National Park After Dark - The World's Highest Graveyard: Sagarmatha National Park

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

We are heading to the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest in Sagarmatha National Park. In the past 80 years over 300 people have died on this mountain and many of their bodies have never been recovered. While tourism to summit Mount Everest has brought money to the country of Nepal it has also brought a huge problem - litter. In a climate where survival is more important than being respectful to our planet, over 100,000 pounds of trash have been left on top of Mount Everest, contaminating their water resources. Today we will join a group of Nepali Sherpas who head out to summit Mount Everest to rid its peaks of garbage but to also recover bodies, something that has never before been done. With avalanches, freezing temperatures, and oxygen levels not compatible with survival, this team has a lot of obstacles to overcome if they are to make it out alive. For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mount Everest is an icon of the earth. People travel to visit her from all over the world, willing to risk their lives to see her summit. Mountaineers and expert expeditioners spend years training for this trek and thousands of dollars to do so, some to only die in the end. To them, Mount Everest is something that needs to be conquered. Of all of these mountaineers and lovers of the outdoors, traveling to see her magnificent beauty, they have all seemed to forgotten one thing. Everest has become a personal trash can to these Everest adventurers, littering her with climbing gear and bodies.

This is having devastating effects to the surrounding villages' water systems. Should any one person have the right to insist on leaving their body exposed, deteriorating, and contaminating the water source of over a billion other people, We are actively destroying our environment, and with its demise we will disappear as a species. We must evolve into better caretakers, or we will turn the planet into one giant death zone. Mother goddess of Earth, we come not as conquerors, but as servants. Please forgive us for our past actions. Allow us to make amends.

That passage was a direct quote from the documentary Death Zone. cleaning Mount Everest, a documentary filmed by the Nihali Climers, and what this story today will be about. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle. And I'm Cassie. Happy Monday. We're excited to be back. We have another story for you guys. We hope you had a great weekend. And I think today we're just going to get right into our story, but before we do that, we do have an exciting announcement. As we alluded to in episode 19, we are going, we promised that we would be revisiting the Everglades, and that's exactly what we did. Cassie and I recorded the bonus campfire episode for our Patreon

early this month, and we are going to be releasing it soon on Wednesday the night. So if you are a Patreon, look out for it earlier this month. And if you are, if you are a Patreon, look out for it earlier this month. And if you are interested in signing up to become a member and to gain access to our campfire stories and other special features, then you can visit our Patreon website that is linked in our Instagram at National Park After Dark. Yeah, it's a really cool story. It was fun to listen to. I mean, I say fun, but it was also really morbid and some of the stuff I was like, oh my God. It gave me a little bit of anxiety, but I feel like a lot of those stories do. for me. But if you do want to listen to it, you can go on to our Instagram National Park

After Dark or head over to our website, mpaddpodcast.com, and our Patreon is on there, and you can listen on either of our tiers. It is available. So we're just going to go right into our episode this week, and we're heading abroad again because it's been a little while. I think the last time we went abroad was Patagonia and we have been really focusing. on the U.S. National Parks, which is kind of more of a theme for us, but there are some wild things that happen out in national parks and other countries. So today, we are going to be going to Sagamatha National Park. This story is going to take us in a totally different direction that I feel like isn't covered as much on Everest. We always hear about the climbers and the expeditions

that happen and people traveling from all over the country to go to this mountain and how dangerous it is. And we never hear about the Nepali people and their stories with Mount Everest. And that kind of inspired me to look at this story. These people come from all over the country to summit Everest to say that they've summited Mount Everest. And I'm going to talk about a group of people today who summited Mount Everest, but for entirely different reasons, they actually decided to climb Mount Everest to save their country and their environment. Wow. I am pleasantly surprised because you're right. Every time somebody brings up Everest, your mind automatically goes to the people who travel from around the world to summit it or to attempt to. But very rarely does my mind go to the Nepali people

other than them acting as guides or Sherpas for those people who are paying big bucks to Summit Everest. Exactly. And as always, before we head into this story, I want to talk to you about this National Park and give you a background on what it is, when it was established, a the environment there, all that good stuff. Please do, because apparently I know nothing about it. I've learned a lot in this research, so I hope that I'm teaching people as well. Sagarmatha National Park was established July 19th, 1976, which actually was pretty recently, if you think about it, compared to some of our other national parks.

