Bodies & garbage below 8000m

Climbing Mount Everest is a physical and mental game. Even when you’re able to cope with the daily physical challenges of climbing at extreme altitudes, you’re still depending on uncontrollable aspects as ‘weather’. As you might know, the summit of Mount Everest lies within the infamous Jet Stream, which is a constant hurricane wind force of around 118 Miles per hour at 4 - 6 miles above the earth. When the Jet Stream is blowing on Mount Everest’s summit, a long stream of ice crystals forms the characteristic white plume from the tip of the mountain. If you really wish to stand on the summit, you have to choose your moment very carefully, until the monsoon pushes the jet stream away. Lucky for us all, the weather window has existed on Everest with great consistently for many years. The length of this opportunity can vary, though. In some cases the duration is a about 2-4 days while in others years it can last a much preferred two weeks from mid to the end of May.

Now back to the expedition!

Weather forecasts have been predicting the weather window to open, which in fact was true, although it just lasted for two days somewhere around the 10th of May. A few ‘lucky’ or very wise climbers went for the summit and actually succeeded. In the mean time the Sherpas where still preparing camps up to the south col. They also made preparations to bring down some dead bodies. Well, especially this caused some very mixed feelings within expedition outfitters and members in the base camp. As the expedition organizers repeatedly put in the media that they planned to bring down the bodies of famous climbers like Scott Fisher and Rob Hall, even without agreement of the relatives, some people got a bit frustrated and nervous. Tension in base camp! In the end, the Sherpas only made preparations to bring down the Swiss climber Gianni Goltz who died on the mountain in 2009. In the mean time, the Russion climber Serguey Duganov died May, 7 2010 at 7800m during his descent of Lhotse. Again, the Sherpas were requested to bring down this body, which they did after negotiating with the expedition outfitter and the insurance company. As you can guess, it’s a risky and costly operation, which almost made some new victims during the operation. Finally, both bodies where brought down by a team of 8 and 10 Sherpas to camp 2, from where a special Fishtail helicopter is to pickup the bodies and bring them further down. A third body that was found near base camp was identified as a missing Sherpa who died in 2009. His remains have been brought down to Gorak Shep for his delayed funeral.

Besides bringing down the bodies, the team has also decided to collect garbage below 8000m. About 600-800kg has been brought down to display in the base camp. Although this was not the goal of this expedition, it’s just incredible to see how much garbage has been left in the base camp and especially around camp 2. There’s enough garbage for cleaning expeditions for the coming 50 years!!! It’s just a big mess of old ropes, broken tents, tins, ladders, clothes, shoes, old food, wrappings, sun creams, gas cylinders, stoves, pans, human waste, etc, etc. Most of the garbage has been thrown in crevasses to get them out of sight, however, as more snow and ice is melting, the garbage simply appears again, creating a very sad sight of our expedition history.

Then what is happening right now?

Up till now, the weather has just not been good enough to climb to the summit and to bring down the garbage above 8000m. In fact there have been some fierce, short storms, destroying tents in base camp, camp 2 and camp 3, leaving some teams with even more work.

It seems that May 17 might offer a small and difficult opportunity, but it’s likely that most expeditions will wait for a longer window to open from 21th of May up to 26th of May. As a result, so many climbers at the same time may cause problems below and above the Hillary Step. Even more when old ropes have to be cut and brought down. Let’s see what happens...