The Blue Ice of Mt. Everest

Snow and ice formations around the base of Mt. Everest are mysterious and forboding, but the most curious and daring explorers of our time have gained insight that perhaps mankind was never meant to have. The great valley (or cwm) formed between the steep slopes of Mt. Everest, Lohtse and Nuptse forms a great funnel to collect uncounted years of snow accumulation. Each year, especially during the summer months of heavy precipitaion, a great deal of snow builds up in the cwm, and though much of it melts and seeps below, great layers build up and compact, pushing with immense force below. This force moves the great blocks of snow and ice down to slowly gush over the Khumbu Ice Fall in a fascinating, slow-motion cascade below to where the Everest base camp is situated. The ice pack reaches hundreds of feet deep, and as the massive form shift it opens great crevasses like gaping jaws. It can also grind them shut to entomb anything (or anyone) that falls inside.

Much of the thick, ancient ice at the base of Mt. Everest has a faint blue tint. As the permanent ice passes through warmer and cooler seasons it repeatedly thaws and refreezes. After following that cycle the air bubble bleed out and the crystaline structure of the ice shifts to absorb more of the red color in the spectrum of sunlight. The blue ice is greatly compacted and hard, so it is difficult for climbers to pass. In the glacier terrain hikers usually place "crampons" or spiky cleets on their boots to get better traction in the ice and snow. Naturally, with so much loose and unstable snow packed on the solid and slippery ice there is also a lot of unpredictable avalanche activity. The most dangerous conditions are in the summer when there has been a lot of warmer, wetter snow piled on melting ice. The heavy snow loses traction and great sheets of snow can slip and case a tumbling slide down a slope or along the glacier. Even though it is miserably cold in the deep winter, climbers prefer that time because the ice and snow are frozen more solid and are less prone to showing much activity.