I was going to say, yeah, usually it's like you hear 20s, 30s, and the quote-unquote later parks or, you know, 60s, 50s. Yeah, so it's definitely established a little bit later than a lot of our U.S. parks. And this is located in the Himalayas of eastern Nepal, and it also shares its borders with Tibet. So this park is beautiful. It has dramatic mountains and glaciers, deep valleys, and it is home to the highest peaks in the entire world, and that includes the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest. So Mount Everest is actually known by the Nepali people as Mount Sagamatha, which translates to forehead of the sky. And it is

known by the Tibetan people, they call her Chumulangma, which translates to Mother Goddess of the world. This area is home to rare species of animals, and this includes snow leopards and the red panda. The park also contains the world's highest ecologically characteristic flora and fauna. It's filled with deep valleys and gorges, glaciers and peaks, and its dense forests are filled with pines and oaks, and the skyline is just dominated by the extremely high mountains. So this park was established to protect the wildlife that is here, but it also was created to protect its deep-rooted culture of the Sherpa people who have lived there for over four centuries. Within this national park, there are over 20 villages with over 6,000 Sherpa people inhabiting the land. So these people

migrated from Tibet to Nepal around 500 years ago, and they mainly consist of Buddhists. And they continue this practice to this day. They practice their cultural and religious beliefs, and that includes the restriction of animal hunting and slaughtering, because part of their belief is that they believe in the well-being of all living beings. So once you enter this national park, there is no hunting allowed at any point. They also have very strong beliefs that the Himalayas are the home of the gods, and therefore they never climbed these mountains because they feared they would anger the gods. And they never climbed them until around the 1920s, when climbers from all over the world started coming to their area to try and summit Mount Everest.

So because this mountain is so sacred for them, before you even set foot on it, you must first ask for God's permission. And there's actually a special ceremony known as the Pooja. The Sherpa people, a lot of them have been expedition guides. And in their guiding, they have been trying to instill their deep respect for their gods and their mountains into the tourists who come to climb them. They now cater to tourists, providing gear, lodging, and even Wi-Fi. The tourist industry of Mount Everest has made the Sherpa people of Nepal some of the richest people of their country, but their country as a whole is one of the poorest countries in the world. And even though they have this increased income, they're risking their lives. Climbing Mount Everest is an extremely

dangerous task. And all of the deaths that have occurred on Mount Everest, 40% of them are Sherpa people. Wow. Yeah. Another thing that I've never heard, it makes sense because they're also involved with the climbs and different expeditions. I would think the vast majority of them, if not all of them. They're climbing them more often. too. Yeah. So that's very interesting. That's something I didn't know. And this climb, just to put a little bit of it into perspective, is really dangerous because there's lack of oxygen on the mountain itself. So at the summit of Mount Everest, they are at 29,000 and 32 feet. There's only 33% of the oxygen that is normally available at sea level. So this means that you need to

to bring oxygen with you when you summit this mountain. So you have to take oxygen tanks with you. You have a very limited time where you can be at these high elevations before you're going to die. Makes sense. Yeah. Lack of oxygen, yeah. Yeah, lack of oxygen is not great. Not compatible with life.

Yeah. No. So although the tourism and these mountains have created a lot of income for Nepal, it has also created a very large problem for their country. And that is water pollution. A large cause of this water pollution is coming from the climbers of Mount Everest. Nepal has 2.7% of all of the available fresh water on earth. This makes this the second largest country in the world for water reserves, and Brazil is the first. So the thought of nearly 3,000 glaciers and lakes in the highest mountains of the Himalayas has created over 6,000 rivers and streams that flow into Nepal's valleys.

This supplies water to over 100,000 million people downstream. However, nearly 5 million inhabitants of Nepal, which is 18% of their population, don't have access to safe sources of drinking water. So this is a big problem, and a big source of this, they believe to be, is Mount Everest and all of the trash that is left up there. So we're going to really get deep into this and what's going on there. Mount Everest, which we've said has attracted people from all over the world, and they're only the most highly experienced mountaineers would originally climb Mount Everest.

But nowadays, anyone who can afford to climb Mount Everest can climb it. They hire Sherpa Guide, and they buy the gear, and they can go up. In the early 2000s, this number of tourists who would, come to Nepal was about 400,000, but now it's closer to a million people who visit Nepal. And then there are, I think it said 400 people every year who try to summit Mount Everest. A big problem here is that as more climbers flood this mountain, more and more of them leave their trash behind. So climbers will leave things such as their oxygen tanks. They'll have ripped up and ruined tents. that are left up. There's prayer flags that are scattered across the whole mountain. There's wrappers

from their food. There's the propane cylinders that people use that are discarded everywhere. There's their own feces and urine that is covering the mountain and even their own decaying bodies. Oh, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. We're getting into. some more morbid things here. So these things are polluting the water sources of the Nepali people. And as climate change warms the temperatures around the mountain and glaciers begin to melt, its runoff is carrying the bacteria from all of these things into their water systems. As the snow is melting, it's revealing more trash and it's also revealing more bodies. Over the last 80 years, around 300 people have died on Mount Everest.

