In 2019, the number of climbers allowed to take on Mount Everest will see a cut down by China, it will also limit the climbing season to spring.
The country will start a large-scale clean-up of the world’s highest peak and the total number of climbers from the north side will be capped at 300 this year. This will be a third fewer than normal.
Plastic bags, oxygen tanks, tents and cooking equipment will be among the rubbish collected and the bodies o climbers who died more than 8,000m up the mountain will be among the things collected.
Stations will be set up to sort, recycle and break down the rubbish by China while on the Nepalese side the organizers have started sending the large waste bags along with climbers during the spring climbing season. The trash collected can be winched back to base camp by helicopters.
Human waste was also a threat on Everest, it takes roughly two months to reach the summit and it is expected that the average climber will be producing around 60 pounds of excrement.
Last year around 14 tons of waste from base camp and other locations were carried down by the porters. In Gorak Shep pits it was dropped which is a frozen lake bed near a village 17,000 feet above sea level.
The Chinese side is visited by some 60,000 climbers and guides each year and is known as Mount Qomolangma in China by its Tibetan name. This means ‘Goddess of mother snows’.
As per the non-profit group Himalayan Database In 2017 the number of people reaching the top was just 648. Among this 202 climbed from the north side while the rest scaled from the Nepalese side.
The air is too thin to sustain human above 8,000 m and several people die each year during their climb.
Tags: china, Everest climbers, Gorak Shep, nepal
