Shocking video shows huge piles of abandoned tents and rubbish at Everest base camp
Climbers have been slammed for leaving behind a "graveyard of climbing equipment".
Shocking footage shows scores of discarded oxygen bottles, food tins, torn gear, and other waste scattered across a Mount Everest base camp.
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Climbers have been slammed for leaving behind a "graveyard of climbing equipment" at Camp IV in the Himalayan mountains.
In the video, empty tents and piles of rubbish are seen being battered by fierce winds in the South Col, a jagged saddle pass around 7,906 metres between Mount Everest and Lhotse in Nepal.
Sharing the clip on X, Everest Today wrote: “This is Camp IV on Mt Everest (~7,900 m), the highest campsite on Earth and the final stop before the summit.
“What should be one of the most extraordinary places on the planet has, in many ways, become one of the ugliest faces of Everest's commercialisation.
“Abandoned tents, empty oxygen bottles, food cans, torn gear, and other waste are scattered across the South Col, turning the world's highest campsite into a graveyard of climbing equipment.
“The mountain deserves better.”
Furious fellow climbers flooded the comment section to slam the mountaineers who left behind the rubbish.
“Agree. Every climber should bring down some waste down from the mountain,” one user wrote.
Another commented: “Yes, it's extreme up there, but I thought that every nature lover hiker and climber knew that you don't do this. I wish there was enough money and technology in the world to send in an aerial cleanup crew and keep going until it was done. If I were one of the billionaires I would pay for it and if I needed to do it every five years, I would.”
A third wrote: “Horrible sight. A desecration. Climbers, guides, peddlers and other pests, take every bit of your crap away with you when you leave!”
It comes weeks after huge queues have been seen amassing across a dangerous patch of Mount Everest as hundreds attempted to climb the world's tallest peak.
Images showed climbers waiting in a long line as huge numbers of thrill-seekers prepare to scale the iconic Nepalese mountain.
The queues were piling up between Everest Camp III and Camp IV, a particularly dangerous part of the climb branded the Death Zone, where visitors require supplemental oxygen due to the high altitude.
Nearly 500 tourists were granted permits to climb the Himalayan mountain this year and started arriving at the base camp last month.