The rule on Everest is clear and it's simple. You are left where you fall. There will be no recovery missions for your body, as the elevation is too high to send a helicopter and the trek is too dangerous to bring you home. This simple fact has earned Everest the nickname, the world's highest graveyard. It has also given the area above 25,000 feet, where most climbers have met their demise, the nickname of the Death Zone. The zone has earned its name because it is almost impossible to survive these harsh temperatures

and the thin air of such altitudes. There is a third of as much oxygen here than there is at sea level, and anyone who stays there for more than a couple days will most certainly die. In the more recent years, people have begun to try and remove some of the people. these bodies. However, a dead body here can weigh up to 400 pounds due to how frozen solid in the ice that it has become. Before they can even be moved, they need to be broken free from the mountainside to which they have frozen to. And due to the temperatures on this mountain, they will remain frozen for 365 days a year, which also leaves many of these bodies almost

perfectly preserved even after decades. One of the most infamous bodies discovered on the mountain was the body of George Mallory. He was a British climber who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. So he had a couple failed expeditions with other people where actually a few Sherpas died and he was criticized for making some bad decisions on his past expeditions and on on June 24th, 1924, he set out again to attempt the climb, and he was never seen again. That is, until 1999. His body was discovered face down on a rock face, and he was identified by a name tag that was still on a shirt that said his name. And even after 75 years, his body was still intact,

with much of his skin and clothing still on him. And there is actually a video where you can watch them discover his body. No. Send me the link right now. What? George, the name rings the bell, but I didn't know that there's footage of it. Yeah, there's footage of the people who discovered him, and there's actually footage of when they flip over his collar and the inside of his

tags as George Mallory. And they say, we think this is him. He could have switched shirts with someone else, but we're pretty sure this is George Mallory. Wow. That's wild. Yeah. Imagine being part of that history and discovering that. It's him and another person he was climbing with who his body has never been found. There's been a lot of controversy over whether or not They were actually the first people to ever summit Mount Everest because they just don't know if they made it or not, but they were not the first successful climb, obviously, because they died. So there's another famous body on this mountaintop, and this body is known as Green Boots. And Green Boots got this name because of the bright green boots that are still seen on his body. It is believed to be the body of a climber named Tewong Palor from India.

He died on the mountain in 1996. He died at the entrance of a limestone cave at about 27,890 feet. And this is an area that climbers must pass through on their route to the north side of the mountain. So he actually became almost like a landmark on the hike. And this was actually really upsetting to a lot of climbers. Of course, you're climbing and you come across a dead body. And years later, in 2006, another man died in almost the same location as Green Boots.

David Sharp died only a few feet away from where Green Boots was inside of the limestone cave, which has actually been caused for a lot of controversy since his death. David died of hypothermia in the cave and he actually sat in the corner of this cave curled up and dying as many other climbers passed him on the way to the summit. Oh, God, that's terrible. But what do you do? What can you do? So there was one climber who radioed in asking what they could do and realize that there was nothing so they continued on to the summit. But this really highlighted the fact that on Mount Everest, even though you're going in teams, you're very much alone. Everyone who goes on Mount Everest, their goal is to summit no matter what. If you fall behind and you're sick, you are putting the other person at risk if they stop to help. you and you're also putting their summit at risk. So this was a big controversy where there were actually 40 climbers who passed him and none of them helped. Wow. And some people said at the

end of this, they confused his body and thought that he was green boots. Some people thought he was already dead. And some people said that he waved them on saying he was fine. But this was kind of a highlight of that Mount Everest is an all for yourself. Even though you are relying on other people too at the end of the day, people are going to choose the summit over you. Well, that and, I mean, like you said, you're putting, it's putting yourself and others at risk. So today, we are actually going to be talking about another group of people. And I mentioned this at the beginning, but we're going to be talking about a group of people

and a story that is less talked about in the world of expeditions. We're going to talk about a group whose goal was to summit Mount Everest, but not for the coveted title of being able to do so. They did this because they wanted to be able to save their people, their environment, and their country. For many years, climbers have been trying to clean up Everest, and with not a lot of success, and never did they ever enter into the death zone. This was just too dangerous to go in purely to pick up trash. In April 2010, a group of Nepali mountaineers that was led by Namghal Shurpa set out to change that.

Their expedition was to reach the summit of Everest into the death zone and clean up the trash and human waste that was littering the mountain. Also, they were heading up there to remove at least one dead body. Removing bodies was especially difficult not only because of the physical act of actually moving them, but because families actually needed to give them their approval. And a lot of these families believed that their left ones would wish to stay there and did not want their bodies removed. So they needed to get special permission. And actually, when they started this journey, they wanted to remove five bodies from Mount Everest. But when they started it, they only had permission to remove one.

