GQ:

For much of the year, climbing Everest is an impossible idea. But each May the roaring jet stream that torments the mountain subsides just enough to allow alpinists a shot at reaching the top. Should the weather suddenly turn, the results are often deadly.

On May 22—the day before Grubhofer reached the top—a long line near the summit had already begun to form. One of those pinned in the throng was a Nepali climber named Nirmal Purja. That morning, Purja snapped a photo of the chaos. The picture showed a near unprecedented traffic jam on the popular southern side: a column of hundreds of climbers snaking along the knifelike summit ridge toward the Hillary Step, the last obstacle before the top, packed jacket-to-jacket as if they were queued up for a ski lift in Vail. The image rocketed around the world and, as the events on the mountain were still developing, raised an urgent question: What the hell is going on atop Mount Everest?

I’m glad I’m nowhere near fit enough or interested enough or wealthy enough to try to climb Everest.