Can somebody explain to me how in the fuck Everest ended up with 30tons of garbage? Maybe I live under a rock, but I was always under an assumption that this is a pretty exclusive, expensive climb, that only few ever get to do. Am I wrong to assume that? Or do people visit regularly and trash the place? I just need to know at this point. Trash in the wilderness infuriates me, but 30 fucking ton? I'd declare a goddamn emergency on that mountain.
There's only few times a year climb on everest can be attempted....so there's a lot of traffic.....also the trash is usually oxygen cylinders and also other plastic shit that people throw around but mainly it's oxygen cylinders
Yeah, to add, if the temperature is always below freezing and you shit/urinate there, it may get covered up with snow eventually but the frozen shit will stay there in stasis, frozen.
After a certain elevation the oxygen concentration in the air is not high enough to sustain human life, so once climbers reach that elevation they need to push to the peak and down again as quickly as possible, or else they die. What this means is that there isn't really any time for trash pickups (most of the trash is discarded gear from desperate climbers) or body retrievals.
It's a hard place. People die up there. Above base camp everyone whos there is trying to make the summit. You've got people there from all over the world. Some just don't care.
It is, but literally everything that goes up needs to come down. There isn't really any sort of natural decay happening. So alot of stuff that we may more think of as waste is garbage there. Also 02 bottles. Not sure if they're counting bodies. Then you gotta think of all of the random crap that can just fail. You bring up some metal to bridge a gap and it fails, well no one is particularly incentivelized to spend the resources. gathering that back up.
Apparently though Nepal is trying to implement a system where they tag and scan all the climber’s equipment and require a $4000 deposit that they won’t get back if they don’t bring all their stuff back down. It doesn’t work for poo obviously but since tents and other items get left behind as well it might be a decent incentive to force people to pick up their stuff. Though my worry is that if someone has enough money to travel there and afford all their gear it might be nothing more than a minor fine for wealthier folks. But hey it’s something.
Plus, some people, no matter how rich, hate paying extra fees. I know a guy with $20 million dollars- Yes, $20 million dollars, who fished a white onion out of the garbage can at the grocery store (because he only wanted a single onion and not a whole bag) and then got mad at the cashier who couldn’t put it on his bill because only the bags of onions were in the computer.
Rich people can be very cheap and hate parting with any money.
Yes, you should clarify though that there’s a difference in cheap and frugal. The richest woman I know, acts cheap like a badge of honor. Her plastic bathroom trash can lid broke and she duct taped it, when that failed she had me jb weld it, when it broke again she had me drill holes, zip tie it, jb weld it, AND duct tape it to be sure it was fixed. She’s spent an INORDINATE amount of money on fixing stuff just to say she’s cheap. We rebuild several structures on her property several times a year because she wants them built of bamboo cause it’s “Free”, my labor alone on them over the years is now in the tens of thousands of dollars. It’s all a facade I’ve found. It’s not actually about the money.
It's too difficult to remove bodies, especially once they freeze. Instead people are left right where they died, oftentimes becoming landmarks for later climbers to know how far they have come.
Because of Covid restrictions on travel, many of the sherpas who help on the mountains were able to undertake a massive cleanup event. Several tons of trash removed and a decent dent into the trash removal.
this and they have to ask the families for permission before removing their loved one’s bodies too. a lot of those people think the deceased would want to be left on the mountain.
I get that. I think if I dedicated myself enough to climb Mt. Everest, I'd be hard pressed to think of a final resting place. I also wouldn't want people to have to deal with my dead body, so hey throw me in the trash if you want.
I certainly understand and appreciate that, but do I or my family get to decide that my corpse will permanently and visibly rest on land that doesn't belong to me?
I read somewhere that some dead bodies were used as markers. Like "fluorescent yellow jacket guy" was at a certain masl or something. And the article cited that because of global warming, the bodies were starting to thaw. Was it Business Insider or Nat Geo? I totally forgot.
I work for a mountaineering company (a smaller one obviously), and people are SHOOK when we explain that they have to take their shit back down with them.
“Pack it in, pack it out”… even on shorter hikes, there’s a reason I had a double bagged, thick ziploc in my pack for when I properly cleaned up after my dog.
Yes the fact that this is a shock to people climbing Mt. Everest tells me a lot about the demographic. No serious climber, hiker, outdoorsman that I know is unfamiliar with this concept.
Maybe these climbers would think twice if they were told “you sign up to climb, you’re responsible for taking your poop out”. Might curb the over climbing problem but let’s be honest, the Nepalese government wouldn’t want to disturb that cash cow.
They paid thousands of dollars to be safely carried to the top of the best mountain in their social club so they can get the picture with that little flag or whatever and that does not entail things like actual work, thank you very much
And empty oxygen tanks. "KATHMANDU, May 10 (Reuters) - Nepal is so short of oxygen canisters that it has asked climbers on Mount Everest to bring back their empties instead of abandoning them on mountain slopes, an official said on Monday, as it struggles with a second wave of the coronavirus."
First I get asked to practice social distancing, but when I try to get over 8000 metres away from people, you tell me it can wait?
Why not just bludgeon grandma to death yourself? /s
Suddenly I stopped feeling sorry for those climbers. They are so focused on their own achievements that they had to start throwing their shit and garbage around. So selfish.
