YEP Himalaya (June 2010) - Clean Up

Name: YEP Himalaya (June 2010) - Clean Up
Uploaded: 2025-10-12T07:53:10.344Z
Duration: 2 min 19 s
Channel: Memories Transcend Time.
Description: After the successful attempt of the virgin peak above 6'000m, we were prepared to leave Ali Camp for Concordia. Before departing, we did a clean-up exercise to ensure that the campsite remains as unpolluted as how we have seen it the first time. In addition, we convinced some porters to bring the rubbish back down instead of burning it.

Memories Transcend Time.

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After the successful attempt of the virgin peak above 6'000m, we were prepared to leave Ali Camp for Concordia. Before departing, we did a clean-up exercise to ensure that the campsite remains as unpolluted as how we have seen it the first time. In addition, we convinced some porters to bring the rubbish back down instead of burning it.

After we came back from the summit, we accompanied Mike to the Broad Peak Base Camp and we spent some time beyond these amazing mountains and Mike intends to climb both Broad Peak and K2. We said goodbye to Mike, which was really a heart-breaking and emotional moment. I've never expected that it would be so sad to say goodbye to him. Now we are going down the Beltoro Glacier and we are focusing on two main projects. One is research for the University of Munich and the other one is the cleanup of Beltoro. A major problem is human waste. About 7,000 people travel on the Beltoro Glacier per season. In conjunction with the Keep Beltoro Clean project, we would like to develop better technology for the toilets to make it sustainable to bring the human waste down. We have started a project which is to create new ways of managing human waste up in the mountains. We also want to somehow provide education to the porters and tourists alike about preventing further pollution on the glacier. Unfortunately, a lot of campsites are overused and overpolluted by both porters and tourists and that's why we got the routine of the so-called chicken parade. That means all the time when we come to a place that hasn't been visited by the Keep Beltoro Clean yet, we just spend some minutes there and pick up all the rubbish, which has a huge impact since we are 20 people and if we spend like 20 minutes then it's a good result and much cleaner afterwards. On the Ligo Glacier we did some research for Roswitha Stolz from the University of Munich and we made photos from very certain points that are GPS marked, which allows us to compare it to older photos from former dates like 2003 or 1977. The importance of such study is to document the ablation or loss of ice. This can immediately impact communities in the valleys that rely on glaciers for their water supply. Living on the Beltoro Glacier for three weeks has really changed the lives of the eight young explorers. We want to go away from this experience to act to help the region.