Trash Everest: New rule will have climbers descend with 18 pounds of garbage

Pack in what you pack out. It’s been the outdoor code for campers for decades as people have tried to keep campsites clean across America.

The same guideline doesn’t apply to most extreme mountain campsite in the world: Mount Everest. On the world’s tallest mountain tons of trash has piled up over six decades of expeditions.

But that’s about to change.

In the decades of exploration of Everest, no one really ever checked bags or followed-through to make sure everything that went up the mountain came back down.

Next month, Nepal will set up a command center at the base camp that will weigh every pack, making each climber responsible for carrying down 18 pounds of trash, in addition to what they took up the mountain.

Gordon Janow is Director of Programs for Seattle’s Alpine Ascents which leads expeditions to Everest. He says there’s plenty of garbage up there.

“Old tents and some oxygen bottles are piled up, so it’s not like the place has been littered with trash but there have been situations where those items have been left behind,” described Janow.

There’s plastic. Mounds of human waste, plastic and other waste too.

“There’s been initial cleanups from all the years of expeditions that have been up there but it’s a matter of how do we handle the annual trash that’s left behind, and how that gets piled up,” said Janow.

But to Janow, requiring a specific number of pounds to remove seems extreme.

“I’m not so tied into the (18 pounds) that if you take more or less or how’s that going to be managed,” Janow said.

Instead, he thinks there just needs to be a shift in mentalities, ‘If you don’t take the stuff down, it’s not coming down.’

According to Janow, there are plenty of cases where climbers leave their gear as the only means of survival. And he doesn’t believe that act should be punished.

“You’ve got an oxygen bottle, tents are falling apart from the wind and so on, and just trying to survive, it’s easy to leave something behind. Or hard to think, ‘you know, I shouldn’t leave this tent pole behind,’ when you’re just trying to get down safely.”

Nepal is considering fining climbers who fail to meet the garbage guidelines. They could even be banned from the mountain.

Janow said it’s great Nepal is going to hold climbers accountable but, “I think it’s just particularly hard to manage coming down, weighing, is it that trash or is this mine? Or is that from another expedition, or that’s my friend’s water bottle, he came down early – I mean it’s just something that’s really hard to manage.

Janow believes just getting everyone to grab a few pieces of trash on the way down and to pack out what they pack in, will let the trash problem take care of itself.