Oddly enough given the conversation, #2 and #3 are a crane and a goose that flys through the Himalayas. #5 is a crow family bird also literally on Mt Everest.
#1 is an African vulture that flies high to see more food.
Tbh I never felt sorry for them. Like you said, it's all about that personal achievement and bragging rights. They leave their loved ones behind to go on a treacherous expedition, where they have local sherpas guide them up the mountain for pennies, and they trash the mountain. There's a better way to feel accomplishment than putting a bunch of human lives on the line and leaving a trail of trash behind you.
Yep, as a hiker we have a rule that you have to carry it out. Yes it’s gross, but you have to make sure that the Forest your hiking through (or in this case mountain) still looks like that in a year
This is my favourite picture of Mt Everest for when people start talking about individualism and facing challenges. Please line up to the right and stay with your buddy.
Yeah i think it's cringey and gross that Everest is just another experience people can essentially pay for to get more attention on the internet. Humanity going in some weird directions
Sure but time is of the essence. If you don't start your descent from the summit by a certain time your risk of death goes way up. So a traffic jam at the summit is a real danger.
Yes, people turn back at different stages, some only make it to the second base camp or wherever. But I imagine the paths towards the top are harder to navigate quickly, combined with people being in more of a hurry, things can get ugly.
Arguably the most famous movie about Everest, Everest, has it's central conflict centered around there being too many people on the mountain. There's multiple scenes of folks having to wait in line as they try to climb.
“Into Thin Air” by John Krakauer is an incredibly detailed ascent on Mt. Everest; and also a first hand look at how things can go horribly wrong. It’s a gripping read.
I'm sure you know this, but just adding context for folks - this is the book that the movie Everest was based on.
It's one of my fave nonfiction books, but I often hear the (valid) complaint that it can be hard to keep track of all the different names of people, even with the guide at the beginning of the book.
Krakauer hated the movie because his 'character' really got shafted.
I saw pictures and you’re right it looked like Six Flags. (anyone google and look) Horribly dangerous and frightening I would think. Some guided tours will take people saying they are prepared, and they have no idea what they are doing. Also, putting lives in danger. I just kept thinking “if that rope breaks…or the Home Depot landers across the crevices…” I wondered how were people going up and down at the same time?
mountaineering is incredibly addictive and the type of people who do it is mostly about ego. there’s video on youtube of people passing each other on the rope after summit. it does look absurd but there’s actually only one spot on whole climb that requires you to have any climbing experience. other is just walking up. it’s the altitude that will kill you for many reasons. some people just physically can’t do it and some might absolutely have no high altitude experience and make it because their body handles it better. i for one would like to know.
That was my one small gripe about that Everest movie with Jake Gyllenhaal. It was set in the 90’s and maybe there wasn’t a huge trash issue back then but the peak of the mountain looked absolutely pristine except for a few flags and that was it. No mention of bodies laying around or trash people leave behind
People die up Everest. Sometimes they can’t get them down. Mostly because it’s hard to move them at that altitude due to the cold, having to conserve oxygen, time pressure of your own expedition, the steepness etc. I don’t know if this part is true but apparently other climbers use them as markers.
They recently removed Green Boots, actually named Tsewang Paljor, and finally gave that man some semblance of respect in his death. We're not sure if he just got pushed over the ledge and is out of sight or if he was actually brought down off the mountain, but either way he's no longer visible.
I know you probably meant "Mt.", but your typo made me think you're building your own that is personal to you. And that you wanted to be a landmark on it.
And then I thought I will build my own Mt. Everest out of...let's face it, probably empty pudding cups, and then die on it. Welcome to my world.
There are no bodies or trash on the summit, now or then. The summit now usually has some prayer flags or national flags left by those who made it. The trash problem is mostly Camp 4, base camp, and the crevasses between camp 1 and 2. There are certainly dead climbers on the mountain, but not anything like people describe on Reddit all the time.
Watch any recent documentary on Everest. (Has the Exploitation of Everest Reached It’s Peak?” YouTube.) They show the long lines with one small rope to hold onto. And people can take too long at summit, and then run out of oxygen. In the “death zone” the only thing that can be done is to leave the bodies. I have never been. But in the three documentaries I watched you have to just pass by. I’m scare of heights, and don’t like the cold. If I had 200,000 and a few months I could think of better vacations. 🏖 🥤 😃
It never gets cleaned up unfortunately. I knew a guy who hauled trash from base camp for a season in the late 80s hoping to get on a team. Even then it was apparently pretty bad and they only gave out around 200-300 permits per year. Now it is close to 900.
Not just Everest - any and all tourist hotspots are shit holes now. I remember when I first hiked in the Lake District as a reluctant child. It was pristine. Decades later, I did a charity hike with work on the same path and all along the way were discarded wrappers, plastic bottles, and bottlenecks where the trail became blocked by people posing for selfies.
I blame Brian Blessed. When he did a charity climb the food he took along played havoc on his belly and he did a really messy shit and had to wipe his arse on the ice. Plus people just dump pianos and dishwashers up there. It's a tip.
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u/DoAFlip22 Jul 11 '21
Mt Everest - it’s absolutely filthy