The last survivor called the situation on Everest terrible: what happened to the top of the world

Mount Everest is too crowded and polluted, says the last surviving member of Edmund Hillary’s team to conquer the world’s tallest peak.

The sole survivor of the climbing expedition that was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest has said the world’s highest peak is too crowded and dirty and the mountain is a god who must be respected.

Kancha Sherpa, 91, was one of 35 members of the team that helped New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reach the summit of the 8,849-meter peak on May 29, 1953, the Associated Press reported.

“It would be better for the mountain to reduce the number of climbers,” Kancha said in an interview in Kathmandu on Saturday. “Right now there’s always a big crowd of people at the top.”

Since the Hillary-Tenzing expedition, the summit has been climbed thousands of times, and every year more and more people climb to it. During the 2023 spring climbing season, 667 climbers reached the summit, drawing thousands of support staff to base camp between March and May.

Concerns have been raised about the number of people living on the mountain for months on end, but authorities have no plans to reduce the number of permits they issue to climbers.

Rules require climbers to carry their own trash, gear and anything else they carry off the mountain or risk losing their deposit, but monitoring has not been effective, the Associated Press noted.

“It’s very dirty now. People throw away cans and wrappers after eating food. Who will pick them up now? – said Kancha. “Some climbers simply dump their trash into a crevice, which would be hidden at the time, but it will eventually flow down to base camp when the snow melts and carry them down.”

For the Sherpa people, Everest is Cumolangma, or the mother goddess of the world, and is revered by their community, the Associated Press says. They usually perform religious rituals before climbing to the top.

“You can’t dirty the mountain. This is our biggest god and people should not dirty gods,” Kancha said. “This is the biggest god for the Sherpas, but people smoke, eat meat and throw it all on the mountain.”

Kancha was a young man when he joined the 1953 expedition. He was one of three Sherpas who went to the last camp on Everest with Hillary and Tenzing, but could not go further because the three of them did not have permission.

They first heard of the successful climb on the radio and reunited with the summit duo at Camp Two.

“We all gathered at the second camp, but there was no alcohol, so we celebrated with tea and snacks,” he said. “Then we collected everything we could and took it to base camp.”

The route they laid out from base camp to the summit is still used by climbers today. Each year, only the section from base camp to the first camp above the unstable Khumbu Icefall changes.

Kanchi has four children, eight grandchildren and a 20-month-old great-granddaughter, the Associated Press says. He lives with his family in the village of Namche, at the foot of Mount Everest, where the family runs a small hotel catering to trekkers and climbers.