in the spring of 2012 , more than a month into the climbing season , he became increasingly worried about a bulge of glacial ice three hundred yards wide that was frozen tenuously to everest ’s west shoulder , hanging like a massive sword of damocles directly over the main route up the nepal side of the mountain .
annual fatality rates by profession number of sherpas killed on everest by year to do that , we wanted to know the fatality rates per 100,000 full - time equivalents .
one day , brice timed how long it took his head guide , adrian ballinger ( “ who is incredibly fast , ” he wrote in the blog post excerpted below ) , to climb through the most hazardous terrain : adding to brice ’s concern ,
but figuring out how many hours sherpas work each season took some legwork — sherpas do n't punch in and out like miners do , and employers are n't paying them by the hour .
by now , everyone has seen the startling photos and video of the conga line of climbers ascending everest underscore its problems with overcrowding and unstable weather and geography , writes nick heil .
but we consulted with guides , outfitters , and sherpas repeatedly had to climb beneath the threatening ice bulge as they moved up and down the mountain to acclimatize and establish a series of higher camps necessary for their summit assault .
the images , from just a few days ago , show as many as 300 mountaineers moving between camp 3 , on the lhotse face , to camp 4 , on the south col .
if you ’ ve ever wondered what a human traffic jam looks like at the roof of the world , there it is , in all its goose - down glory .