So Namgall, who is the leader of this group, he summited Everest at least six times prior to this expedition. And he had bore witness to the impact that all of this trash had left. And he had seen several bodies on his expeditions as well. He had actually stated that in the past, the garbage and the bodies were buried under a lot of snow. but he had actually himself seen the effects of climate change. Some of this trash that is up there has been there since 1953, when Edmund Hillary had made the first successful summit with Sherpa, Tenzing, Norga. So going up on this expedition, their plan was to use special bags to gather the bodies of the climbers

and carry them down to an elevation where a helicopter could short haul them out. They would do several trips up and down the mountain, carrying out as much trash as they could collect safely. And all of the men joining this expedition realized that there was a really high possibility that they could die or be severely injured. Losing limbs was not abnormal for this expedition. Did they have a particular time frame that they wish to accomplish the mission or just they wanted to keep going? until they got as much as they could. They were planning to be up there for 29 days. Okay.

They start their mission, and their mission from the very start is extremely dangerous. The very first step is to fly into the most dangerous airstrip in the world, called Tenzing Hillary, which is named after the first successful summators of Everest, in Lucla. And this is where they will head out to start their expedition. The team lands in Lucla on the airstrip located at 9,383 feet. The airport itself has an extremely short runway that makes taking off and landing especially dangerous. The area at that elevation has extremely high wind speeds at times as well. On top of this, there's limited electricity in the airport, and over the past 20 years,

there have been seven deadly accidents that have killed over 50 people. The group successfully lands on the airstrip and they prepare their journey to base camp. They would be traveling on foot for 24 miles, each carrying their own personal supplies. However, the bulk of their gear would be carried on domesticated yaks. And this trek took them through several villages of the Nepali people and different camping areas. So if you remember at the beginning, I said that there are 20 different villages just in this area of the Himalayas. Yeah. I remember that's, that's wild. There's people, you know, you just think of Everest as just this mountain that people come to fly into to summit, but you don't think of

local people living their whole lives right there. Yeah. These are days hikes out. They are out there. There's no roads. There's not cars. These people live a very different lifestyle. than we know here in the United States. So next they head to Pankboche, which is a village located at 13,074 feet, and they stop here to get the blessing to climb Mount Everest. So this is really important to the Nepali people and the Sherpas. You need to get a blessing before you can step foot on the mountain. Here, where Buddhism is the most prominent religion, there's a huge belief in harmony of living

things and not living and restoring the largest living entity, which is Earth. They came here to receive the blessing from Lama Geish, who is the highest ranking llama in the area, and thousands of climbers visit his home to get the blessing to continue their journey. And I actually read he did pass away a few years ago, but he is a very well known if you look him up. He's very known where many, many people would stop just in his home to get this blessing. They reach base camp, which is at 7,650 feet. There are prayer flags and tents that fill the camp. And there are tons of people here. There are many people here who range from volunteers who are here to clean up base camp because base camp is also has a lot of trash and garbage, human feces, things like that, just at base camp.

There's scientists who are studying the area, and there's also mountaineers who are there to acclimate for their trip. So a big reason that they stay in base camp is they have to get acclimated to the level of oxygen there to avoid altitude sickness. Here there is only 50% of oxygen that is available at sea level, so it's imperative that the team stays there for several days to adjust to these oxygen levels, or they risk severe altitude sickness. and if it's severe enough, it can cause death. It is when they're here that Namgal checks into the status of being able to recover the body of Gianni Goltz, who is the body of a Swiss mountaineer who died in 2008 while making a documentary of his climb. Oh, wow.

The group had gotten permission to recover his body and to also cremate him. And like I said before, there's a large issue of the bodies on Everest, and it's a that you need special permission to remove any of them. No matter who, what it is, even if it's a small body part, you need special permission to remove any of it because there's families involved, the government, it's a whole process. And this is actually really difficult for the Sherpa people who this is their home, because Sherpa people believe that when you die, your spirit will remain very close to your body until you are cremated. And it's not until then that your spirit can rest.

Oh, okay, I see. So it's more of, there's a cultural significance coming into play here. And base camp is also littered with body parts. There have been people who have been camping there. And next to their tent, there's been a piece of their head, a piece of their leg, hands, feet, arms, just lying right next to their tent. and the people there have reported being scared to go out at night because they don't want to trip over them or touch them. There's actually pictures that people have taken of the body parts because it is freezing here all year round. There's still skin on these body parts that are around.

So it's very morbid and traumatic to be sitting around this. This is also just another issue that is contributing to their water sources. the bacteria from these people's bodies are getting into their water sources, and it's also creating this horrible, horrible smell inside the camp. So during their stay at base camp, it is very important for the team to focus on eating. It is important for the group to gain weight during their stay here because it's expected that during their expedition, they're going to lose between 11 to 22 pounds because when they're at higher altitudes, it's actually impossible for your body to digest nutrients properly. So while they're staying here for a few days acclimating to the altitude

change in the oxygen levels, they participate in the Pooja ceremony, which means the right of passage ceremony. And this is where they contact Mount Everest and the goddess of Everest asking for permission to climb, and they pray for a safe journey. During this ritual, they construct a large carn with long strands of prayer flags. And the idea of prayer flags and hanging them is that the wind blowing will actually blow these prayers to reach who they are praying to. The team also made an offering of special foods and drinks, and they put out all of their climbing gear to be blessed for their journey. At the end of the ceremony, Samps of Flower, a staple in the Tibetan diet, is spread on their faces of the team and tossed into the air as a celebration for good luck.

