Mountaineers usually shed baggage as they climb higher. A 30-member Indian team setting out for Mount Everest next month plans to come down with 4,000 kilos of excess baggage, or rather, garbage.
The team is making the climb to mark the 50th anniversary of India's first ascent of the world's highest peak. But equally high on their agenda is what sounds like a massive clean-up of Everest's slopes.
Some estimates say the amount of trash left on Everest over the last 60 years is as much as 50 tonnes, making it one of the most littered mountains in the world. Oxygen tanks, sleeping bags, coffee makers, electronic waste, human waste and possibly corpses, are strewn all over the slopes.
"In the normal process, we need to come down to the base camp (17,700 feet) from the forward camps for acclimatization," said Major Ranveer Singh Jamwal, the team leader. "For instance, we will come down to the base camp from Camps 1, 2 and 3, and climb back for the final assault. When we come down to base camp, on each instance we will have less load and that is when we intend to carry back the trash," he explained.
Major Jamwal has scaled Everest twice before. His team will split into two at Camp 3, where 14 team members will head to Everest and the rest will make their way to Mount Lhotse, which at 8,612 metres, is the fourth-highest peak in the world.
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