A team of climbers has just climbed three of the most challenging peaks in the world. They made it even harder by collecting about 2,000 pounds of trash along the way.

• Mountaineer Garrett Madison recently summited Mount Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse this season.

• This is his second time doing it, earning him another “triple crown” of Everest mountaineering.

• Madison made the journey even more challenging by collecting pounds of trash along the way.

Few people have successfully climbed the ‘triple crown’ of the Everest region.

These three peaks – Mount Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse – are among the most dangerous climbs and have some of the toughest conditions on earth: freezing temperatures, low oxygen levels and treacherous terrain.

Climbing any of these three peaks could put your life in danger. Climbers can die from severe altitude sickness, falls into deep crevasses, exposure and other threats.

Professional mountaineer Garrett Madison has achieved the Everest triple crown not once, but twice: first in 2023, the deadliest Everest climbing season ever, and again this year.

But a visit to the top of the world is no longer just about climbing for Madison. He has climbed Mount Everest fourteen times, and after years of watching trash pile up on the mountain and surrounding peaks, he decided to tackle the problem head-on.

He started the Madison Mountaineering Mountain Cleanup Project in the fall of 2023, and he and his team have now collected a total of 4,000 pounds of waste — 2,000 pounds in 2023 and another 2,000 pounds this year — from Everest and neighboring peaks.

“I think we’ve made a big dent. There’s clearly more work to be done,” Madison told Business Insider.

Cleaning up dirty peaks

Cleaning up trash on some of the highest mountains in the world adds another layer of complexity and intensity to an expedition like this, Madison said.

“It’s not just walking down the street and picking trash out of the ditch. It’s really hard work,” he said.

Performing any form of physical labor at such a high altitude, while also climbing all day, can quickly lead to exhaustion.

In addition, climbers must wear additional protective equipment, such as gloves and packs, to transport the waste down the mountain. Every extra pound is extra tax.

“Our teams could only work for an hour at a time before they had to rest,” Madison said.

The climbers also had to be wary of dangerous terrain. Most of the trash is in the camp areas, which are relatively flat, Madison said. But Camp 3 is located on the Lhotse Face, which is very steep with a high risk of avalanches and falling rocks.

“That’s a treacherous area to operate in, you don’t want to fall. People have fallen and died,” he said.

But for Madison and his cleanup team, the work is worth the risk.

Pollution flows downward

Sagarmatha National Park and its buffer zone, which includes Mount Everest and seven adjacent peaks, suffer from a serious waste problem. Most of the waste is left behind by climbers and includes items such as abandoned tents, discarded food packaging and empty oxygen tanks.

A 2010 study estimated that park tourism generated approximately 4.6 tons of solid waste per day during climbing seasons. But that number is likely higher today, as the number of people climbing these peaks has generally increased since then, while waste disposal methods still do not exist.

Waste management rules on Mount Everest are not well enforced, Troy Aupperle, an experienced mountaineer who climbed Everest twice and reached the summit once, told LiveScience in 2022. And he doesn’t think most climbers worry so much about carrying their gear. waste back down the mountain.

“You barely have enough energy to get down the mountain, so anything you don’t need to carry or lose, you just unload so you can get down,” Aupperle told LiveScience.

All that waste is contaminating crucial water sources for local communities, Madison said. “Where does all that waste go? It will flow down the glaciers and into the streams, rivers and water sources that communities depend on,” he said.

Additionally, discarded climbing equipment can break down into microplastics, which have been found in water and snow samples at Everest base camp.

“What we really want to see, of course, is a change in policy and attitude through education, where it is no longer acceptable to leave waste there.” But it was a challenge.

For example, in 2014, the Nepalese government introduced a rule requiring any mountaineer who climbs above Everest base camp to return with 18 pounds of trash from the mountain or forfeit a $4,000 deposit. But many people simply squander the money, mountain geographer Alton Byers wrote in an article for The Conversation in May.

Madison’s cleanup project may be one of the most recent efforts, but certainly not the first. In 1991, local Sherpa people formed the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), which monitors waste on the region’s permit-required peaks, such as Mount Everest, Byers wrote.

And in 2019, the nonprofit Sagarmatha Next started a “Carry Me Back” program that encourages tourists to take two-pound bags of trash from the mountains to be properly processed and disposed of.

The Madison Cleanup Project is working with both of these organizations in a united front against waste pollution on the world’s highest peaks.

“It was an honor and very exciting to work with them a little bit,” he said.

Madison hopes his cleanup project will help reduce the environmental impact of climbers on Mount Everest and other peaks in this region.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s definitely worth it. I feel really lucky and privileged to go on these expeditions,” Madison told Business Insider.

Read the original article on Business Insider