosphere contains so little oxygen that the body starts shutting down. Spending as little time as possible in the so-called Death Zone is key to survival.

Meeting in the middle

Most of these climbers came from the South Col through Nepal where permits, which cost around $11,000, are not limited in availability. On the Tibet side via China, fewer permits were granted to those wanting to take on the steeper climb. Those climbers had an even smaller window to reach the peak.

Break down

The successful summits were a little more than half of the nearly 1,500 people on the mountain in 2019. Around 80 permits were granted to women. The South Col route is an easier climb and permits are less regulated than the North Col – driving twice as much Everest traffic through Nepal.

Support staff

There was an average of 1.7 sherpas per mountaineer. Half of the sherpas work around the mountain – securing the ropes and infrastructure necessary for the expeditions to reach the top.

Global business

People from around the world pay big money to get to the top. Observers have noted an increase of climbers coming from India and China in recent years due to growing personal wealth in those countries.

Reaching
the peak

Most of those who did not reach the top were the support teams that took care of the infrastructure on the trails. Even with the small time frame the weather allowed for summiting, a new record for summits in a single year was set.

Deadly conditions

But with this many people reaching the summit, the traffic jams formed, there were reports of pushing, people not having enough oxygen in the death zone. And for eleven climbers, the dream of Everest turned fatal.