I took this video while descending from the summit of Mt Everest (8,848.86 m) and approaching Everest Base Camp on 22 May 2026. Crossing the Khumbu Icefall has always meant navigating collapsing seracs, shifting ladders, and deep crevasses, but now another danger is rapidly appearing across the glacier: newly formed meltwater streams flowing through the ice itself. This did not feel like the Everest I first knew. It felt like witnessing the meltdown of the world’s highest mountain. During the 2026 Everest season, I walked beneath the Khumbu Icefall and felt something deeply unsettling. The mountain no longer looked frozen and permanent. It looked fragile. It looked wounded. Scientists have repeatedly warned that the Himalaya is warming faster than the global average. Study after study shows Himalayan glaciers are melting at an accelerating rate due to rising global temperatures caused by climate change. Some research suggests glaciers across the Hindu Kush–Himalaya region have lost ice significantly faster in recent decades than they did during the previous centuries. If global warming continues unchecked, experts warn that up to one-third, and potentially far more, of Himalayan glacier ice could disappear by the end of this century. What I witnessed on Everest no longer feels distant or theoretical. The warning signs are already here. The ice beneath climbers’ feet is changing. Meltwater is flowing through places that were once permanently frozen. Ancient bodies trapped beneath glaciers are reappearing. Seracs are becoming more unstable. Entire sections of the mountain feel more unpredictable than ever before. For millions of people across Asia, this is not only about mountaineering. The Himalaya is often called the “Third Pole” because it stores one of the world’s largest reserves of ice outside the Arctic and Antarctica. These glaciers feed rivers that support nearly two billion people downstream. What happens here will eventually affect water, food, disasters, and survival far beyond the mountains themselves. As a mountaineer moments like this deeply affect me. We come to these mountains chasing dreams, and summits, but the mountains are now showing us their pain through melting ice, unstable glaciers, collapsing seracs, and silence. Everest is speaking to humanity through this meltdown. The question is whether the world will finally listen before these warnings become irreversible.