Khumbu Glacier

And what happened was I had the kumbu cough.

And the Khumbu cough is because you're in the Khumbu Glacier, Khumbu Valley, where the Khumbu Glacier is.

That glacier at points are about a thousand feet thick.

And because of global warming, it is receding.

In the same area, large vultures were seen soaring at 25,000 feet, and an eagle carcass was found at 26,000 feet.

The expedition to Mount Everest in 1952 found skeletons of a northern pintail and a black-tailed godwit at 16,400 feet on Khumbu Glacier.

Bar-headed geese have been observed flying over the highest peaks, 29,000 feet plus, even though a 10,000-foot pass was nearby.

Probably at least 30 species regularly cross these high passes.

And some of that melting is caused by urine.

6,000 liters of urine from climbers and guides every single day, much of which they pee directly onto the Khumbu Glacier.

I guess it's too much to ask these people to just try and hold it.

So the scientists are suggesting that Base Camp be relocated away from the glacier.

In the lead-up to the summit attempt, there was precipitation each day.

Not much, but because it was warm, clouds formed over the Khumbu glacier, with daily precipitation around noon.

So, I used the time to help acclimatize.

Going up to Camp 2, and spending time on the glacier.

We will say that there are some videos, but a lot of what we're seeing is real and it just doesn't look real it's crazy to see and these glaciers by the way came off the himalayas which are some of in our minds the mightiest and toughest on earth you know like over 17 000 feet of elevation and you'd mentioned climate scientists are attributing potentially warming that's happening in those glaciers and causing the melt and collapse that's a problem right that we're may we may continue

to see in other areas of the world i mean same mountain range that mount everest is and i have interviewed scientists that are looking at the Khumbu Glacier, which is on Mount Everest and how it's changing and how it's going to be hugely impactful, not just the tourism and people hiking Mount Everest, but the people that live there.

Those are the people that are really impacted by this.

So our hearts go out to them.

You'll walk through the Khumbu Valley, passing through places like Namche Bazaar, Tengboche, Dingboche, Lobuche, and Gorak Shep before you eventually reach the base camp of Everest at around five and a half thousand meters.

The trek finishes beside the Khumbu Glacier, and when you look further up the valley, you can see this huge jumble of broken ice rising above the camp.

It looks almost as though somebody has taken a frozen ocean and lifted it into the air and then dropped it back down on the mountain.

There are ridges, crevasses, and ice towers that lean at strange angles, and some of the blocks are the size of houses.

It's moving.

Although most of that time, that movement is slow enough that you can't physically stand there and watch it happening.

As the Khumbu Glacier flows down from the Western Cwm, it reaches a steep section above the Everest Base Camp.

That ice is being forced downhill over uneven ground, and as it moves, it bends, cracks, and breaks apart.