How many people get up there to trash the place so much? I thought it was hard to climb.
“How many people get up there to trash the place so much? I thought it was hard to climb.”
I have seen photos of the area. The grounds are littered with hundreds of empty oxygen bottles and gear such as sleeping and cooking utensils. The climbers don’t bother lugging their trash with them on the way down. In addition, there are dead bodies all over the place.
A few hundred people climb Everest every year and most of their trash stays where they toss it. Even experienced climbers are too exhausted after makng the ascent to do more than just climb down. After 50 years or so it adds up. From what I hear, the rubbish is mostly discarded gear, but there is a sizeable amount of organic debris, including, as someone mentioned upthread, a number of bodies.
They’re not talking about the very highest peaks. The lower camps have everything dumped on them that no one wants to carry back down the hill, O2 bottles, soggy sleeping bags, anything trash.
From some pictures I’ve seen it looks like tons of waste scattered around.
I work at a University and you ought to see the way these ‘earth first’, enviro-wacko’s trash this place. The maintenance guys cannot keep up with it. This trash and abuse of University property is gratuitous... because there are so many waste/recycle receptacles around here that you can hardly take a step without tripping over them!
It's disgraceful!!
Into Thin Air. People pay tens of thousands of dollars to climb and what’s a water bottle tossed by the side of the trail? btw, although the book was interesting, by the end of it, I sort of wanted all of the climbers to jump off a cliff. I felt that way about the characters in The Brothers Karamazov.
A few yrs. ago there was a series on Discovery or one of the other channels concerning a group of climbers attempting Everest.
Changed my view of it.
It was disgusting. Trash littering the base camps. Hundreds of oxygen bottles ( think freon tanks) just tossed around. All types of abandoned camping equipment. A total trashed mess.
Each party wants to use their own lines, therefore ropes hanging everywhere.
So many parties going up and down they get in each way.
And the worst, bodies beside the trail of people that died trying. Just curled up where they took their last step.
A socialite took a party of friends, her own gourmet food and literally had Sherpas carry her to the top.
It costs about $30k for the trip.
I have zero respect for the whole idea.