To be enraged by a photograph of a Sherpa picking up litter from Mount Everest

[MyGastIsFlabbered]

I know there are bigger problems to get angry about but I've seen this today and it's infuriated me.

Going up Mount Everest is a privilege available to very few people and they can't respect it enough to take their litter with them. Bloody people

I completely agree with this- no offence but the idea of people taking their rubbish with them is ridiculous (how?) but the ability to climb should be far more restricted

Please excuse my ignorance on this, I am not climber, but we're not talking about bringing back dead bodies with them, we're talking about leaving rubbish. Why on earth can't they take it with them? They took it up there, why can't they bring it back?

I see the outraged hypocrites are out in force again today.

cats

A sherpa? On Kilimanjaro?!

A tiger? In Africa?

Depending on weather conditions, you could be at various points on Everest for days or weeks. It would be a bit like going on a camping holiday, at a campsite with no refuse facilities, (oh and you have a huge amount of sports equipment, but no car!)

We’re talking about taking weeks worth of packets, loo roll, food waste, batteries etc etc home with you in your rucksack

Nepal's tourism department, local government and mountaineering groups are working together in a 45 day campaign to bring as much rubbish down from the mountain as possible while whether permits.
It's a joint venture.

Every second counts in the death zone and standing in a traffic jam using up precious oxygen is dangerous although most summit pushes are staggered these days to try and avoid that.
2 people had died on the summit when that jam photo was taken.

I think the Nepalese side needs to be more strict with Permits like on the Tibetan side, far too many people are climbing it each year and they only can climb in the May summit window.

I trek regularly in Nepal and a couple of Sherpas are good friends of mine. One has just summited for the 9th time.

There are different types of Sherpas - it's a race/culture, not a job. If you're looking at the jobs they do, there are porter Sherpas, cooking Sherpas, laundry Sherpas, guiding Sherpas, and the most important ones - climbing Sherpas. Each one of them will be paid for their job.

The lucky ones are the ones who get to work with the western climbing teams - Jagged Globe, RMI, etc. because they provide all their Sherpas with the appropriate kit and insurance. As a client, you get the best of both worlds - western organisation and risk assessment, and Sherpa climbing knowledge. The worst outfits are the Nepalese ones - they take large groups up, and don't interview them re their climbing experience. A successful summit of Aconcagua isn't going to be enough for a Western team to let you up with them. Someone like Seven Summits (Nepalese) won't check this, and so when you get up there and have trouble, you'll probably die.

The Nepalese outfits take too many inexperienced climbers up, with a large client/Sherpa ratio. They leave their rubbish, and don't insure properly. The western outfits are the ones who take care of the mountain.

Also - it's all very well bringing your rubbish down from the mountain, but there is nowhere to put it in Nepal - they don't have any kind of recycling or waste disposal infrastructure. The whole "what to do with rubbish" question is far too big for mountaineers to answer - it's a massive international development question. The only way to get rid of it when you're out there is to bring it all the way home.

I think the poster meant you were disgusted by the fact the Sherpa had to clean up the litter

Yes, that's what I meant.

Yanbu, after reading the story about people who ignored a woman calling for help (she died) because they would then not have been able to make the summit, I dislike the Everest climbers as a whole.

You can’t usually stop to help people struggling. It can be very dangerous to do so

We’re talking about taking weeks worth of packets, loo roll, food waste, batteries etc etc home with you in your rucksack

Again, please forgive me as I'm obviously missing something, but if you've taken it up there, why can't you bring it back down? After all, because you've consumed half of it (whether it's food or toilet roll), you've still got significantly less than you had to start with.

Also - it's all very well bringing your rubbish down from the mountain, but there is nowhere to put it in Nepal - they don't have any kind of recycling or waste disposal infrastructure. The whole "what to do with rubbish" question is far too big for mountaineers to answer - it's a massive international development question. The only way to get rid of it when you're out there is to bring it all the way home.

Ah, cross posted - this makes far more sense and illustrates the far bigger picture. Thank you

chocoholic answered it far better than I but yes, everywhere still needs a landfill to take rubbish too don’t they?

And they don’t take it all up themselves. They have help in the form of Sherpas and Regular deliveries of more supplies the longer they stay. They don’t just rock up to the mountain with a rucksack and a sleeping bag!

There is a campaign that Sherpas ft my money from the nepalese government when they bring down discarded oxygen cylinders.

