Thousands of people have tried to climb Mount Everest,
Some successful, others have lost everything trying.
But it's not the glory of summiting the tallest peak
in the world that's motivating these climbers.
It's about cleaning up the mountain that's a beacon to
hundreds of adventurers a year.
Once again, a clean up team of soldiers,
Sherpas and porters braved some of Everest most inhospitable conditions
to remove hazards that have collected along the route.
One of the team leaders says it is dangerous but
increasingly urgent work because of the effects of global warming.
The bodies and trash are becoming more visible as the
snow cover thins.
The team recently battled Everest,
frigid temperatures, whipping winds and altitudes with low oxygen levels
to remove 11 tonnes of garbage from the mountain and
at times uncovering much more difficult things.
Viewers might find the next image.
Disturbing. It took painstaking work hours,
if not days, to dig out some of the bodies
of dead climbers entombed in the ice.
We have to bring them back as much as possible,
and if we keep leaving them behind,
our mountains will turn into a graveyard in the future.
We have to bring them back.
The bodies were flown to Kathmandu for identification,
the trash sent to sorting facilities to try to recycle
what's salvageable.
New rules now require climbers to haul their own garbage
off the mountain,
but there's still a backlog of unwanted materials on Everest,
some from decades ago.
The garbage collected is what the climbers leave behind on
the mountains.
Mostly there are packaging of food like can and tin
and plastic.
Apart from that there are shoes,
clothes and tents. There's also a lot of broken glass
and some ropes.
The lead sherper of the recovery team estimates there could
be 40 to 50 tonnes of garbage near the summit
of the mountain,
layers deep and frozen solid and almost insurmountable task to
remove.
But just like climbing the mountain itself,
if there's a will, it can be done.
Michael Holmes, CNN.