Nine Days Apart, Two Climbers Died on the Most Photographed Mountain in the Himalaya

Hong Khy Park collapsed between Camp 1 and Camp 2 on Ama Dablam on the morning of October 26, 2025, descending with five other climbers after a summit push. He was 66, from South Korea. Nine days earlier, French climber Hugo Lucio Colonia Lazaro, 65, had been struck in the head by falling ice while descending the same mountain; he was evacuated by helicopter to Kathmandu, where he later died. Two deaths, nine days apart, on the single most photographed mountain in the Himalaya.

Nicknamed the 'Matterhorn of the Himalaya' for its knife-edged silhouette, Ama Dablam is one of the most recognisable peaks on Earth — and one most trekkers see only from below, from the trail through the Khumbu on the way to Everest Base Camp. That visibility is exactly why it draws climbers who have trekked the region once and want to come back for something harder: it looks close, it looks climbable, and the standard route is genuinely one of the more aesthetic technical lines in the Himalaya. It is also serious terrain — steep ice, exposed rock bands, and camps pitched on narrow ledges with little room for error on the descent, which is where both October 2025 deaths occurred.

Both men were experienced enough to be on the mountain in the first place — Ama Dablam is not an entry-level objective, and its standard route assumes prior technical climbing experience. Both died descending, not ascending, which mirrors a pattern seen across high-altitude mountaineering generally: fatigue, dehydration and the accumulated effects of days at altitude tend to catch up on the way down, after the focus of the summit push has passed. Falling ice and sudden collapse are also part of the mountain's character — the loose rock and hanging ice that give Ama Dablam its dramatic shape are the same features that make its ridgelines dangerous.

What this means for trekkers

For trekkers who do eventually want to progress to technical climbing, Ama Dablam's October 2025 season is a case study in why the jump from trekking to mountaineering deserves real preparation: ice and rock skills, a guide who knows that season's specific route conditions, and a realistic conversation about what descent looks like on tired legs at 6,000 metres, not just the ascent.

Source: The Kathmandu Post

Cover photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).