11 die on 'overcrowded' Mount Everest

Another mountaineer has died after while attempting to reach the summit of Mount Everest, bringing the death toll for the 2019 climbing season to 11 people.

American attorney Christopher Kulish died on Monday after reaching the top of Everest on the Nepalese side of the mountain in the morning, Meera Acharya, the Director of Nepal's Tourism Department told CNN.

Also on Monday, an Austrian family confirmed the death of one of their relatives. 64-year-old Ernst Landgraf died on Thursday, hours after fulfilling his dream of scaling Everest, according to his obituary and funeral announcement placed by his family.

An Australian man is recovering in a Nepalese hospital after he was discovered unconscious on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest.

Chinese media reported that the Australian climber was found by Tibetan rescuers on the northern slopes of Mount Everest on Wednesday, at an altitude of 7,500 metres.

Hiking officials attributed most of the deaths to weakness, exhaustion and delays on the crowded route to the 8,850-metre summit.

With some recent days seeing in excess of 100 climbers reaching the top of the world's highest mountain, difficult weather conditions, a lack of experience and the growing commercialisation of expeditions is seen contributing to significant overcrowding on its slopes.

Former British soldier Nirmal Purja shared a photograph of the long queue to the summit on Twitter, showing exactly how crowded routes to the top of the Himalayan mountain can become during the short climbing season.

Nepal has issued permits to 379 climbers on Mount Everest in the season, which ends this month.

However, a window of clear weather after a period of poor conditions has seen large numbers of climbers attempt to reach the summit in the past week, leading to exhaustion, dehydration and death.

Krishma Poudel, of Nepali mountaineering company Peak Promotion, told NBC of the dangers of congestion on the peak.

She advised "before you reach the summit, you have to wait and every minute counts at the height.

"You've been walking since 8am the day before without eating or a proper rest and exposed to that temperature, there's a high risk of being frostbitten and hypothermia."

Mountain guide Adrian Ballinger told CNN many see Everest as the "ultimate challenge" but the problem he has seen is the "lower level of experience of the climbers trying to come here and also of the companies that are trying to offer services on the mountain.

"That lack of experience, both with the commercial operators and the climbers themselves, is causing these images we see where people make bad decisions, get themselves in trouble up high and end up having unnecessary fatalities."

Ballinger explained that seasoned climbers call any part of the mountain above 7,900 metres "the death zone," adding that "humans just really aren't meant to exist there."

He explained "even when using bottled oxygen, supplemental oxygen, there's only a very few number of hours that we can actually survive up there before our bodies start to shut down. So that means if you get caught in a traffic jam above 26,000 feet (7,900 metres) ... the consequences can be really severe.”

Veteran climber David Morton spoke to CNN from base camp on the Tibetan side of the peak having just descended after getting around 100 meters from the summit for a research project.

He explained "the major problem is inexperience, not only of the climbers that are on the mountain but also the operators supporting those climbers.

"Everest is primarily a very complicated logistical puzzle and I think when you have a lot of inexperienced operators as well inexperienced climbers along with, particularly, the Nepal government not putting some limitations on the numbers of people, you have a prime recipe for these sorts of situations happening."

Morton said he had gone up the mountain from the Tibetan side, where the Chinese Government has put limitations on numbers.

He added "we were up just 100 metres below the summit on the 24th on a beautiful day and there were maybe 30 or 40 people going to the summit from the Tibet side, the north side. It was a completely different dynamic.”

Morton feels it is time for operators to be certified to organise trips up the mountain, explaining "I think then those outfitters can be the ones that are responsible for vetting the clients that they're bringing on the mountain.”

More than 200 mountaineers have died on the peak since 1922, when the first climbers' deaths on Everest were recorded. The majority of bodies are believed to have remained buried under glaciers or snow.

Images: A photograph taken on 22nd May 2019 and released by climber Nirmal Purja’s Project Possible expedition shows heavy traffic of mountain climbers lining up to stand at the summit of Mount Everest (top) and an Australian climber being rescued on the mountain's Tibetan side last on Wednesday (below, courtesy of the China Daily).