Slowly but surely the fixed-ropes snake winds its way towards the summit of Mount Everest. The expedition operator “Seven Summit Treks” let us know today via Facebook that the ropes on the Nepalese south side of the mountain have been completely fixed up to the South Col at 7,900 meters. On the north side, the Tibetan rope-fixing team is working their way up above the 7,000-meter-high North Col towards the North-East Ridge. For the weekend, heavy snowfall is expected on the highest mountain on earth, so the work of the rope-fixing teams on both sides of Everest is about to rest for a few days.
Three tons of garbage removed
Meanwhile, the Nepalese government proudly announced that in the first two weeks of the “Mount Everest Cleanup Campaign 2019” 3,000 kilograms of garbage had already been collected and removed from the base camp and its surroundings. An eight-man Sherpa team – led by Pasang Nuru Sherpa – was now cleaning up Camp two at 6,400 meters, it said, adding that three Sherpas would then climb up to the South Col to collect waste there too. The goal is to remove a total of ten tons of garbage from the mountain by the end of the climbing season.
Improving the image?
There have been similar activities in recent years, but with less media noise. The government is interested in improving the image of Everest mountaineering. Finally, they have launched a major advertising campaign for 2020 (“Visit Nepal 2020”) to attract foreign visitors to the Himalayan state. Among the sponsors of the “Everest Cleanup Campaign” is Coca Cola and its Nepalese partner Bottlers Nepal. Does a Saul want to get a Paul image? According to Coca Cola, the company produced three million tons of plastic packaging worldwide in 2017. The probability that Everest garbage will also contain lots of cola bottles is probably around 100 percent. However, any action that makes Everest cleaner or at least stops the mountain of garbage from growing is welcome.
Deadly fall into a crevasse on Cho Oyu
A death is reported from the eight-thousander Cho Oyu in Tibet. A Sherpa, who worked for the team of the operator “Summit Climbs”, fell to his death into a 50-meter-deep crevasse near Camp 2 (7,150 m) on Monday. The team abandoned the expedition due to the accident.
