Sherpas Clean Up Mount Everest

Up next... no one likes cleaning up trash... but imagine doing it more than 26-thousand feet high. That's what a group of climbers did on Mount Everest Sunday, removing bags of rubbish left by climbing parties over the last 40 years.

Many Nepali and foreign climbers have cleaned Mount Everest in the past.

But Namgyal Sherpa, leader of the Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, says no one had dared to clean above 26,246 feet.

This is an area known as the "death zone" due to a lack of oxygen and treacherous terrain.

Namgyal and his team of seasoned climbers risked the zone's thin air and freezing temperatures to pick up empty oxygen bottles, gas canisters, torn tents, ropes, and utensils.

The mountain has become known as being the world's highest rubbish dump.

Garbage that had been buried under snow in the past was now exposed on the surface of the mountainside with the white stuff melting away.

[Namgyal Sherpa, Project Director]:
"Collecting the rubbish is quite a risky task. Such tasks cannot be carried out by anybody."

New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepal's Tenzing Norgay Sherpa were the first to ascend to Mount Everest's summit in 1953.

More than 4,000 climbers have since scaled the mountain.

Category:

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• 2010
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• Sherpa
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• Namgyal

[hout00gje]

There must be a lot of garbage left on that mountain then...

It's about time people take responsibility to clean up their own garbage. - or else don't climb...you cannot just drop and leave your trash in nature..and let someone else risk his life to clean it up. Expeditions cost a lot of money, so why not use part of that money to carry your trash back home in a handy way

[Penthesileya]

@hout00gje Right you are. I would go even further. Who cannot climb the "death zone" like Messner did, without oxygen, just doesn't belongs there. Basta. Makes me sad to see this beautiful mountains turning into waste dumps.

[SolidGold1980]

slobs

[MERRITTKEARNY]

"with the white stuff melting away" haha

[hopingtoflyaway]

That is despicable!

[KleineHansel]

Extreme trash!

[Penthesileya]

@elijah20100psn Sorry, but that's not true. Long years the mountaineers just left their empty oxygen bottles. Do you think if they are somewhere up to 8500m they take their empty bottles back down with them ? 

[meneertje25]

@hout00gje weel i think that when you're out of oxygen on that mountain you don't want to carry it with you the rest of the way

[CAPITANFREAKY]

@hout00gje at 29,029 ft everything is impossible, for example carring a empty oxige can can make the diference between dead and live

[elijah20100psn]

@hout00gje most of those oxygen bottles are from dead climbers.

[sciaeppe]

E' veramente molto brutto che alpinisti di grandi capacità lascino sempre tanta sporcizia nei posti che loro stessi esaltano col loro preteso eroismo. Almeno Hermann Buhl puli meglio che potè!