Death On Mount Everest

One of the tragedies of Mount Everest is climbing it has become such an obsession for thousands of people that the mountain is now littered with junk left behind by the hundreds of expeditions who have come and gone over the decades. The liter includes used oxygen cylinders, trash, as well as human bodies. By the 2000s the trash problem had become so bad that expeditions were formed to try to remove some of it (as well as the bodies). But it was not until 2010 and the “Extreme Everest Expedition”, organized and lead by mountaineer Namgyal Sherpa, that bodies and trash were removed from the higher elevations of the mountain where it is most difficult to reach. The expedition was composed of all Sherpa’s. Its goal was to clean the slopes of Everest above 8‚000 meters. The expedition removed 2,000kg (4,000 pounds) of waste and two dead bodies. One of the bodies they did not recover and bring down was that of climbing expedition leader Rob Hall who died on Everest during the infamous 1996 Everest disaster. Hall’s widow requested that his body remain on the mountain. Namgyal Sherpa was a legend among Sherpa’s and the clients and climbers he guided on Everest. He worked his way up from porter, to cook, to starting his own company and leading Sherpa teams on some of the biggest Everest expeditions. He himself summited Everest an amazing ten times. But his tenth summit would be his last. On May 16, 2013 at 8,000 meters, he collapsed. He had complained of feeling ill and then pointed to his chest before he passed away.