The spot formerly known as Hillary Step

I vow to stop writing about the Hillary Step after this blog post. Because where nothing is, nothing has to be reported. “It is 100 percent that Hillary step is gone,” Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, expedition leader of the Nepalese operator “Imagine”, writes to me. On 14 May, the 32-year-old had climbed to a point between the South Summit (at 8,750 meters) and the former Hillary Step (8,790 meters), where he had waited for hours for the return of his summit team and thus had plenty of time, to take a close look at the spot. On the Hillary Step, says Mingma, “no more debate is required further in future”. No matter what the Nepalese Ministry of Tourism is saying. Before this spring’s season, the authority had actually subpoenally obligated all climbers not to make any statement about the Hillary Step to the media.

Small stone out of Everest crown

Hillary Step in 2013

Mountains are changing – even faster and more clearly visible than before due to climate change. In case of the Hillary Step, however, it was probably the devastating earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015 that made the rock fall. Everest-experienced British expedition leader Tim Mosedale already pointed out in 2017 that the former rock climbing passage was now just a snowy slope, much easier to overcome than before. Mosedale substantiated his claim with pictures. Even then the Government of Nepal considered this a kind of a lèse-majeste, though in fact only a rather small stone had been broken out of Everest crown. Actually, the Ministry of Tourism should even be happy about this alleged mishap: A bottleneck less, which used to be a frequent source of traffic jams, which had a negative effect not only on safety, but also on Everest marketing.

Twelve meters of rock

The first ascenders of Evereste: Edmund Hillary (l.) and Tenzing Norgay

Sir Edmund Hillary is probably laughing in climbers’ heaven at the government’s ridiculous attempts to hush up what hundreds of mountaineers have seen with their own eyes: the twelve-meter high boulder, a real hurdle that Hillary once had had mastered first, no longer exists. On the first ascent in 1953, the New Zealander had taken heart and had climbed up through a thin crack between rock and ice. “It was then for the first time that I knew that we were going to get to the top,“ the Everest pioneer once said about this last key section that had been named after him. The New Zealander died in 2008 aged 88.

As many successes as never before

Sir Ed was critical of commercial climbing on Everest. “There are people who hardly understand mountaineering,“ the Everest pioneer told me when I interviewed him in 2000. “They do not care about the mountain. They have paid $ 65,000 and all they want is to set foot on the summit, go home and boast about it.” In the just finished 2018 spring season, ten years after Hillary’s death, reportedly a total of more than 700 climbers reached the 8,850 meter high summit ascending from the south and the north side of the mountain. Even if Billi Bierling and her staff working for the chronicle “Himalayan Database” have yet to confirm the information, the season will probably be the most successful in Everest history, as measured by the number of summit successes. And the third one without Hillary Step.

Hillary Stupa above Khumjung

It is a beautiful place. Located on a hill above Khumjung, off the small path that leads down to the village. With a view to Mount Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam. Sir Edmund Hillary would have liked the place. For more than five years, a small part of his ashes has been resting there – in a stupa built in honor of the first ascender of Everest. Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the death of the New Zealander. At the age of 88, Hillary had died on 11 January 2008 in Auckland. Most of his ashes were later scattered on the harbour of his hometown, at the express request of the deceased, as his son Peter Hillary once told me: “The city was the base camp for his expeditions. He was definitely an Aucklander.”

Sir Ed’s words still up to date

Sir Edmund Hillary (in 2004)

I was fortunate enough to meet Sir Ed twice: on the occasion of the opening of a mountaineering exhibition in Austria in 2000 and three years later at the celebrations in Kathmandu on the 50th anniversary of Hillary’s and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s first ascent of Everest. “I think that we were the lucky ones. We were pioneers in everything we did and never followed in the footsteps of other people,“ Sir Ed told me at our first meeting, criticizing the commercialization of Everest. “There are people who hardly understand mountaineering. They do not care about the mountain. They have paid $ 65,000 and all they want is to set foot on the summit, go home and boast about it.” His words of that time could as well – with an adjusted sum of money – describe the current situation on the highest mountain in the world.

Himalayan Trust more important than Everest success

New Zealand note with his portrait signed by Sir Ed

Hillary then also had took a small stock of his life: “Over the years, our first ascent of Everest has become less important in people’s minds than what we do with our sherpa friends in the schools and medical facilities. And that’s just how I myself feel about it.” The Hillary Stupa is located not without reason above Khumjung. In 1961, Sir Ed’s still active aid organization “Himalayan Trust” had founded in this village their first school in the Khumbu area.

Statements of Sir Edmund Hillary (in 2000)

Veto of the lamas

It would not have taken much more and Hillary’s ashes would have been scattered on top of Mount Everest. In 2010, Apa Sherpa – who (together with Phurba Tashi) still holds the Everest record with 21 ascents – wanted to take the ashes to the 8850 meter-high summit. The plan failed because of the veto of the lamas. The spiritual Buddhist teachers warned that it was “inauspicious” to scatter ashes at a holy place. This much is certain: The Hillary Stupa above Khumjung is certainly a quieter place than the summit of Mount Everest.