KATHMANDU: A group of top Nepali climbers is planning a high-risk expedition to clean up Everest, concerned at the toll that decades of mountaineering has taken on the world’s highest peak. The 20 climbers, led by seven-time Everest summiteer Namgyal Sherpa, will brave thin oxygen and temperatures well below freezing to clear more than two tonnes of rubbish discarded by mountaineers. Sherpa’s team will begin their ascent in late April, when a small window between spring and the summer monsoon offers the best conditions for climbing the 8,848-metre peak. “We are taking a big risk. Nobody has ever tried to clean up Everest at that height,” he said, describing it as a “daring and heroic mission”.
