Climber Nirmal Purja posted this photo on Facebook early on May 23. It shows a dense line of climbers on their way to the Hillary Step and then the summit. “I summited everest at 5:30 am and lhotse 3:45 pm despite of [sic] the heavy traffic (roughly 320 people),” wrote Purja, who is currently attempting to climb all 14 of the Himalayas’ 8,000-meter peaks in a single season.
The photo was quickly disseminated by other social media users who couldn’t believe what it depicted, with comments like “I can’t believe this photo from Mount Everest 2019 is real, but apparently it is,” and “this looks like a lot of fun and totally normal and not at all fucked.”