Chairman of EcoHimal Austria – Prof. Kurt Luger continued his trek to Everest Base Camp on 23 April and rest of the team members were scheduled to start their trek to EBC on 24 April. However, two team members were feeling unwell so decided to stay back in Pheriche and start the trek when they feel better.

Now it was just four of us in the team – Phinjo Sherpa, Country Director EcoHimal Nepal; Anton Zuser, Waste Management Expert, Vienna University of Technology; Lhakpa Sonam Sherpa, Photographer and Entrepreneur and Neelima Shrestha, PR Consultant, Saving Mount Everest Project.

Starting from Thukla 4,620m, it snowed throughout the trek up to Lobuche 4,900m. It meant that it would also snow in Everest Base Camp, which would make it difficult to collect waste in near future. The higher up we trekked, more difficult it got as the oxygen level in the atmosphere was decreasing. Low levels of oxygen in the atmosphere or hypoxia cause decrease in the level of oxygen in our body – one breath will deliver less oxygen in our bloodstream hence causing less blood circulation in the body. In Pheriche 4,260 m, the average level of oxygen in our body was just 85%. As a result, headache, going out of breath in just few steps and difficulty to sleep at night were common phenomenon among the team members especially us the non Sherpas. Another fear was of getting Acute Mount Sickness if we were not careful enough to recognize the initial symptoms. All the while we kept discussing how challenging and difficult is it going to be for the climbers and support staff to clean-up the garbage in Mount Everest itself. And the plan is to bring down up to eight tons of garbage from as high as 8,750 m above sea level.

We met with Prof. Kurt as we trekked up from Lobuche the next day – 25 April 2011. 

Blog and Pictures by: Neelima Shrestha, PR Consultant, Saving Mount Everest