Filth at base camp, traffic jams, deaths: Mount Everest trek is ‘not a joke’

The climbing season on Mount Everest is currently in full swing with hundreds of enthusiasts attempting to reach the summit. There are a few narrow windows of opportunity to plan the trek, avoiding dangerous winds and weather, but eventually causing rush and traffic jams.

Videos and photos have also shown filth sprawling base of the camp, an alarm for the environment. Besides all that, the rising number of deaths has also become a matter of huge concern.

In a recent post on Instagram, mountaineer Rajan Dwivedi wrote, "Mt. Everest is not a joke and in fact, quite a serious climb."

The post, which was shared on May 20, showed him waiting in a single climbing lane. Meanwhile, dozens of climbers were trying to make the summit.

"This video captured shows what we face on one rope line and negotiating interchanges during the traffic for upstream and downstream!" he said.

In the post, Dwivedi further said that the main reason is the weather window to avoid the fierce cruising jet streams that could be 100-240 mph.

He said that "coming down was a nightmare and exhausting while huge line of climbers were coming up to maximize on the weather window".

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A post shared by Rajan Dwivedi (@everester.raj)

Several videos have surfaced on social media showing filth and litter on the slopes and base camps.

Clips have also shown climbers screaming as they watch dead bodies slide by them. In a post on X, the Northerner wrote, "Everest; the highest, the dirtiest and the most controversial place on Earth. Humans bypassing corpses, leaving people dying, ignoring help cries, making it dirtiest place with pollution & human wastes; all for the glory of summit. When will it stop?!"

Mount Everest is the world's tallest summit at 8,849 metres and officials say more than 6,500 people have reached its peak, many of them multiple times since the mountain was first scaled by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

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Kenyan and Nepali climbers die

A Kenyan and a Nepali climber have died close to Everest's summit, tourism officials said Thursday (May 23), taking this season's toll on the world's highest mountain to at least four.

Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui, 40, and his Nepali guide Nawang Sherpa, 44, went out of contact Wednesday morning and a search team was deployed on the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) high mountain.

"The team have found the Kenyan climber dead between the summit and the Hillary Step, but his guide is still missing," Khim Lal Gautam, chief of the tourism department's field office at the base camp, told AFP.

Another Nepali climber, Binod Babu Bastakoti, 37, died at about 8,200 metres (26,902 feet) on Wednesday, a statement from the tourism department said.

(With inputs from agencies)