Nepal Everest cleanup drive yields 24,200 pounds of garbage, 4 bodies

KATHMANDU, Nepal — A Nepal government expedition to Mount Everest has removed 24,200 pounds of garbage and four dead bodies from the world’s highest mountain, officials said Wednesday.

Tourism Department official Danduraj Ghimire said the cleaners spent weeks collecting food wrappings, cans, bottles and empty oxygen cylinders.

Some of the garbage was flown to Kathmandu and handed over to recyclers in a ceremony Wednesday officially concluding the cleaning campaign. Officials called it a successful mission but said more trash still needs to be collected. Some is covered by snow and is exposed only when temperatures rise.

Officials have not been able to estimate exactly how much garbage is on the mountain. Most was at Camps 2 and 3, at which climbers can rest along the way from the base camp to the 29,035-foot summit.

Ghimire said the four bodies were exposed by melting snow and were carried to base camp and then flown to a hospital in Kathmandu for identification. Climbers struggling to make it down the mountain alive sometimes are unable to carry out the bodies of teammates who have died.

More than 300 climbers have died on Everest since it was first conquered in 1953. It is unclear how many bodies are still on the mountain, and officials said they have no records.

Hundreds of climbers and their guides and porters spend weeks on Everest every spring, the best climbing season. A tent city rises at the base camp at 17,400 feet for three months between March and May.

In another development, a U.S. scientist said Mount Everest and its surrounding peaks are increasingly polluted and warmer, and nearby glaciers are melting at an alarming rate that is likely to make it more dangerous for future climbers.

Professor John All of Western Washington University, who spent...