After having a few days of rest, the team prepares to head to Camp 2. And on this, I'm going to post a map on our Instagram and on our show notes, but there is a Camp 1, 2, 3, and 4. And as you get higher in numbers, you get higher in elevation. So they're preparing to head straight to camp two, some of their group. And this is a group of 30 people, by the way, which I don't think I mentioned before. So there's a lot of people joining in on this expedition. So they have a rest day and they prepare to skip camp one and head straight to camp two. They will bring their supplies such as oxygen tank and food supplies to this area. And they begin their journey at 2 a.m. and they are in high spirits, but they are aware of just how dangerous this trek is going to be. The first trek to Camp 2 crosses over one of the most dangerous treks of the entire journey. They would be crossing Cumba Icefall. This is located on the Cumba Glacier, and this area is so dangerous because of the changing climate and the warming weather's, the glacier moves daily and can sometimes move as much as three feet in a day.

This creates an extremely dangerous area for avalanches and has killed 19 people in the past. This area is also full of deep crevasses where climbers can fall hundreds of feet to their deaths. Right off a bat. It's a no for me, dog. Yeah, there's no part of me that wants to hike Everest. I might consider the base camp. I mean, it's still a no. I would love to hike into the different villages. That would be very cool. To experience the different cultures there.

And I mean, Google these photos. This area is just absolutely amazing and beautiful. I would not need to hike Everest to experience that, I don't think. So at 2 a.m., they leave. It's still dark, obviously, and the team starts the climb together. And they're all attached to a rope. So they're all attached to each other. And they all have headlamps and they're hiking and they're climbing.

And while they're climbing, there's loose snow around them and a wall of snow begins to move. It starts moving towards them in the darkness and starts rumbling down towards the group. It lasts only a few seconds. Everyone okay? Namga called out. Laughing, the team replied they were all just fine. When dawn finally broke, they could see the beauty of the mountains all around them. and they could see Base Camp from the distance, and for the first time they actually got a good look at Kumba Glacier.

Back at Base Camp, there were people from the expedition who had been down there helping to feed them and prepare the group for their journey, and they waited below. These people also kept in contact with the group via radios, just to check in in case of emergencies, or if they needed anything while they're on the mountain. That morning, coming from the Kumba Glacier area, they heard an incredible rumble and a roar. Falling hard and fast, an avalanche had erupted on the Kumba Glacier. Immediately they radioed Namgall in his group. Namgall. No response. When you get this message, call me back immediately.

Are you okay? Still, no response. Namgall. Hello, Camp 2, is anyone there? Reports came back into base camp, confirming that three people had died in the avalanche. However, none of these people were part of Namgaal's team. They were still waiting to hear back from them. Repeated calls went out to them and still revealed no answer.

After about four hours, they finally were able to get into communication with the team. Each one of them were still alive and unharmed. The team continues on crossing large crevasses. And to cross these large crevasses, they are hooked onto ropes, and they are actually just crossing over metal ladders that have been placed across them. Absolutely not. Are you serious? It's like, let's just slap down a ladder and hope for the best.

Yeah, and that's literally how it is. It's just slapped down over these crevasses. And this story, just so everyone is aware, I actually watched a self-made documentary from this group of climbers on this exact expedition. So they have GoPro video of them walking over these crevasses on these ladders. And this documentary is called the death zone. And it is something you can watch. I don't know on what I just say it into my remote and it pops up. So I don't know what channel it's on, but it's on there. I just magically speak into this piece of equipment and it pops up. And it pops up. I don't know where I'm watching it on, but it's on there. So they're crossing over these crevasses and it takes the team six hours to get through Kambu Glacier. They reach

Camp 1 at 19,900 feet. And when they reach Camp 1, it's time to take a little break. And part of their group is going to stay in Camp 1. So they set up their tents and their gear. They sit down and they just start playing some cards, hanging out in one of their tents. It's time to relax for a little while for some of these members. Other members of this group begin to carry supplies to Camp 2, located at 21,000 feet, which is where they will mostly be based out of when they're collecting trash off the mountain and out of the death zone. As a few of the team members head to Camp 2, they come across an abandoned backpack. They start to fan out looking for the owner to see if they might need help. What they find instead is a body a few feet away. This was absolutely devastating

for the climbers to find and was just another reminder of how day. dangerous this journey is. Now without permission or knowing who this person is, there's nothing they can do and they must leave him behind. They successfully make the ascend to camp too. This night, however, they get no sleep. Heavy winds rampaged through their camp and ripped their tents apart. Their windchill factor brought the camp temperatures down to minus 40 degrees. They spent their entire night trying to keep their gear from being blown away. They made it through the night, and the following day, the climbers head out and reach the death zone to begin their mission to clean up trash. And this is a mission that has never been done here before. They begin to find things from all

over the world. Different food packaging, tents, ropes, oxygen tanks, propane cylinders, etc. They're finding food with different languages on it, things from all over the world. This area is also littered with human feces, and they begin the journey to carry the trash they are collecting from the death zone to Camp 2 where they're based. And just as a heads up for this, these climbers are also removing feces. They are packaging this up and they are getting that. So it's not just this trash. They're actually getting these feces. And they are physically hammering with their ice picks into this ice and snow.

