Hillary Step Gone?

The iconic step is reportedly no longer there after the quakes.

I saw this, pretty incredible.

Link?

Can't find anything saying it's gone but I did read that they set a route to the top for the first time in 2 years. They said it took a while to get up Hillary step because of snow and ice.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36269446

BBC doesn't go in to details but cites "difficult climbing conditions".

According to recent summiters, the climbing is easier.

mobile.twitter.com/crpokhre…

m.facebook.com/story.php?st…;id=517699171

Holy crap- That is a major bummer.

Replaced by the Trump Tower

http://4sport.ua/news?id=25517

If you look at the Russian page you can see that the zoom factor is different on those two shots from the tweet. Although it does look different, it does not appear to have collapsed.

From the translation of the Russian page. Although the third sentence seems to say "yes it did collapse" in the context of the remainder of the paragraph it really does appear like it's just snow.

"Every year falls a different number snow. Do not panic. Step Hilary collapsed during the earthquake. Just this year, she dusted with snow. You can compare the pictures. in fact, 2016 is not the only one, when Hillary Step sweeps snow so that some climbers perceive this fact as its collapse, but in fact the stage is still there ... hidden under a thick layer of snow, " to confirm his words, Simone is also a photograph of an analysis of boulders on the Hillary Steps (arrows indicate the same point):"

I know this thread is almost a year old, but I was poking around looking for pictures of the Hillary Step that were taken from the same location that Tim Mosedale took this year and I found one.  I overlaid them an made a little video.  I circled 3 prominent rock features to show the images are basically the same perspective.   What does everyone here think?  I think it's gone....    

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Waj0RPdrk&feature=youtu.be

Enjoy!!!