What’s upcoming…?

While most Everest summitters around the Globe are slowly getting back to their 'normal' life again, the organizers of the EEE cleaning expedition are still fulltime occupied with their successful expedition last spring. Coming Friday a press conference is scheduled to share their results, past and coming activities with us all.

In the mean time 60 pictures of the clean up activities have been selected which will be exhibited next month in one of Kathmandu's major art galleries. Apart from that, Nepali artists and 1 French artist have started to blossom their creativity to make something extraordinary of the garbage that was brought back to Kathmandu. Their 'rubbish art'    ;-) will be available to show from coming November. For those who are in Kathmandu this November, come and have a look...! (address details will follow)

Clean up Expedition in Dutch paper

Barely landed in Holland a Dutch newspaper called to write and publish an article about the cleaning expedition Namgyal has organized last spring.

For those who can read Dutch, have a nice read! For those who can't, it also contains some of our pictures ;-) NRCNext_0610

Age limits for climbing Mt Everest

Recent summit attempts of teenagers have caused a lot of debate in the climbing community.  In 2001, sixteen year old Temba Tseri Sherpa (Nepali boy) became the youngest climber to summit Everest, although he lost a few fingers and toes because of frostbite. Last spring (May 2010) the record was taken by Jordan Romero, who ascended World's highest mountain at the age of 13!

As a response to the tendence of taking very young climbers above the Death Zone (plans were already there to bring a 11-year old next spring), the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) has issued new regulations since 2 weeks for climbing Mt Everest. As from June 10th (2010), two age limits will be set to climb Everest from the north side: a minimum age of 18, and a max of 60. Exceptions can be made for climbers providing positive medical records but 16 will still be the absolute lowest limit according to CTMA. 

The CTMA's decision was welcomed by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), who already set a minimum age of 16 after Temba's summit push. In Nepal the maximum age to climb Everest is not restricted.

Pro or con? Let us know...

Some remarkable pictures

Garbage well delivered in Kathmandu

Some time has passed, so several updates to give you!
The second team indeed summited May 23rd, while sweeping many Kgs of mainly old rope, tents and oxygen cylinders. In total 1800kg has been brought down to the BC, apart from the 2 dead bodies which were brought to and picked up at camp 2.
Of this pile of garbage, 1000kg of disposable rubbish has been left in Namche where it will be processed. The remaining 800kg has been flown back to Kathmandu last week.

Interesting detail... May 29 the Hillary-Tenzing marathon has been held; all the way from BC to Namche. Several runners did show their valuable support to this clean up expedition by taking a special designed bag with them, loaded with 2 kg of 'our' garbage. Two of our Sherpas (Pasang C and Kurma) even joined these running heroes, showing that they are real athletes... They were actually the only two who had 'ran' from 8848m all the way to Namche ;-) ! So from here, we would like to thank all 'garbage pickers' for their prestige!

The coming weeks art students will make some interesting pieces and creatures of these materials and exhibit the result in a local gallery. We'll keep you updated where you have to go!
Also, 100 pictures of the expedition and rubbish will be shown at an exhibition soon from now. The exact dates and location... you still get it from us.