to get these objects out of the snow and into their trash bags. That's exactly what I was picturing. It's nasty. After a day there cleaning up, members of the group start to become very sick. They begin to lose their voice and get cold-like symptoms and stomach irritation. And they believe that this is all happening because of the water. Their only source here in Camp 2 is to get water from the ice. And with all the trash and feces that surround them, the bacteria had been getting into their water and making them very sick. The team powers on through, though.

And the next day they have a meeting to discuss their plans and their plan for some of the members to stay camped in the death zone at camp three and four for the next three days. So right now they're in camp two, but they're going to start sending people into the death zone. and the death zone is somewhere where you cannot stay very long because of the oxygen levels. Namgall gathers the group together. We are going to be gone for three days. Whoever is staying here should continue to collect garbage. You will know how much of a reputation you have built up. But for that reputation, you must carry 4,400 pounds of garbage.

It's not going to be easy. What you're going to be doing here is extremely risky. So let's be careful, okay? Namgol spoke this to the entire group. They also then discussed their plans to bring a second person's body down from the death zone. Sergei Duganov, who was a Russian mountaineer who died only days before they began their journey. He had decided to summit Everest with no oxygen tanks and no Sherpa guide. The lack of oxygen set in and he fell asleep and he never woke up.

The group had gotten permission from his family to extract him. The team set out to get to Sergei, and as they neared where his body lay, an unexpected storm started to come in. They struggled to stay on the slippery and icy surfaces. The wind was so strong it seemed as if it would blow them right off of the mountain. Of the five people who went up for this part of the mission, three of them turned back. Namgall and another mountaineer, Sondon, continued to. So only two of them? Only two of them at this point.

A few hours later, Sondon arrived at Camp 3 alone. He told his team members that he became sick with altitude sickness and he needed to turn around and that he couldn't stay up there any longer. When the group asked about Namgaw and where he was, he told them he left him behind and he was still trying to recover Dugganov's body. So meanwhile, Namgall continues on and the storm was. unrelenting. He decides that he is willing to risk his life to return this man home to his family. And when he arrives to his campsite, which is located at 26,300 feet, he finds Duganoff's body

only yards from where his tent was. He finds that his body is encased in ice. For two hours, Namgol uses his ice pick to hack away at the ice to free his body from the mountain. And while he's doing this, he's using precious energy and time. His window of survival in these conditions gets smaller and smaller the longer that he takes. Finally, he does get him free and he's able to move his body. But now he has this other task. He now has to drag his body, which is 400 pounds, down the steep slope by himself and back to camp. Talk about a man with a mission. Yeah, he's certainly... 400 pounds by himself on this extremely dangerous mountain. And it's not like hiking through a trail.

He is climbing up ice. So his team members back at camp start to become very concerned about Namgaal because at this point he's been gone for four hours. And they decide that they need to go out and start to search for him. When they do finally find him, they find non. Namgaal sitting in the snow, exhausted and not moving. I lost the use of my hands. I can barely speak, he told them. They asked him why he didn't just leave the body and come down because it was such a hard

mission. And Namgal responded and told them that this was because there was no safe place to put Duganoff's body where he wouldn't be in risk of falling off aside of a cliff. and he had to continue carrying him until he could find a safe spot where he could leave his body. And different from Samden's story, he told the other team members that Samden had actually been very afraid when he saw the body and said he didn't want to be near it and he turned around and went back to camp. Okay, so he told everybody else that he was experiencing altitude sickness, but in reality he just didn't want to be any more part of. He was just really upset at seeing another dead body. With the help of his team members, he returned to camp.

And when he got there, obviously, there was a lot of feelings of happiness that he was still alive, and there was also a lot of guilt that he was left up there alone. And then there was forgiveness. At the end of the day, these men rely on each other to survive, and there was no time to be upset at anybody, there was no time to not forgive or be mad. For the next two days, a blizzard hit their camp, and they could not move anywhere or continue their mission.

When the blizzard finally led up, they continued their mission, and they separated into two groups. Now it was time to recover the body of Gianni Goltz, who died near Camp 4 and was the highest camp before the summit. and this is that Swiss mountaineer that we talked about earlier that they had originally had permission to bring his body down. Now, Gianni Goltz had gone up without oxygen and he had made it to the summit, but it was on his descent down where he got severe altitude sickness and he died. The other group set out to get the Russian climber, Duganov, where Namgol had left him.

