Eerie photograph captures the 'chaos' of Mt Everest's climbing season

Warning: this article contains graphic content.

A macabre photograph has captured the "chaos" of Mt Everest's deadly climbing season.

The picture, taken by adventure filmmaker Elia Saikaly, shows a group of mountaineers climbing over a dead body. 

"Here we are, chasing a dream and beneath our very feet there was a lifeless soul. Is this really what Everest has become?" he wrote on Instagram.

His photograph shows the long line of climbers walking over a rope. Attached to the rope and hanging down the side of the mountain is a frozen corpse. The identity of the body is unknown.

Saikaly told Ottowa Citizen his experience of climbing Everest was harrowing.

"I cannot believe what I saw up there. Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lineups. Dead bodies on the route and in tents at camp 4. People who I tried to turn back who ended up dying. People being dragged down. Walking over bodies."

Eleven people have died on Everest in the past nine days due to difficult weather conditions and overcrowding of routes.

The final Instagram post of one of the climbers who died on the mountain eerily foreshadows his fate. 

Robin Haynes Fisher posted about his concern over the dangers of crowds, saying "With a single route to the summit, delays caused by overcrowding could prove fatal so I am hopeful my decision to go for the 25th will mean fewer people."

He died after suffering apparent altitude sickness while descending the mountain on Saturday (local time). 

Crowds of climbers have become stuck in queues on their way to the summit in a section of the mountain known as the 'death zone' due to low levels of oxygen.

"There's only a very few number of hours that we can actually survive up there before our bodies start to shut down," mountain guide Adrian Ballinger told CNN. "So that means if you get caught in a traffic jam above 26,000 feet...the consequences can be really severe." 

Newshub.