Industry & Tourism

Everest Just Had Its Busiest Climbing Season Ever. Climbers Also Left Behind 90,000 Kilograms of Trash.

A record 701 climbers pushed for the summit this spring, and the mountain's cleanup crews hauled down a record amount of waste right behind them.

By Laxman Rawal · Aug 31, 2026

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Two records were set on the south side of Everest this spring, and they belong to each other. The 2026 season was the busiest ever recorded on Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse combined, with 701 climbers active on the three peaks. By the time the last team packed…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

Where the waste actually came from

The scale only makes sense against the last decade. A Nepali Army-led cleanup expedition in 2019 spent 45 days hauling roughly 11,000 kilograms of trash off the upper mountain — and recovered five sets of human remains exposed by thinning ice. A follow-up…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

What this means for trekkers

What this means for you None of this is really about summit climbers alone — anyone walking to Everest Base Camp on foot or flying in on our Everest Base Camp helicopter tour is walking into a camp that is visibly cleaner than it was five years ago, and that…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

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