And this was a very tedious task because his body, had weighed so much. And the climbers needed to be very careful with his ropes and lowering him off of these ice cliffs because if his body had become detached or they dropped him, it would be gone forever. It would have slid off of a cliff and been gone forever. They successfully brought the bodies low enough for a helicopter to come in for a short haul at 21,650 feet. The helicopter was there to bring them to base camp. The ice was very slippery for the helicopter to land on and there was a very short period of time where they could remove the bodies. Where this area is, it's known for very unpredictable weather to come in and they needed to move fast. The Russian's body was too heavy

to be able to carry both of them out at the same time together. So they decided that Duginov's body had to be loaded inside instead of short hauled below the helicopter. And if you all remember from our Grand Teton episode, short hauling is when they have the long 100 foot rope and they have the body of the people attached at the bottom and they do a very short helicopter ride to get them to the next location. Yep, exactly. Luckily, this day for them, the skies were blue and the weather was nearly perfect for extracting them.

Only a few minutes later, the helicopter returned for Gianni's body and the team watched as the pilot flew away, short hauling the body. This was the very first helicopter recovery in history at this altitude. Now, with both of these bodies recovered, it was now time for their mission of removing the trash from the death zone to continue. They were planning to remove almost 5,000 pounds of trash from the area, and the Sherpas began their summit to the top of Mount Everest. And like I said before, unlike other climbers with their guides and their goals to go to the summit, their sole goal to get to the summit was to remove the trash up at the top of it. So they finally climb to the area and they get to the last part before the summit, and this is called Hillie.

step. This is a very steep and dangerous climb. They make it through this area and they get to the highest point on the planet, the top of Mount Everest. And when they get here, you think of beautiful views and you're at the top. You've just made this wonderful climb. And the top here is littered with prayer flags and discarded oxygen tanks. I've literally, my breath was held. I'm like, they made it. And in my mind, I pictured the sky opening, sunshine, beaming down. It's sparkling with snow glistening off the other peak surrounding Everest. I really had this whole vision in my mind of that. Yeah, and it is that with trash everywhere. And trash just takes away from everything. I mean, it does. It's a problem everywhere.

And this is a problem with, if you think about it, the people who climb Mount Everest, they're mountaineers, they're nature lovers. And a lot of it is because people are trying to survive on this mountain, but they are creating a huge problem with garbage in the meantime. So the team only takes a few moments to sit up at the summit and look around and just be excited that they made it. It was extremely lucky for them to get the right weather and to make it up there and none of them are injured. So this was a really exciting thing for them and they were very happy about it, but they only took a few moments to celebrate because then it was time to continue their mission and they started to clean up. And this was a very grueling and difficult task with only 30% of the normal oxygen

and having to carry this extra weight, this was going to be a very hard. mission. And as they began to clean up, they found tons of discarded alcohol bottles. And this was most likely from people celebrating their summits. Each bag of trash that the climbers were carrying were between 50 to 100 extra pounds of weight. They separated into two separate teams, and the first team would take all of the garbage from the summit down to Camp 2. Then the second team brought these bags of trash all the way back to base camp. These climbers did this trek eight times, removing as much trash as they could handle. So just as a clarification of it, so from the summit, there's camp four, then there's camp three, and then there's camp two. Do you know the distance

between those? Camp two is at 20,997 feet. The summit of Mount Everest, is at 29,000 and 32 feet. So it's a 9,000 foot climb each time they're doing this. And they're not just summiting each time they're coming further down. Like they're collecting trash that's lower in the zone coming back to Camp 2 and kind of working their way down. And then the second group is at Camp 2 and they are going all the way back to base camp to bring all this trash. And if you remember, the track from Camp 2. to base camp covers the most dangerous part of their entire journey, and that's Kambu Glacier.

So they're crossing over this area over and over again. Yeah, how can I forget the ladder? The ladder thing. The ladder thing. They're crossing over this, and now they have an extra 100 pounds on their back. Insane. This team collected 4,000 pounds of trash from the death zone. It is estimated that they were in.

able to collect 75% of the trash that was there. And because of this mission, they have lessened the pollution that's going into their water systems. And they were also able to put two souls to rest and give their families closure. The Sherpa's team hopes for this mission in their success to clean up the death zone for the very first time in history will send an inspirational message across the globe to do their part and clean up their own areas and their own homes. They hope that their story will inspire each one of us to do better for our planet and to take care of it. Namgul Sherpa dedicated his entire life to cleaning up Mount Everest, and on May 16, 2013, while descending from a summit climb on the north side of Mount Everest, he died.

