icefall

The Khumbu Icefall at the bottom is one of the most dangerous stretches, since it moves, giant seracs can collapse, etc.

We also had the pleasure of hearing and witnessing a huge icefall off one of the faces of Mt.

The Khumbu icefall or the Hillary step are challenging, but nowhere near as treacherous.

Also, even at a macro / organizational level, completely new routes are tried (explored!), and the route through the Khumbu Icefall changes every year.

For example, the Khumbu Icefall is a fast moving glacier with many crevasses and ice towers, and has a habit of hosting avalanches and falling ice towers.

Looks like there's a few on the icefall.

I also agree that big icefall triggered avalanches like you describe are a different sort than what weekend warriors like me encounter in the US, where the vast majority of dangerous slides are triggered by humans.

You have to be in decent shape, have some climbing experience, not be afraid of heights crossing those scary icefall ladders, and have a huge tolerance for discomfort to make it to the top.

The last couple years before 2019-20 saw a great deal of icefall around March, as well as the arctic vortices where we got down to -20 degress F, which were a bit odd but not crazy, but this last winter was very strange in how unbelievably warm it was, and I've never seen it like that.

The ice field just above Base Camp (which, wow, look at all those tents) is the Khumbu Icefall, which climbers must scale to en route to the South Col.

I guess I could brag if I doped myself, took a helicopter past the Khumbu Icefall, and had servants carrying my stuff the whole way to the summit, but I could never be proud of myself for doing that.

I was working in C++ on OS/2 at the time when a resource editor was hard to find and that chasm from the command line to the GUI was what made the jump to commercial software development feel like the Khumbu Icefall.