Bodies on Everest: Famous Remains, Oldest Body, 2pm Rule

Known deaths: over 300 · Bodies still on mountain: around 200 · Death zone: above 8,000 m · Climbing cost: ~$40,000

The most precise sentence on the controversy comes from BBC Future’s long read on Everest’s dead: the mountain is effectively a graveyard in the clouds.

At least 18 people died on Everest in 2023, making it the deadliest year on record, according to BBC News. The same report cites the Nepal Mountaineering Association’s broader count of what is now a grim statistic: more than 300 deaths have been recorded on the peak since the 1920s.

The New York Times observed that most of the dead are in the “death zone” above 8,000 metres, where the body cannot rest or recover. Many of those bodies remain where they fell, and some are visible to people passing only a few feet away on the North Col route.

The fact that it has become a waypoint rather than a grave is exactly the ethical problem that BBC Future has described. The takeaway: the death count is not simply a number in an almanac.

A rescue or body recovery above 8,000 metres can take days. The Independent reported this lingering debate when it interviewed climbing veterans and members of the Nepal guide community: there is simply no infrastructure to move every frozen body off the upper slopes.

A former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association told the BBC that bodies are becoming more visible as the snow pack retreats, and that recovering them is a multi-week operation at altitudes where helicopters cannot fly.

Which bodies along the route are most famous?

More importantly, many passing climbers describe using the bodies to check their position along the Northeast ridge.

The New York Times has noted that the body is effectively a fixed feature of the route.

She died in 1998 after reaching the summit without bottled oxygen, and her remains rested in the snow, appearing to sleep. BBC Future has described how her body later became a kind of unofficial memorial, although several teams made attempts to move it out of view of the main route.

A Nepalese army officer said bodies and trash are being revealed by the changing snow, but that removing one body would require hours of risky work in the death zone. — The New York Times

Are more bodies being exposed by climate change?

With less snow cover at high elevations, bodies that were once buried are now becoming visible to passing teams, BBC News reported in its 2024 coverage. The changing conditions are also pushing rock and ice down the mountain, exposing gear, clothing and bodies that had not been seen for decades. The New York Times has described how glaciers on both sides of Everest are thinning so fast that bodies on the standard route are emerging like items from a distant era. This process has made the ethical debate more urgent: the mountain is not simply holding its dead; it is slowly pushing them back down to the base of the route. What to watch: as the snow keeps melting, the climbing community expects more bodies to reappear.

Everest operators enforce a simple safety order: a climber who is not on the summit and already turning around by 2 pm must go down, regardless of how close the top might look. A climber who reaches the top after 2 pm may still have to descend through the death zone in the dark. The Independent has noted in its coverage of Everest’s growing crowds, some of the most agonizing deaths on the mountain occur when people press too late in the day. The trade-off: the 2 pm rule is there to prevent exactly what happened on the ridge in 2019 and 2023 — exhausted climbers still heading upward in the fading light, stepping past bodies that were once the same distance from safety.

Most estimates put the number still on the mountain between 100 and 300. The two best-known cases are Green Boots and Sleeping Beauty, but many other bodies lie near the standard ropes and have become unofficial waypoints for passing teams.

Regardless of how close a climber is to the summit, they are supposed to turn around by then and descend. With less snow cover at high elevations, bodies and gear are increasingly visible, and melting glaciers are slowly pushing remains back down the mountain.

Sources

• BBC News — Bodies on Everest and the impact of climate change
• The New York Times — Everest’s Bodies
• BBC Future — The graveyard in the clouds: Everest’s 200 dead bodies
• The Independent — Everest bodies and the debate over recovery