Sabin Bassat, the helicopter pilot in this story, passed away when his helicopter crashed during a rescue mission on the south side of the summit. In remembrance of these two people and in honor of this mission, we can all do a little part in our own corner of the world. So in honor of this and to be able to give us all a little way that we can honor this mission ourselves. and I know probably everyone listening to this are not Mountaineers of Everest and have not summited Mount Everest and have no plans to. I certainly do not. We can all do a little bit to impact our own environment at home. And there are actually a set of principles that are written as outdoor rules and guides

for everyone to follow. And this is called the rules of leave no trace. And I just wanted to tell you all these. because these are really simple steps that we can all take in our daily hikes, adventures, camping, that we can protect our own homes in our own areas and our own mountains. So there are seven principles of leave no trace. The first one is to plan ahead and prepare, and this is very important. Plan ahead for your trip and prepare to make sure you have all the supplies and things that you need for your trip.

The second one is to travel and camp on durable surfaces. And the reason that this one is so important is because if you are camping or traveling on areas that aren't durable, such as places that are experiencing erosion or re-vegetation areas, you're going to be hurting these areas in your environment. You're going to be hurting the plant life there. You're going to be affecting and accelerating erosion. you need to make sure that wherever you are traveling on and wherever you're camping on is an appropriate area for you to be. Number three of Leave No Trace, which was not followed in our story of

Mount Everest, is to dispose of waste properly. So there are ways that you can research. There are biodegradable bags you can use. Make sure you always have a trash bag with you. Make sure that you are cleaning up after yourself and throwing things in the right containers, whether it's recycling, whether it's compost, whether it's regular trash, make sure you're following this. Number four of Leave No Trace is leave what you find. The point of Leave No Trace is to have no trace that you have been to the area that you have been. So if you take artifacts from that area, rocks, leaves, whatever you think it is, when you take it, you're taking from that space. So part of the leave no trace principles are to leave what you find. Number five of leave no trace is to minimize

campfire impact. So you need to be careful with fire. You need to make sure that you are having fire in designated fire pits because when you are burning in other areas, you're burning vegetation, especially if you're just burning over whatever you want. You're burning valuable vegetation. And you're also at risk for forest fires, especially as we head into fire season. Number six of Leave No Trace is Respect Wildlife, which I think we cover a lot on this show. I think we've harped on it. We've harped on it. So I'm not going to go into detail of that.

You all know what it means. And number seven of Leave No Trace is to be considerate of visitors. And that goes for wildlife and people. Be considerate. And these are all things that we can follow wherever we are, no matter if you're camping, if you're going for a walk, if you, are climbing Mount Everest, if you are, these are all things that we can implement into our daily life. And I think as a respect to the climbers who have risked their lives to literally

pick up trash, it is something we can all do in our own corner of the world. And actually, just as a end to this story, moving into 2021, one benefit of COVID-19 for Mount Everest has been the travel restrictions and it has actually given a group of mountaineers in Nepal to collect more than 2.2 tons of garbage from Mount Everest this year. And because of the lack of visitors, they had 47 days to themselves where they could be on this mountain collecting trash and they did collect 2.2 tons this past April. So this is still an ongoing thing. What? I mean, I was going to bring it up towards the end of this because I know we were focused on one expedition that was focused on trash removal. And it was something that I was questioning. Is it being

continued on throughout time? Is it something that's ongoing? Which I would have hoped and I'm glad to hear that it is because obviously it doesn't take just one or a handful of expeditions. I imagine is going to be a very long process. But I absolutely loved that. episode. Thanks. It's just, it's so relevant, even though it seems like it's not because we're so far removed from Everest and it seems like it's a far away and far off problem. It's truly not. And it happens everywhere. I mean, yesterday I was out on a walk in my neighborhood with the dogs. And there was trash all along this. It was like, it's like a railroad area, um, rail, rail pass. that's paved in some portions that a lot of people use.

And there's just trash everywhere. Yeah. When I was in Shenandoah National Park a couple weeks ago, we hiked up Old Rag Mountain, and there was a group of people that were up there, and they were just sitting there hanging out, and they left. And then a few minutes later,

we walked up to where they were sitting, and they left water bottle caps all over where they were sitting, And I know it was them because I had just walked over where they were sitting right before they sat down. And then I walked back right after they left. And they just left water bottle caps. There was like seven of them just sitting there. No idea why. Why would you do that?

I don't know. And I just think it's important to know the damage you're causing. We say all these things. And I want to say if you've done this stuff before, it is never too late to change. We've all made mistakes. I mean, this is just information for all of you to realize the impact that we're having and to try and do better. Exactly. We all weren't born with this knowledge.

We all have to learn somewhere. And if this just happens to be where you learn it, great. Great. Love it. And we can go to bed happy knowing that somebody might have learned something. So that is everything that I have for Mount Everest this week. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening, as always.

And we will see you next Monday. But in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Pick up your trash. Recycle, compost, reduce, reuse, recycle. Goodbye.

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