Mount Everest is straining under our weight. Time to dump the bucket list | Philip Hoare
Reports of damage to the Hillary Step, the major challenge before the summit, remind us that we do not own awesome places, whatever names we give them
It’s a scene from one of John Martin’s apocalyptic paintings. Or a modern disaster movie. But this isn’t CGI. Everest may have begun to collapse, as if under the collective weight of its explorers.
Or so it seems. Reports that the rocky outcrop Hillary Step, named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who first climbed the mountain , may have been destroyed during the Nepal earthquake of 2015 (although it’s just been buried under snow), speak to our desire to extend our human
