Sherpas Cleaning Up Everest Unearth 11 Tons of Trash, 4 Bodies

Eleven tons of garbage from decades of climbers scaling Mt. Everest and a total of four bodies were scrounged from the Nepali mountainside in an effort to clean the landmark destination for adrenaline junkies.

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Climbers returning from the 8,850-meter (29,035 feet) mountain say the slopes of Everest are littered with human excrement, used oxygen bottles, torn tents, ropes, broken ladders, cans and plastic wrappers left behind by climbers, an embarrassment for a country that earns valuable revenue from Everest expeditions.

Twenty sherpa climbers scaled the mountain and began collecting litter in April and, by May, the clean-up team had gathered five tons of garbage.

“Unfortunately, some garbage collected in bags at the South Col could not be brought down due to bad weather,” Dandu Raj Ghimire, director general of the Department of Tourism said in a statement on Wednesday.

The garbage, along with the bodies of some of the 300 people who have died over the years on Everest’s slopes, is buried under the snow during winter but become visible when the snow melts in summer.

None of the four bodies have been identified nor is it known when they died.

Cleaning campaign coordinator Nim Dorjee Sherpa, head of the village where Mount Everest is located, told Reuters two bodies were collected from the treacherous Khumbu Icefall and two from camp three site at the Western Cwm. “They were exposed from the snow when the sherpas picked up and brought them down,” he said.