Much of the rubbish is from the sherpas. Not because they are disrespectful per se but cease littering wasn’t seen as a bad action in Nepal. However that is changing now especially as they realise that it is their profession and earnings that will be impacted if Everest loses its appeal because keen the rubbish

@GummyGoddess if that's the story I'm thinking of it was very sad but the other climbers were on their way down the mountain.

It sounds so harsh but the conditions up there are so difficult that's it's basically a given that if you collapse and can't move yourself, you will be left and will almost certainly die. People can barely concentrate on their own energy and survival, you would put your own life at great risk if you tried to help someone and would very likely die too. Especially once you're in the death zone. People know that before they go up, it does seem heartless but the conditions dictate that.

If I was paying 10 grand to do something I'd want someone to clean up after me too!
This isn't like you taking Tarquin and Charlotte on a jolly walk in the Lakes and taking home your Waitrose picnic wrappers, OP.
It's essentially a business!

Well I've learned quite a bit from this thread, the main thing being that it seems a lot of the climbers are complete nobs.

I would never in a million years want to climb a mountain but even if I did knowing I would have to throw rubbish on it would stop me

There’s currently a go fund me page in Ireland to recover a body above the death zone.

The comment sections are unanimously saying it’s awful to risk sherpas lives to bring back a western corpse. Yet the recovery mission continues, money talks.

It’s an ugly side of humanity, bragging rights that cost lives, absolutely no need.

On the plus side, there are now rubbish bins along the EBC trail (there are no roads) and porters empty these regularly. I did EBC and Kala Pattar a year or so ago and saw ONE piece of rubbish which our climbing Sherpa picked up and put in his bag. It was a fag packet - no idea how any one would have the lungs to smoke in the thin air above 5,000m - the altitude is noticeable even at the trail head in Lukla.

There is very little infrastructure in Nepal - even in Kathmandu the lighting is poor, there are frequent power cuts, and there is no rubbish collection. The western operators are pretty good with the economy - they fund schools and clinics, and provide solar water heaters (which are genius!) for every village - you see loads dotted about. Unused kit is donated to a Sherpa charity to ensure that it gets to the right people who need it for the right purpose.

A climbing Sherpa will get £8,000 just for a summit attempt. When the average national wage in Nepal is £800 that goes a long way and Sherpas will support a massive extended family for that. The one I know has three children all at medical school who will go back into the Kumbu to work as doctors, and has also paid for running water to go to his village.

The Chinese especially have been cleaning up the Tibetan side of the summit, and a lot of the bodies have been removed. When they can't be, because it's too high and dangerous, the bodies are pushed into a crevasse. Some can't be moved just because they have been there for so long that they are frozen to the mountain and you'd need an angle grinder to get them off the ice. They don't decompose up there above 6,000m, so they are as big as they were when they died, not just a load of old bones to stick in a bag.

Alan Arnette's blog is really interesting re all things Himalaya www.alanarnette.com/

@MelonSlice who's a hypocrite?

Something needs to happen at Everest. Too many risk takers trashing the place.

It must provide a huge income for Nepal though. I can't see how the numbers can be reduced for safety while still allowing a limited, well organised number of climbers up the mountain.

The ‘Sherpa’ is probably being paid to do this. Most of the time the job is given to disabled / elderly former Sherpas.

The problem I have with the whole 'they get the national average wage for a single summit' argument is that they may get twice that for a kidney!

People being economically forced to risk their lives to support their families really isn't something we should be comfortable with exploiting.

Market forces will take care of the cost frequency issues. Presumably you can't charge as much for people who end up standing in a 200 person queue as you can for 20 people who are the only 20 to up that day?

its currently around 10K. Make it 100K and let market forces sort it out.

Really interesting thread.

@ M3lon - the climbing Sherpas are proper mountaineers - they'd actually do it for free in most cases. They don't want a "proper" job. They see themselves as equal to, (when they are actually even better than) the clients they are assisting up the mountain. They are some of the best mountaineers in the world, who then go on to climb other high-altitude summits elsewhere in the Himalayas and South America. Non-climbing Sherpas are paid less, for a less riskier job.

Re market forces - it costs around £10,000 for a climbing permit for Everest. Then you add on your team costs - flights, kit, Sherpas etc. Oxygen works out around £600 per bottle, with boots around £750. The going rate for western outfits is around £40,000 per client, with Nepali outfits doing it (more risky) at around £25,000. They won't pay their Sherpas as much either. There are plenty of people with this kind of money to pay, but equally, there are people who love the mountains so much, and the pull to climb is so strong, that they spend their life savings or re-mortgage their house to do it.