Strange, out-of-season pink blossoms sprinkle the rhododendron trail from Lukla to Mount Everest Base Camp. But, look again. What you see is, actually, toilet paper (!) mostly Chinese brands, festooning the trail side and marking the passage of the Western Tourist.
At rest stops, such as Pheriche, Lobuje and Gorakshep, accumulated garbage radiates outward like ripples in a grimy pond. At Base Camp itself, you are likely to find tents pitched atop or next to frozen landfills of discarded batteries, plastic boxes, food tins, gas cylinders and other 20th Century flotsam.
The trekking and climbing industry, which over the years has brought jobs, money and social benefits to rural Nepal, is now exacting an unsightly toll: A mass of litter, spreading relentlessly over the mountains like an uncontrolled oil slick. In 1985, a British paper quoted an American tour operator, about trekking north of Kathmandu, "Langtang? That's the toilet paper trail!"
Since then, according to veteran sardar Padam Singh Ghaley, the problem has become much worse. He says what little regulations there are, are flouted by the very people who would be extra scrupulous in the trails back in the American Rockies or the European Alps. Michael Yeager, who has climbed and led expeditions since 1976, agrees that the problem has reached unprecedented proportions. "This year, almost everyone I met remarked how bad the situation is along the trails, and in the campsites," he said. "It is disgusting – I've even seen feces on the mani stones at Tengpoche."