As the ice melts, Mount Everest’s death zone gives up its ghost

As climate change thins snow and ice on Everest’s sacred slopes, the bodies of hundreds of climbers who lost their lives pursuing their dream of climbing the world’s highest mountain are emerging.

Among those who climbed the towering Himalayan mountain this year was a team that did not aim for the 8,849-meter summit but risked their own lives to bring down some of the bodies.

As part of Nepal’s mountain cleanup campaign on Everest and the adjacent peaks Lhotse and Nuptse, five as yet unnamed frozen bodies were recovered – of one only skeletal remains remained.

It is a dark, hard and dangerous task.

It took the rescue workers hours to break away the ice with axes. At times, the team used boiling water to loosen the frozen hold.

“Due to the effects of global warming, (the bodies and garbage) are becoming more visible as the snow cover thins,” said Aditya Karki, a major in the Nepal Army who led the team of 12 military personnel and 18 climbers.

More than 300 people have died on the mountain since expeditions began in the 1920s, eight this season alone.

Many bodies still remain. Some are covered by snow or swallowed by deep crevasses.

Others, still clad in their colorful climbing gear, have become landmarks on the way to the summit.

Nicknames include “Green Boots” and “Sleeping Beauty”.

– ‘Death zone’ –

“There is a psychological effect,” Karki told AFP.

“People believe that when they climb mountains they are entering a divine place, but if they see corpses on the way up, it can have negative effects.”

Many find themselves in the “death zone,” where thin air and low oxygen levels increase the risk of altitude sickness.

Mountain climbers must be insured, but every rescue or recovery operation involves many risks.

It took the climbers eleven hours to free one of the bodies, which was encased in ice up to the upper body.

The team had to use hot water to loosen it and pry it out with axes.

“It is extremely difficult,” said Tshiring Jangbu Sherpa, who led the expedition to recover the body.

“Getting the body out is one task, bringing it back down is another.”

Sherpa said some of the bodies looked almost as they did at the moment of their death – in full gear, with crampons and harnesses.

One seemed untouched, only one glove was missing.

The recovery of bodies from high altitudes is a controversial topic in the climbing community.

The cost is thousands of dollars and up to eight rescue workers are needed for each body.

A body can weigh over 100 kilograms (220 pounds), and at high altitudes a person’s ability to carry heavy loads is severely impaired.

– ‘Turn into a graveyard’ –

But Karki said the rescue measures were necessary.

“We need to bring back as many of them as possible,” he said. “If we continue to leave them behind, our mountains will become a cemetery.”

The bodies are often wrapped in bags and then placed on a plastic sled and pulled down.

Sherpa said that transporting a body from the 8,516-meter summit of Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world, was one of the biggest challenges yet.

“The body was frozen, the arms and legs were spread,” he said.

“We had to carry it down to Camp Three as it was and only then could it be moved and put on a sled and pulled.”

Rakesh Gurung of the Nepal Tourism Board said two bodies had been provisionally identified and authorities were waiting for “detailed tests” for final confirmation.

The recovered bodies are now in the capital Kathmandu. The unidentified people will probably be cremated at some point.

– Missing mountaineers –

Despite recovery efforts, the mountain still holds its secrets.

The body of George Mallory, the British mountaineer who disappeared during a summit attempt in 1924, was not found until 1999.

His climbing partner Andrew Irvine was never found – nor was their camera, which could provide evidence of a successful summit that would rewrite the history of mountaineering.

The cleanup, with a budget of over US$600,000, also involved 171 Nepali guides and porters to bring back 11 tons of garbage.

Fluorescent tents, discarded climbing equipment, empty gas cartridges and even human excrement litter the well-trodden path to the summit.

“The mountains have given us climbers so many opportunities,” said Sherpa.

“I believe we need to give something back to them. We need to remove the garbage and the bodies and clean up the mountains.”

Today, expeditions are under pressure to clean up the waste they create, but the historical garbage remains behind.

“This year’s garbage may be brought back by the climbers,” said Karki. “But who will bring back the old one?”

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