Who will clean up?
The data for 2013 is still being compiled, but Ang Tsering Sherpa, former president and now a member of Nepal Mountaineering association, says that more 600 climbers scaled Everest this year. “About 512 approached from the popular southern side while the rest from the northern side of the peak,” says Sherpa, who has himself taken part in a few Everest expeditions.
Till the end of 2012 season, more than 5,000 people have climbed Mount Everest.
Prithvi Singh Chahel became one of the youngest in the world to reach the top. Chahel along with his mates from a Lawrence School, Sanawar, is the only school team to have reached the mount’s peak. Chahel recounts with pride the heady mix of extreme adventure and physical endurance he experienced, but he is also saddened by some of the scenes that he witnessed.
“To reach the summit, I had to overtake eight other climbers,” recounts Chahel, which he says is extremely dangerous. But more than the number of climbers, what irked him the most was the litter he saw on the way. “At camp 4 (26,000 feet), before we made the final ascent, the ground is a literal junkyard,” he says. Chahel saw plastic chocolate and rice noodle wrappers, discarded oxygen cylinders, undergarments, utensils and ropes.
Chahel’s observations are confirmed by a Nepali and Indian Army joint expedition to Everest that reached the summit a day before the school team did. This 20 member team collected more than four tonnes of garbage on their way back. Of this, 2.2 tonnes was biodegradable garbage and 1.8 tonnes was non-biodegradable, said a Nepali army press-release.
Chahel himself was in two minds whether to carry the extra load back. “Coming down with weight on you back is harder than going up. Lot of people leave the unessential weight behind,” he says.