[Conscience of a Conservative]

This is an asinine article. Just one example:

I wonder if environmentalists consider mountains polluted if they are covered with wildlife, their dung, and their carcasses. Animals are killed off, die of natural causes, sometimes partially or completely eaten; their remains and fecal matter decompose scattered on the ground. Is that environmentally hazardous to the mountain?

This completely ignores the fact that, at the elevations/temperatures/other conditions near the Everest summit, (a) there is no other "wildlife," and (b) the trash, bodies, and other things left behind by climbers just remain there. They are not eaten (see point (a)), and they essentially do not decompose. There is a reason that decades-old corpses are used as navigation points up and down the mountain.

[rktman]

So if you were climbing it you could set Fred and Jim’s bodies as waypoints?

[MNDude]

I doubt anyone litters with their corpse on purpose.

[FatherofFive]

This is an asinine article.

I agree. If they climed naked the analogy. How long does it take for an oxygen tank to decompose?

But if you carry it up, carry it down.