Huge chunk of glacier blocks Everest route in peak climbing season

A huge, unstable chunk of glacier is blocking the route up Mount Everest from Base Camp in Nepal just as peak climbing season gets under way in the Himalayas.

"Icefall doctors" – who fix ropes and ladders on the lower part of the route up the world's highest peak - can find no way round the 100-foot-high (30m) block of ice just under Camp 1.

They say the only option is to wait for the ice block, called a serac, to melt – which they hope will happen within days.

The delay means preparations are weeks behind schedule for the spring season when weather for Everest ascents is usually best, and fears are growing that climbers will be queuing to reach the summit again this year.

Purnima Shrestha, a prominent climber and photographer from Nepal, is currently acclimatising to summit Everest for the sixth time.

"We usually climb between Camp I, Camp 2 and Camp 3 back and forth during this acclimatising process. Delays in the opening of the route have added concerns of possible 'traffic jams' to the peak this year," she told the BBC from Base Camp.

The icefall doctors work for the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) that is responsible for securing ropes as far as Camp 2 on Everest, which stands 8,848.86m (29,031 feet) above sea level. They reached Base Camp three weeks ago.

By this stage in April they would normally have fixed the route as far as Camp 3, but are still blocked by the chunk of glacier about 600m below Camp 1.

"We haven't found artificial ways to melt it so far, so we don't have any options other than to wait for it melting and crumbling itself," SPCC base camp co-ordinator Tshering Tenzing Sherpa told the BBC.

Ang Sarki Sherpa, who has worked as an icefall doctor for years, said he expected the serac to melt because its lower part was weak.

"We reached it on 10 April. The crevasse below is melting," he said, adding that Sherpas after him said it had melted further and was close to collapsing.

He and other climbers have not seen a way of safely bypassing the serac and say a possible alternative route to Camp 1 would be challenging to put up this year. Scaling the huge serac has been deemed too risky.

"There is no choice. We spent four days touring the area, looking at every place from the mountain to the right and left," Ang Sarki Sherpa said over the phone from Base Camp.

Nepal's Department of Tourism says it's exploring different options, including airlifting teams to Camp 2.

"We are thinking about airlifting the rope-fixing team and their logistics to Camp 2 by helicopter, so they can open the route above that altitude for now," Ram Krishna Lamichhane, the department's director general, said.

"We will wait for the ice to melt at the place where there is an obstruction and work there when everything is safe."

Favourable weather is expected only until the end of May, and with the melting of the ice currently obstructing the route, Sherpas hope the rope-fixing work to Camp 2 will be completed within a few days - and the summit within a week.