The icefall doctors
Every spring, before any climbing team sets foot on Everest, a small crew of Sherpa climbers has already been up and down the Khumbu Icefall dozens of times. They are the Icefall Doctors, and the route through the most dangerous kilometre on the mountain exists because of them. They carry aluminium ladders across crevasses that can swallow a person whole, fix ropes through a glacier that moves about a metre downhill every day, and return every few days to rebuild what the ice has shifted or collapsed. The name is not official and it is not ancient: it was coined relatively recently, and the story of how it stuck says something about how Everest operates. This post traces that history: who the Icefall Doctors are, how the role is organised, what they are paid, what gear they carry, and why the work is as respected as it is dangerous. If you have ever looked at a photograph of ladders strung across a blue-white void and wondered who put them there, this is the answer.