upon reaching the hillary step (), the climbers again discovered that no fixed line had been placed, and they were forced to wait an hour while the guides installed the ropes. because some 33 climbers were attempting the summit on the same day, and hall and fischer had asked their climbers to stay within of each other, there was a bottleneck at the single fixed line at the hillary step. hutchison, kasischke, and taske returned towards camp iv as they feared they would run out of supplementary oxygen due to the delays.