As the ice melts, Everest's "death zone" leaves its ghosts behind June 28, 2024

More than 300 people have died on Everest since the 1920s, eight this climbing season alone (Prakash MATHEMA)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

As the ice melts, Everest's "death zone" leaves its ghosts behind

By Paavan MATHEMA

On the sacred slopes of Everest, climate change is thinning the snow and ice, increasingly exposing the bodies of hundreds of mountaineers who died chasing their dream of reaching the top of the world's highest mountain.

Among those who climbed the high Himalayan mountain this year was a team that didn't aim for the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak, but risked their own lives to bring some of the bodies down.

Five frozen bodies, as yet unnamed, were recovered - including one that was just a skeleton - as part of Nepal's mountain clean-up campaign on Everest and the adjacent Lhotse and Nuptse peaks.

This is a grim, difficult, and dangerous task.

It took rescuers hours to remove the ice with axes and sometimes the team used boiling water to release the frozen grip.

"Due to the effects of global warming, (the bodies and garbage) are becoming more visible as the snow cover diminishes," said Aditya Karki, a major in the Nepalese army, who led the team of 12 soldiers and 18 climbers.

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

Many bodies remain. Some are hidden by snow or swallowed up by deep crevasses.

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

Nicknames include "Green Boots" and "Sleeping Beauty".

- 'Death zone' - Do you know what's going on?

"There is a psychological effect," Karki told AFP.

"People believe they are entering a divine space when they climb mountains, but if they see dead bodies on the way, it can have a negative effect."

Many are within the "death zone", where thin air and low oxygen levels increase the risk of altitude sickness.

Climbers need to be insured, but any rescue or recovery mission is fraught with danger.

One body, encased in ice up to the torso, took the climbers 11 hours to free.

The team had to use hot water to loosen it, removing it with their axes.

"It's extremely difficult," said Tshiring Jangbu Sherpa, who led the expedition to rescue the body.

"Getting the body out is one part, bringing it down is another challenge."

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

One of them looked untouched, missing only a glove.

The recovery of corpses at high altitudes is a controversial topic for the climbing community.

It costs thousands of dollars and up to eight rescuers are needed for each body.

A body can weigh more than 100 kg (220 pounds) and, at high altitudes, a person's ability to carry heavy loads is severely affected.

- 'Turned into a graveyard' - You don't have time to worry about that.

But Karki said the rescue effort was necessary.

"We have to get them back as much as possible," he said. "If we keep leaving them behind, our mountains will turn into a graveyard."

The bodies are usually wrapped in a sack and then placed on a plastic sled to be dragged down.

Sherpa said that bringing a body down from near the 8,516-meter peak of Lhotse - the fourth-highest mountain in the world - was one of the most difficult challenges so far.

"The body was frozen with its hands and legs open," he said.

"We had to carry it up to Camp Three the way it was, and only then could it be moved to be put on a sled to be dragged."

Rakesh Gurung, from Nepal's tourism department, said that two bodies had been preliminarily identified and that the authorities were awaiting "detailed tests" for final confirmation.

The recovered bodies are now in the capital Kathmandu, and those that have not been identified will probably be cremated.

- Missing mountaineers

Despite the recovery efforts, the mountain still holds its secrets.

The body of George Mallory, the British climber who disappeared during an attempt to reach the summit in 1924, was only found in 1999.

His climbing partner, Andrew Irvine, has never been found - nor has his camera, which could provide evidence of a successful summit that would rewrite the history of mountaineering.

The clean-up campaign, with a budget of more than US$ 600,000, also employed 171 Nepalese guides and porters to bring back 11 tons of garbage.

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

"The mountains have given us mountaineers so many opportunities," said Sherpa.

"I feel we have to repay them, we have to remove the garbage and bodies to clean up the mountains."

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

"This year's garbage can be brought back by the climbers," said Karki. "But who will bring back the old ones?"

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