Is it there, or has it gone? The Hillary Step, a feature like a serrated knife near the very top of Mt Everest, has had the mountaineering community arguing all week after British mountaineer Tim Mosedale claimed it was gone.
It is thought the step, the last great challenge on the way to the top, could have been changed in a 2015 earthquake.
Mountaineers approach the Hillary Step, which is considered the last great challenge on the way to the top of Mt Everest. Photo: AFP
Listen to the whole interview with Peter Hillary
The near-vertical 12m rocky outcrop on the mountain's southeast ridge was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first to scale the world's highest mountain in 1953.
Mr Mosedale posted on Facebook after scaling the mountain last week that the feature was "no more".
Tim Mosedale's post on 17 May on Facebook Photo: Facebook / Tim Mosedale
But two Nepalese climbers later said that was not true.
Nepal Mountaineering Association chairman Ang Tshering Sherpa told The Guardian the Hillary Step was intact, and just covered in more snow than usual.
Another climber, Pasang Tenzing Sherpa, told the newspaper the confusion might be due to mountaineers approaching the step from different sides.
Sir Edmund's son, Peter Hillary, who has summited the peak himself, has just returned from Nepal, where he has been filming.
The amount of snow on the ridge made it difficult to check whether the feature had actually changed, he told Morning Report.
"When I look at photographs of the way it currently is, even with a cloak of snow on it, and the previous one, it does look like a large block may have in fact fallen off ... In other words, the Hillary Step is still there, but it may have changed."
He could see some pale-coloured rock where the detachment might have occurred.
Mr Hillary said he would expect confirmation once the snow cleared, which could happen as quickly as a matter of days, and the current season of climbers had a chance to assess it.
"The Hillary Step always was a jumble of fractured, partially metamorphosed limestone, jutting up there to the summit of the world's highest mountain," he said.
"You get a violent earthquake and subsequent events, blocks fall off ... things change."
The current situation, with the snow covering the feature, did look like it would make that part of the climb a bit easier, he said.