Author: Alan Arnette.
Courtesy of www.alanarnette.com © reproduction prohibited without authorization
Clean-up expeditions have become somewhat commonplace on Everest’s Nepal (south) side for several years now. But they have usually focused on the normal route from Base Camp to the South Col. Jan 20, 2010 in an article via AFP, a team of Sherpas will conduct a clean-up above the South Col:
The 20 climbers, led by seven-time Everest summiteer Namgyal Sherpa, will brave thin oxygen and temperatures well below freezing to clear more than two tonnes of rubbish discarded by mountaineers.
Environmental activists say Everest is littered with the detritus of past expeditions, including human waste and mountaineers’ corpses, which do not decompose because of the extreme cold.
“Everest is losing her beauty,” Sherpa, 30, told AFP. “The top of the mountain is now littered with oxygen bottles, old prayer flags, ropes, and old tents. At least two dead bodies have been lying there for years now.”
Last year an expedition lead by Dawa Steven Sherpa from Asian trekking paid Sherpas a bounty to bring down trash through a “cash for trash” program . They brought down brought down to base camp 6000 kilos of garbage for proper disposal. In addition wreckage parts of the Italian Army helicopter were also recovered from the edge of the Khumbu Icefall. The helicopter crashed at Camp 1 (6100m) on Mt. Everest during the Italian Everest Expedition in 1973.
Great job by all these clean-up teams but the real answer is to stop the pollution in the first place with efforts led by progressive expeditions like Tim Ripple’s Peak Freaks.
Climb On!
Alan
* Source : – Alan Arnette : 2010 Everest expeditions.
* Related Links :
– Climbers Want To Clean Up Everest.
– Nepalese climbers in bid to clean up Everest.
* Previous story :
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– The Conquest of Everest – 1953 style : amazing video.
– Everest 2010 season – Expeditions with any British Teams or Britons.
– Everest 2010: An Interview with Phil Crampton of Altitude Junkies.
– ExplorersWeb Year 2009 in Review: Farewell to friends.
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Filed under: Climbers, Expedition, Himalayas, Travel | Tagged: AFP, Alan Arnette, Asian Trekking, Base Camp, Clean-up expeditions, Climbers, Dawa Steven Sherpa, Everest, Expedition, Himalaya, Nepal, Peak Freaks, South Col, Travel | 1 Comment »
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