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Decades of human waste have made Mount Everest a ‘fecal time bomb’
Washington Post ^ | March 3, 2015 | By Peter Holley

Posted on 03/04/2015 11:07:03 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee

When Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the top of Mount Everest in 1953, it was arguably the loneliest place on Earth — an oxygen-deprived desert perched atop an icy, 29,000-foot ladder of death.

Over the last 62 years, more than 4,000 climbers have replicated the pair’s feat, with hundreds more attempting to do so during the two-month climbing season each spring, according to the Associated Press.

Along the way, people have left oxygen canisters, broken climbing equipment, trash, human waste and even dead bodies in their wake, transforming the once pristine peak into a literal pile of … well, you get the idea.

“The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are not only dangerously crowded but also disgustingly polluted, with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps,” mountaineer Mark Jenkins wrote in a 2013 National Geographic article on Everest. . .

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Outdoors
KEYWORDS: everest; mounteverest
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Poopsicles?


61 posted on 03/04/2015 11:36:22 AM PST by The_Harlequin
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Global warming will wash it all down hill.


62 posted on 03/04/2015 11:38:38 AM PST by bgill (CDC site, "we still do not know exactly how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: Leep

What temperature are you assuming? I’m thinking the temperature is never above freezing at that altitude . . . air is mighty thin, too - roughly about 1/4 as much as at sea level, I’m estimating.


63 posted on 03/04/2015 11:38:58 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: MeshugeMikey

Supposedly, the premier climber of Mount Everest led to the naming of our PIAPS – Thus, it’s only appropriate that with HRC we’re dealing with a pile of $#!+ .....


64 posted on 03/04/2015 11:40:06 AM PST by mikrofon (Humpday BUMPty)
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To: mikrofon

indeed!


65 posted on 03/04/2015 11:41:14 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: Arkansas Toothpick

amazing...

hey that looks a BIT....like Hillary Clinton....


66 posted on 03/04/2015 11:43:33 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ("Never, Never, Never, Give Up," Winston Churchill ><>)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

When reading the article, I saw THIS.
You can earn 13K/yr selling your fecal matter.

Is there an IRS form for that “income”?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/01/29/you-can-earn-13000-a-year-selling-your-poop/


67 posted on 03/04/2015 11:48:21 AM PST by machogirl
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To: machogirl

Poop, they only take poop from Massachusetts.


68 posted on 03/04/2015 11:52:24 AM PST by machogirl
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Make a simple rule in order to get he permit to climb....what goes up with you, comes down with you.


69 posted on 03/04/2015 12:10:26 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails overall)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Sir Edmund Hillary’s turd is still there?


70 posted on 03/04/2015 12:11:45 PM PST by 353FMG
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To: Brad from Tennessee

It provides bragging rights to people who place a great deal of importance on that type of thing. Personally, I’m more impressed with somebody who has completed Ranger School or SEAL training.


71 posted on 03/04/2015 12:18:12 PM PST by MSF BU (Support the troops: Join Them.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Everest is also the worlds highest garbage dump.


72 posted on 03/04/2015 12:19:56 PM PST by Theoria (I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive)
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To: Leep
Most of the underlying poop would decompose within several month to a year. It would essentially turn into humus.

Not necessarily so at those temperatures....

73 posted on 03/04/2015 12:21:24 PM PST by terycarl (common sense prevails overall)
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To: Arkansas Toothpick

The last thing I read about Green Boots, he had disappeared. They thought maybe he had gotten carried away by a snowslide or something, but he was no longer being used as a landmark.


74 posted on 03/04/2015 12:21:52 PM PST by IronJack
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To: Brad from Tennessee

“pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps”

So it does run downhill. Good to remember.


75 posted on 03/04/2015 12:21:53 PM PST by Cyman (We have to pass it to see what's in it= definition of stool sample)
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To: JudyinCanada

There Are Over 200 Bodies on Mount Everest, And They’re Used as Landmarks
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-over-200-bodies-on-mount-everest-and-theyre-used-as-landmarks-146904416/?no-ist


76 posted on 03/04/2015 12:31:43 PM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Take the poo to the loo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_peUxE_BKcU


77 posted on 03/04/2015 12:51:28 PM PST by mojito (Zero, our Nero.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Bump For Laterviewing


78 posted on 03/04/2015 12:55:19 PM PST by The FIGHTIN Illini (Wake up fellow Patriots before it's too late)
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To: PATRIOT1876

“Fecal Time Bomb”

I’m sure the producers of the Sharknado movie will be all over this...


79 posted on 03/04/2015 12:55:32 PM PST by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Brad from Tennessee
Washington, DC, has a fecal problem as well.

It's called Congress.

80 posted on 03/04/2015 12:59:00 PM PST by Sicon ("All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - G. Orwell)
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