The plastic road to Everest Base Camp

[DGUtley]

The plastic road to Everest Base Camp

Garbage litters the trail of the world’s most popular trek, but measures are being taken to clean up the Khumbu region — one kilogram at a time


DSC2441-1024x683.jpg


Mount Everest is the world’s highest dumping ground, and the route to get there is one of the most popular treks in the world. Twice a year, approximately 40,000 trekkers, local guides and Indigenous sherpas will journey to Everest Base Camp, contributing to more than 200 tonnes of waste in the region per year. The annual influx of tourists has also contributed to a building boom as local communities race to accommodate more and more people each year.

When expert leader and Exodus Travels guide Valerie Parkinson began guiding here in 1986, the scene was very different. “When I first started, there was nothing. You couldn’t get anything,” she says. “When I first started trekking, there were no lodges; everything was camping. [Since then], the size of the villages has increased, and building materials now are concrete rather than wood. There is more availability of things like Coca-Cola, Sprite, Mars bars and Snickers.”

Parkinson has spent a significant amount of time trekking in the Himalayan region. In 2008, she became the first British woman to summit Mount Manaslu without the use of supplementary oxygen, and in 2009 she attempted Everest. “When people think of Nepal, they think of Everest,” she says. “And it’s getting busier and busier.”


DSC2238-1024x683.jpg



DSC2255-1-1024x683.jpg



DSC2238-1024x683.jpg


DSC2396-991x661.jpg





Phakding is a small village in the Khumbu region and is often the first stop for trekkers after setting off from Lukla.





For most trekkers, the journey to base camp begins in



https://canadiangeographic.ca/articl...=pocket-newtab

[Tahuyaman]

Hikers and climbers used to live by the code “if you pack it in, pack it out. They once said that they were concerned about leaving no sign that they were there. They claimed that they were the true stewards of the wilderness. What happened to that?

[donttread]

Hikers and climbers used to live by the code “if you pack it in, pack it out. They once said that they were concerned about leaving no sign that they were there. They claimed that they were the true stewards of the wilderness. What happened to that?

Exactly what I was thinking. Maybe some of these climbers are more adventurer than outdoorsman?

In my neck of the woods the signs say "Carry in Carry out" . Obviously a little more difficult on a mountain but doable one way or another