Personally, I think everything to do with climbing Mount Everest is slightly weird, morbid, and gross (to varying degrees).

That said, the build-up of left behind poop is definitely somewhere on that scale.

Because it’s a lot of poop.

The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee says that literal tons of excrement have been dumped between Camp One and Camp Four of Mount Everest – and because of the extreme conditions, it doesn’t fully degrade like you might expect.

The local authority that looks after the Everest region is forcing climbers to buy special poo bags at base camp and checking them “upon their return.”

The bags contain chemicals that help solidify the excrement and reduce its odor – a much-needed implementation according to Mingma Sherpa, a chairman of Pasang Lhamu rural municipality.

“Our mountains have begun to stink. We are getting complaints that human stools are visible on rocks and some climbers are falling sick. This is not acceptable and erodes our imagine.

Everest and its enthusiasts have known for at least a couple of years that things need to change. Back in 2022, Nepal wanted to relocate the Everest base camp due to climate change and human activity making it unsafe.

And as you might have heard, the melting ice due to climate change is also revealing long-dead human corpses.

Talk about ick.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first climbers to summit Everest in 1953. Since then, over 6,664 different people have followed in their footsteps.

The mountain is beginning to show the stain of human encroachment, and experts agree that the overcrowding is going to cause more issues than traffic jams in the near future.

It’s a sad comment on the realization that no matter how remote and pristine the terrain, humans have managed to all but ruin it with our grubby little hands.

And bottoms.

If you found that story interesting, learn more about why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.