Mount Everest Body Removal

(Kathmandu, Nepal) Every account of climbers' experiences on Mt. Everest discusses the neglected and forgotten frozen corpses that litter the mountain.

Now an attempt will be made by the government of Nepal to remove some of them.

A team of Nepali mountaineers will leave Kathmandu tomorrow heading for Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, where they hope to climb to more than 8,000 metres (26, 246ft) to clear the mountain's "death zone" of tonnes of rubbish and remove the bodies of dead climbers.

Though many foreign and Nepali expeditions have set out to clear parts of the mountain in the past, Namgyal Sherpa, leader of the Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, said no one had tried to clear at that height. "This is the first time we are cleaning the death zone. It is very difficult and dangerous," said Namgyal, who has climbed Everest seven times.

The zone earned its name because it is almost impossible to survive the harsh temperatures and the thin air of such altitudes, where there is a third as much oxygen as at sea level for more than a couple of days. Anyone who remains within the zone for longer will almost certainly perish.

The climbers will use special bags to collect the bodies – which lie between the South Col and the 8,850m (29,035ft) summit – before lowering them down the snow and icefields of the mountain and then carrying them across the glaciers to base camp. The expedition hopes to retrieve five bodies, including that of a climber killed two years ago.

Five bodies is merely a start to a task that reportedly numbers about 300 frozen loved-ones.