Kevin Walker

This is the Khumbu Icefall on Mt Everest, one of the most dangerous sections of the standard route to the world’s highest peak. But there is another danger unfolding here. What was once a landscape locked in ice is changing before our eyes. Meltwater streams now run through parts of the glacier that remained frozen for generations, showing just how quickly conditions in the high Himalayas are changing. The Himalaya is often called the “Water Tower of Asia,” with its snow and glaciers helping provide freshwater to nearly two billion people. Scientists warn that even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C, around one-third of the region’s glacier volume could disappear by 2100. This is not simply about losing ice or changing the appearance of our mountains. The consequences eventually travel downstream, reaching villages, farmland, infrastructure and millions of people who depend on Himalayan rivers. The recent Bhote Koshi disaster brought that reality painfully close to home. Lives were lost, communities were devastated, and families were left searching for loved ones. It reminded us that changes taking place thousands of metres above us can have consequences far beyond the mountains. What happens to Himalayan glaciers does not stay in the Himalayas. Video ©: Pega Sherpa.

A tragic turn of events has unfolded on Mount Makalu (8,463 m), the world’s fifth-highest mountain, where a Sherpa climber has lost his life and an Iranian climber remains missing following a summit push by a team from Makalu Adventure. According to available information, Phurba Ongel Sherpa lost his life after falling from above Camp IV at approximately 7,500 meters during his descent. meanwhile, Iranian climber Abolfazl Gozali went missing near Camp IV while descending. The summit was attained on Thursday, 15 January, 2026, in two separate waves. Sanu Sherpa and Abolfazl Gozali reached the top at 10:27 local time, followed a few hours later by Phurba Ongel Sherpa and another Sherpa climber. The incidents occurred during the descent. Sources report that while descending near Camp IV, Sanu Sherpa observed Phurba Ongel Sherpa in trouble above. Sanu instructed Gozali to stay put and went to help. Upon returning from the fall site, Sanu discovered that Gozali had disappeared. Sanu Sherpa is now back at Base Camp and actively involved in coordinating search and rescue efforts. Details to follow.

Disheartening to see the accumulation of garbage at Camp IV on Mt #Everest (8848.86 m), where human life mostly depends on supplementary oxygen, the mountain itself is being left to suffocate beneath our waste. The garbage accumulating at the highest camps reflects a deeper failure of responsibility. In our race for higher summits, we are neglecting our duty to the very mountain that carries our ambitions. This cannot continue. Protecting Sagarmatha is not optional—it is an obligation. To nature. To future generations. To the values we claim to uphold. It’s time to demand stricter regulations, enforce clean climbing practices, and commit to real waste management on Everest. Because the world’s highest mountain deserves more than our silence. Video ©: @poornimashresth, 24.05.2024.

On This Day, Aug 13, 1995, Alison Hargreaves Disappeared in a Storm on K2. In the summer of 1995, high on the icy flanks of K2, the world’s second-highest and most dangerous mountain, a storm was gathering. And within it stood Alison Hargreaves — a British mountaineer who had already redefined what was possible. Just months earlier, she had stunned the climbing world by summiting Everest solo, without Sherpa support or supplemental oxygen. No women had ever done it before like her. Now, she was on K2, alone again. A mother of two, she was often criticized not for her risks, but for daring to take them while being a mother. Still, she climbed — not for fame, but because the mountains were a part of her soul. On August 13, 1995, she reached the summit of K2. But as she descended, the sky turned. A fierce storm tore across the mountain. Winds howled at 160 km/h. Avalanches thundered. Alison was last seen alive below the summit. Then, nothing. She vanished into the storm — her body never found. K2 took her. Back home in Scotland, a six-year-old boy named Tom Ballard waited. That boy would grow up not just in her shadow, but in her spirit. Years passed. Tom became a climber — bold, gifted, obsessed with alpine purity, just like his mother. In 2015, he made history by solo-climbing the six great north faces of the Alps in a single winter season. The mountains were calling him, too. Then he came to Nanga Parbat in 2019. One of the most lethal peaks in the Himalayas. Tom joined Italian climber Daniele Nardi for a winter ascent via the Mummery Spur — an uncompleted dream. They disappeared in February. Days turned to weeks. Hope faded. On March 9, their bodies were spotted by Spanish climber Alex Txikon and team, high on the face. Mother and son. Twenty-four years apart. Two souls who lived and died in the thin air. Alison on K2, Tom on Nanga Parbat. The mountains united them in life — and claimed them in death. But they are not stories of loss alone. They are stories of love, obsession, and a deep, rare kind of freedom — the kind found only above the clouds, where the world falls away and the sky becomes your final horizon. Photo Showing Alison Hargreaves in October 1988, holding her son Tom Ballard at Black Rock, overlooking the Derbyshire countryside. Courtesy: Phil O Brien.