The Everest Horse Shoe begins with the West Shoulder, runs over the summit of Everest down to the South Col, over Lhotse and continues over the ridge and various summits of Nuptse. It encloses the Western Cwm. The Glacier of the Western Cwm falls down towards base camp via the Khumbu Ice Fall. This is a complex flow of ice, parts of which look like someone has emptied a carton of giant, office size sugar cubes down a stairwell. It comprises loose blocks, ice cliffs and deep crevasses. All these have to be crossed in the least dangerous possible way. A route that passes under an ice cliff that is evidently about to collapse, for example, should be unacceptable. The route is fixed with rope and aluminium ladders are used to bridge crevasses and surmount ice cliffs.

During the period from the first ascent in 1953 to the late 80s the few expeditions that came this way fixed the Ice Fall themselves, collaborating with any other expeditions that happened to be around.
The first commercial trips (with clients and mountain guides) probably started with Rob Hall's Adventure Consultants (NZ) in the early 90s.
AAI (USA) joined the fun in 1993. By 1994 these two were joined by Himalayan Guides, though there were still several strong amateurs such as Alison Hargreaves and and Erhart Loretan on the South side that year. In that year the Nepalese firm of Thamserku fixed the route through the Ice Fall. The expeditions continued to fix the Ice Fall (sometimes in collaboration with the others) the leaders arriving weeks early to do the work.

Fixing the route was cooperation tinged with anarchy. This did not go unnoticed by Mal Duff (UK) who, together with Henry Todd (UK) of Himalayan Guides, began the fixing of the Ice Fall by just one organisation. They used the experienced Sherpas Nima (Dingboche) and Gylazin (Pangboche). These two were their "Ice Fall Doctors".

In 1997 Mal Duff died of unknown causes at base camp, leaving the organising to Himalayan Guides, who continued "managing" the Ice Fall until 1999. In 2000 the Nepalese Government gave the job of fixing the Ice Fall to the NGO, the SPCC (Sagarmartha pollution Control Committee), who have fixed the route to date. The main Ice Fall Doctors were now Nima and another Gyalzin from Namche. By 2004 they were joined by Ang Kami and Nawang Nuru. The SPCC raised a charge of around 3k USD per expedition for the fixing of the Ice Fall, and the fee is quite separate from the climbing permit cost of 10k USD per expedition member. Over the last 7 years the number of expeditions has steadily risen and there are around 20 expeditions here this year. So the total cash raised by the Ice Fall Fee is around 60k USD. This is significant because that is quite a lot more than is evidently being spent on making the Ice Fall route a safe one.

The job of the Ice Fall Doctor is not only to establish a safe route through the Ice Fall, but also to maintain the route which changes on a daily basis (remember this is a moving glacier, the blocks shift continually, new crevasses open up and ice cliffs collapse). They also need to replace the 10 or so ladders lost every year. (About 60 or 70 are needed in any one year).

This is not to blame the Ice Fall Doctors in person, but to point out the lack of funding for their job. Nevertheless there has been increasing criticism of the route choice over the last two years. Our names for the parts speak for themselves... part of the route this year passes unnecessarily under London Bridge (an unstable block of ice the size of a sea container), the Boulder of Damacles (a barely attached block the size of a garage) and Darwin Award Corner (you guess why!).

When the expeditions themselves fixed the Ice Fall there was an element of control and management by the users, and this is what seems to be missing now. We appear to have no say in the safety of our route.

The gist of Guy's letter then is the SPCC should be able to easily afford to employ more Ice Fall Doctors to safely maintain and revise the route. It would be hard to disagree.