Garbage Day on Mount Everest

Garbage on Mount Everest has become a real problem. Especially since the commercialization of expedition-style mountaineering in the last 20 years.



Mount Everest from Kala Patthar, Nepal. Image by Wikipedia CC.

Many of the climbers trying to conquer the mountain are looking for fame. But only a few care about what's left behind. Unfortunately, the garbage problem on Mount Everest Base Camp became a real issue.

But there's hope. Luckily there are some responsible climbers. Paul Thelen and Eberhard Schaaf from Germany are part of the annual EEE, which stands for Eco Everest Expedition.

Goal is to pick up garbage on Mount Everest, and the occasional dead body as well...
Original article on WorldCrunch and the German version on Welt Online.

Picking Up The Trash On The World's Highest Mountain

Would you climb 8,848 meters to pick up other people's waste, discarded climbing gear and even the occasional dead body? This is what the Eco Everest Expedition sets out to do every year.

 By Holger Kreitling
DIE WELT/Worldcrunch

Professional mountain climbers like the Everest base camp about as much as hermits enjoy Oktoberfest. There are hundreds of tents at 5,600 meters altitude -- it’s noisy and full of people.
Garbage is a hot topic here, at the base the world’s highest mountain. Paul Thelen has been here twice, and knows the situation. “You’re surrounded by filth,” he says over the phone, without the faintest trace of irritation or repugnance in his voice. Then again, as an active 68-year-old, Thelen has seen a lot in life.

He and a friend, Eberhard Schaaf, a mountain climber like himself, have come to Nepal to clean up garbage. The men are part of the annual Eco Everest Expedition (EEE) that has been clearing trash from the camp and the path to the top of the mountain since 2008. So far, these expeditions have collected over 13 tons of garbage, including several hundred kilos of excrement and a few corpses.

Thelen and Schaaf are the first Germans to take part in the expedition, which this year is made up of 16 climbers from seven countries. They will be on site until the end of May. And they want to get to the top – all 8,848 meters of it.

It’s a dangerous endeavor. The Germans say they have two goals: to climb up and then to come back down. Both goals are difficult in themselves, but luckily one of their sponsors is Doppelherz, a manufacturer of energy tonics for seniors.

Old tents, scraps of fabric and a few corpses
Thelen, a management consultant from the German spa town of Aachen, says he has been dreaming about mountains since he read books about the Everest as a teenager. He’s only been climbing very high mountains for a few years, though. Before that, he mostly stuck to marathons. With Eberhard Schaaf, a sports physician who is also from Aachen, he’s climbed the Kilimanjaro (5,893 meters), Mount McKinley (6,194 meters), and in 2009 he made it up to the top of Argentina’s Aconcagua (6,962 meters). Read the full article here.

It's good to see initiatives like the one above. We all learned 'Pack it in - Pack it out'. Why not on Mount Everest? Hopefully, there'll be a long term solution to garbage on Mount Everest.