Three Steps

The First Step consists of large boulders that pose a serious obstacle, even for experienced climbers, because of their location high in the Death Zone.

Many mountaineers have died near the First Step, among them "Green Boots", a corpse wearing neon green climbing boots and a red coat, which serves as a somber landmark for climbers to gauge their distance to the top, and which has now been possibly identified as Tsewang Paljor.

The climbing difficulty of this spot was reduced in 1975 when a Chinese team affixed an aluminium ladder to the step that has been used since then by almost all climbers.

The situation became reversed after the communist victory in the Battle of Chamdo; expeditions launched after that had to use the southern approach through Nepal.

It was surmounted in 1960 as part of the first ascent of Mount Everest via the north route, when a shoulder stand was used to climb the last 5 metres (16 ft).

Theo Fritsche, an Austrian, climbed the step in 2001 free solo on-sight and came to a similar conclusion.