A skier in an orange suit and helmet is descending a steep, snow-covered slope at night, using ski poles for balance. The skier carries a backpack and leaves a trail in the snow, with a dark sky and shadowy mountains in the background.

Summit Push Begins on Everest’s North Side

Anano Atabegashvili | October 10, 2025
Himalaya, 8000m, News
A skier in an orange suit and helmet is descending a steep, snow-covered slope at night, using ski poles for balance. The skier carries a backpack and leaves a trail in the snow, with a dark sky and shadowy mountains in the background.

Photo: Jim Morrison Facebook

After weeks of preparation and waiting for a perfect weather window, climbers on Everest’s North Side have launched their long-awaited autumn summit push. Among them stands one of the most ambitious and emotional expeditions of the season – Jim Morrison’s attempt to ski from the summit down the legendary Hornbein Couloir, alongside Oscar-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin.

For Morrison, this climb is more than a pursuit of alpine excellence – it’s an act of remembrance. His late partner, the world-renowned ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson, lost her life on Manaslu in 2022 during a ski descent. This Everest expedition is both a continuation of their shared dream and a heartfelt tribute to her legacy.

According to sources, Morrison plans to make a last attempt to ski down from the northern side of Everest’s summit as the weather forecast indicates a favorable summit window – around October 12-14. Support teams have now established Camp II, and rope fixing has begun higher on the route – critical steps before any summit attempt. Morrison and his crew are currently stationed at Base Camp, monitoring the weather closely before they move higher. As TheTourismTimes reports, Jimmy Chin and his film crew have been setting up logistics to capture every phase of this climb for a National Geographic and The North Face documentary project.

Morrison’s goal is extraordinary – a full ski descent from Everest’s 8,848-meter summit via the Hornbein Couloir, a line so steep, icy, and exposed that it has only been climbed a handful of times, and almost never skied. The Hornbein Couloir, cutting down the mountain’s north face, is one of the most dangerous routes on Everest. It demands not just climbing expertise, but absolute precision on skis at extreme altitude, where thin air, exhaustion, and cold magnify every movement into a life-or-death calculation. The Hornbein Couloir, cutting down the mountain’s north face, is one of the most dangerous routes on Everest. It demands not just climbing expertise, but absolute precision on skis at extreme altitude, where thin air, exhaustion, and cold magnify every movement into a life-or-death calculation.

Jimmy Chin – Morrison’s longtime climbing partner and co-director of Free Solo – joins him not only as a fellow alpinist but as the visual chronicler of this emotional return. Together, they aim to document not only the climb but the deeper human story behind it – love, loss, and the relentless call of the mountains. Their collaboration with National Geographic and The North Face adds scale and visibility to the project, but for Morrison, the essence of this journey remains intimate: to honor Hilaree Nelson, and to bring their shared dream full circle on the world’s highest peak.

As the jet stream shifts and the season’s first stable weather window approaches, climbers are resting, acclimatizing, and preparing for the final push. On the north face of Everest, where the air is razor-thin and silence reigns, Morrison’s team waits – poised between memory and history.

If successful, this would mark the first known complete ski descent via the Hornbein Couloir, adding an extraordinary chapter to Everest’s mountaineering legacy.

But whether or not the skis carve all the way from summit to glacier, Morrison’s presence on the mountain already speaks of something far greater – endurance, love, and the eternal pull to finish what two hearts once began together.