Hillary Step

[9] The Hillary Step has claimed its share of lives, due to its strenuous conditions and unpredictable, rapidly changing weather.

Author Anatoli Boukreev found the body of Bruce Herrod hanging from ropes at the base of the step in 1996, according to his book The Climb.

[10] The step was closed during the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition by the First Assault Party of Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans when they reached the South Summit on 26 May at 13:00, too late to continue on.

[13] In his 1953 account of summiting Everest he wrote:[14] In more recent years, the ascent and descent over the Step were generally made with the assistance of fixed ropes, usually placed there by the first ascending team of the season.

Before 2015, the descending sequence along Everest's southeast ridge was:[clarify][3][9] It was suspected in 2016 that the April 2015 Nepal earthquake had altered the Hillary Step, but there was so much snow it was not clear whether it had truly changed.

[28][29] However, some important Nepalese climbers, including Ang Tshering Sherpa, chairman of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, reported that the Step was still intact but covered in more snow than before.

[4] Later in 2017, mountaineering guide and trained photographer Lhakpa Rangdu mounted a photo exhibition at the Nepal Tourism Board showing how the Hillary Step area had changed.

The Hillary Step (with two climbers on it) on the ridge leading up to the summit (2010 photo)
An uncropped view of the previous picture, looking up along the southern ridge line. The face of the snow-covered step is visible with two climbers on it. The face in shadow on the left is the South-West face, and in the light to the right is the top of the East/Kangshung face.
In this pre-2015 view of Mount Everest, the high point is the summit; to the right of the summit, the southeast ridge slopes down to the Hillary Step, and then rises up to the South Summit. This is looking at the Step from the West looking east to its side