Gcartridges, plastic bottles, an old mattress. Garbage. In the middle of the Himalayas at an altitude of 5500 meters. It is a stark contrast that Benedikt Böhm and his companions experience after the first few days at base camp, when they arrive at camp one to explore the Himlung Himal. The team has been settling in at the base camp for a week, acclimatized and exploring the mountain. They’ve been there alone for a week. But even in this remote area, it quickly becomes clear that they are not the first people on the Himlung Himal.
“It’s really disgusting,” says Böhm, while he and his companion Prakash Sherpa collect bits of plastic and even a can of chips. “The whole camp was a total shithole. Everything was left behind, nothing taken back down. So the next day we went back to camp one.” Clean up the camp instead of exploring the mountain.
In the end, Böhm and his companions climb back to base camp with three bags full of rubbish. And with a request in his luggage: leave every place cleaner than before, the Munich resident urges in a video on Instagram to do the same with the hashtag “#Cleanerthanbefore”. “It’s not just like that here, but also in the Alps, in every city. Anyone can do it, whether in Berlin or in New York.”
Even Prakash Sherpa is disturbed by the garbage in the midst of this breathtaking nature. One should not rely on politics for the elimination, but take the initiative oneself. “The garbage doesn’t come up here by itself, we bring it here. So we have to clean it up too,” says Sherpa, pointing to another problem that is also evident in the Himlung Himal: “The glaciers are melting every second, every day.”
The melting of the glacier also presented Böhm and Sherpa with an unexpected challenge when it came to mountaineering. “The literature said access to the glacier here was quite easy, but that has completely changed. The glacier looks really bad,” is Böhm’s verdict after cameraman Alessandro d’Emilia explored the situation with a drone. It is frustrating to stand in front of the glacier and not be able to get through, “or if so, only with a lot of work, time and risk,” writes Böhm in a message to the FAZ. But thanks to the air support, the team finds an entrance and finally a passage over a ledge. “It really took a load off my heart because I was afraid that we wouldn’t get up there,” says Böhm, relieved.
Aerial support: With the help of a drone, Böhm, Prakash Sherpa and Alessandro d’Emilia explore the glacier on their way to camp two.
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Image: Dnyafit
When the entry is finally found, the initial frustration quickly gives way to enthusiasm. “We immediately got the ski equipment and headed towards camp two,” writes Böhm. The route on the skis is particularly valuable for 29-year-old Prakash Sherpa, who has never skied in the Himalayas. He’s never really scared on the mountain, Sherpa said before the adventure began, but “I’m not a professional skier, so it’s going to be a bit exciting.”
When the trained mountain guide and Böhm reach camp two, it sounds a little different. “Amazing,” Sherpa laughs into the camera. The descent during the speed ascent of the 7126 meter high Himlung Himal, whose summit was shrouded in gray clouds during the visit to camp two last Saturday, should not only get Sherpa’s adrenaline level higher again.
In order for the adventure to succeed, divine assistance is not dispensed with. “Every time we climb a mountain, we do a puja beforehand, in which we ask permission to go up the mountain,” Sherpa explains of the ceremony that the expedition team will hold at base camp before the climb on Friday. It is also about the connection with and respect for nature. Something that more climbers could wish for, given the condition of camp one.
