Climbers have to navigate thick traffic jams, a filthy, sprawling base camp — and increasingly, death — while trying to get to the world’s highest Instagram hot spot, New York Post reported, highlighting the rising craze among mountain climbers to ascend to the world's highest peak.

The climbing to the top of Everest is once again in focus after two missing climbers were believed to have died this week after part of an icy ridge collapsed.

Social media videos now show a long queue of climbers waiting to reach the top, a visual of what can be described as a 'traffic jam', following the possible death of the two mountaineers.

British climber Daniel Paterson, 39, and his Nepali guide Pas Tenji Sherpa, 23, were dragged down the side of the mountain after a chunk of hardened snow overhanging the edge of a cliff suddenly fell, reported New York Post.

In another incident, Kenyan climber Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui, 40, was found dead while his assistant guide  Nawang Sherpa, 44, remained missing since they vanished last Wednesday.

One X user The Northerner explained the state of Everest right now when he posed on X: "Everest; the highest, the dirtiest and the most controversial place on Earth. Humans bypassing corpses, leaving people dying, ignoring help cries, making it dirtiest place with pollution & human wastes ; all for the glory of summit. When will it stop?!"

Climber Rajan Dwivedi shared the clip of a Everest traffic jam on Instagram and wrote: "Mt. Everest is not a joke and in fact, quite a serious climb esp. three sections 1) Khumbu Icefalls 2) C3 to C4 and 3) C4 to Summit during the entire night in the death zone in the frigid air! Approx 500 climbers, amateurs and inexperienced ones all over the world attempt it for its glory! Probably 250-300 succeed. I believe so far ~7,000 have summited since 1st ascent in May 1953."

"Many end up with frost bites, snow blindness and various type of injuries that are not counted in any database. This video captured shows what we face on one rope line and negotiating interchanges during the traffic for upstream and downstream! The main reason is weather window to avoid the fierce cruising jet streams that could be 100-240mph!! For me, coming down was a nightmare and exhausting while huge line of climbers were coming up to maximize on the weather window!!!" he said.