Photo: The Canadian Press

Almost every year, the reports filter down from the highest mountain in the world, and talk among the climbing teams at Everest Base Camp turns to the latest person to die.

On Everest, tragedy is almost normal. Ten people have died so far in a series of accidents this climbing season, four more than mountaineering officials expect in a typical year.

On Wednesday, authorities said Sherpa rescuers found the bodies of four climbers inside a tent at the highest camp on Everest, a few thousand feet from the summit. The rescuers were in the area to recover the body of a Slovak mountaineer who had died over the weekend.

"Some years there are more, and some years there are less, but deaths on the mountain are normal," said Jiban Ghimire, who runs a prominent expedition company, Shangrila Nepal Trek. Most in the climbing world know tragedy will touch them at some point. "It is the nature of work. We can't say what will happen on the mountain," he said.

The weather on Everest, already one of the most unforgiving places on Earth, was especially hard this year.

"This year it was colder, windy and snowed much more than in previous years," said Ang Tshering, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. "Even now climbers are struggling with weather."

The identities of the four dead climbers found in the tent were still unknown, and other rescuers were heading there to learn more details.

Indian climber Ravi Kumar, American doctor Roland Yearwood, Slovak climber Vladimir Strba and Australian Francesco Enrico Marchetti died over the weekend, and two climbers died earlier. The climbing season begins in March and runs through the end of May to take advantage of the best weather conditions on Everest.