Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings and Mysteries
Jun 18, 2026 · 37 min · 14 segments
On April 18th, 2014, a 14,000-tonne block of ice broke free above the Khumbu Icefall and killed sixteen Sherpa guides. It was the deadliest single disaster in Mount Everest's history. What followed…
It's a few minutes past 6:00 on the morning of April 18th, 2014, and the sky above Everest is still dark.
John Reiter, a 49-year-old mountaineer from Northern California, is slowly picking his way through the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest.
Now, this is a part of the mountain that's basically a river of ice that spills off the south side of Everest between base camp and the higher camps above.
It's one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, section of the ascent to Everest's peak.
Around him, he sees headlamps of maybe 50 other climbers that are bouncing and swaying in the dark.
They're roped in, moving in a single-file line through a maze of crevasses and teetering ice towers, some as tall as five-story buildings.
These features are connected by aluminum ladders that are lashed together over gaps that you definitely don't wanna look down into.
He knows that you cross the icefall in the dark before the sun hits, and the whole thing starts to shift and groan as it melts under the sun.
You watch where you step, you definitely don't linger, and you try to not think about all of the ice structures hanging over your head.
But this morning, things were not going to plan, because that morning, there was a bottleneck.
Somewhere ahead of John at a section that the climbers call the popcorn field, it's named for the way the ice blocks bulge and shift like kernels in a popcorn maker, that route is backed up.
A massive section of the ridge above them started breaking away and hurtling straight towards his group.
In the spring of 2014, roughly 34 foreign climbers from 41 countries had been issued permits to attempt Everest, with about 400 Nepali support staff working alongside them.
Sherpas had been making their first load-carrying runs through the Icefall for a few days.
It's a few minutes past 6:00 on the morning of April 18th, 2014, and the sky above Everest is still dark.
John Reiter, a 49-year-old mountaineer from Northern California, is slowly picking his way through the Khumbu Icefall on Mount Everest.
Now, this is a part of the mountain that's basically a river of ice that spills off the south side of Everest between base camp and the higher camps above.
It's one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, section of the ascent to Everest's peak.
Around him, he sees headlamps of maybe 50 other climbers that are bouncing and swaying in the dark.
They're roped in, moving in a single-file line through a maze of crevasses and teetering ice towers, some as tall as five-story buildings.
These features are connected by aluminum ladders that are lashed together over gaps that you definitely don't wanna look down into.
He knows that you cross the icefall in the dark before the sun hits, and the whole thing starts to shift and groan as it melts under the sun.
You watch where you step, you definitely don't linger, and you try to not think about all of the ice structures hanging over your head.
But this morning, things were not going to plan, because that morning, there was a bottleneck.
Somewhere ahead of John at a section that the climbers call the popcorn field, it's named for the way the ice blocks bulge and shift like kernels in a popcorn maker, that route is backed up.
A massive section of the ridge above them started breaking away and hurtling straight towards his group.
In the spring of 2014, roughly 34 foreign climbers from 41 countries had been issued permits to attempt Everest, with about 400 Nepali support staff working alongside them.
Sherpas had been making their first load-carrying runs through the Icefall for a few days.
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