I've been to the Rocky Mountains National Park, the Canadian Rockies by Banff National Park, and Eagle Mountain in the Minnesota Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  These of course are nothing like the King of all mountains, Mt. Everest.

I've always been fascinated by Mt. Everest.  She rises 29,029 feet into thin air.  Many people have lost their lives on the mountain.  Remember the 1996 blizzard that took the lives of eight climbers near the summit, a disaster that later became the Jon Krakauer book and movie Into Thin Air.

Thousands of people head to Katmandu, Nepal every year with the hopes of climbing to the summit of Mt. Everest.  A trip to the top can cost around $100,000.00 bucks.  With that many people spending months on the mountain comes mountains of garbage left behind.

Science Time reports:

But the good news is that some mountaineers are taking it upon themselves to clean up Everest.  The annual Eco Everest Expedition has been cleaning up trash from base camp to the summit since 2008. So far they’ve collected over 13 tons of garbage, as well as a whole lot of frozen excrement and the occasional frozen corpse. (Nothing ever goes away on Everest.) And just recently a joint India-Nepal military team collected over 2 tons of garbage on the slopes of the mountain.

Below is a video uploaded on Aug 5, 2011 of a dead body on South Col, Everest. This is known as the Death zone. Oxygen cylinders lie strewn nearby.  (WARNING GRAPHIC)


What I don't get is why?  If you were risking your life to help someone or cure some tragic disease, I'd understand.  But, why spend all the time and money to say you climbed a rock? 

 

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