What to do with bodies on the mountain depends on a number of factors, including the wishes of the deceased and his or her families, and where the death took place. Some make arrangements for their body to be returned to their family, if possible. Burke did not discuss those details with his wife, but he did ensure that his body would be delivered to her, should the worst happen.

Typically, though, mountaineers who die on a mountain wish to remain there, a tradition co-opted from seafarers more than a century ago. When a body does become a well-photographed fixture of the mountain, families are often the ones who suffer most. When possible, they might also be covered with rocks, forming a burial mound. So many people go up Everest now that clean-up teams have to remove their rubbish Credit: Getty Images.

But even for a fresh body, those respectful acts can take hours and require the effort of several fit climbers. The question remains of whose responsibility that task should fall to, especially as more bodies have built up over the years, and glacial melting due to climate change has caused others to appear. Some have stepped up. As such, whenever a body or body parts emerge from the melting, ever-dynamic Khumbu glacier, his team is seen as the de facto removal crew.

So far, they have respectfully disposed of several bodies, four Sherpas — one of whom they knew — and one Australian climber who had disappeared in In the s, climbing Everest was less commercialised than it is today Credit: Rex. That night, however, Paul had a nightmare: two mountaineers, a complete whiteout, snow surrounding them like attacking bees.

When he woke up, he phoned his mother, telling her that he had changed his mind. On May 22, , Francys reached her goal and made Everest history. But on her descent from the peak, something went wrong. She and Sergei were forced to spend the night in the death zone and became separated. The following morning, Sergei suffered a fatal fall while attempting to rescue Francys, who had collapsed at around 8,m 29,ft.

Sometime later that morning, Francys succumbed to frostbite and exhaustion. Yet he was hardly surprised. Today, Paul harbors no resentment toward his mother. Some researchers think climbers attempt mountains like Everest to assert a sense of control over their lives they can't get from everyday life Credit: Getty Images. Years passed, and Francys remained on the mountain. But Woodall, who had stayed with her in her dying hours, had become haunted by his inability to save her and deeply bothered by the fact that her body had become a landmark.

After one false start, Woodall and Phuri Sherpa, who usually works on Everest but who volunteered to help, hiked up to the spot where he remembered leaving Francys — a steep slope, set at about a degree angle and covered by broken shale.

The two began to dig. Thanks to a mix of luck and memory, they found Francys on the second try. After wrapping her stiff remains in an American flag and saying a few words, they sent her on her way — likely to the same place where Sergei lies. All told, it took them five hours. Instead, bodies are often left lying on the mountain. Lhakpa Sherpa, who is the women's record-holder for most Everest summits, said she saw seven dead bodies on her way to the top of the mountain in Her memory is a grim reminder that removing dead bodies from Mount Everest is a pricey and potentially deadly chore, and one that is perhaps best left undone.

It's impossible to know for sure exactly where all of the recorded Everest fatalities have ended up , but it's safe to say that many dead bodies never make it off the mountain. For years, Everest climbers have spoken of a dead man they call "Green Boots" who some have spotted lying in a cave roughly 1, feet from the top.

Climbers descend from the summit of Everest down the Hillary Step and across the cornice traverse to the south summit in Nepal on May 23, Some hikers are blaming the surge in deaths, in part, on preventable overcrowding.

As May temperatures warm and winds stall, the favorable springtime Everest climbing conditions are notorious for creating conveyor-belt style lines that snake towards the top of the mountain. Climbers can be so eager to reach the peak and stake their claim on an Everest summit that they'll risk their lives just to make it happen, even when others caution them to stay back.

At least two climbers died of exhaustion on their way down from the summit this year, the BBC reported. In recent years, however, outcry and incentives have finally pushed expedition leaders to begin removing some of the bodies that rest on Everest's slopes.

While some bodies have been removed, it is estimated that over remain on the mountain. In addition to bodies, discarded climbing gear, oxygen bottles, and other detritus from years of dangerous expeditions litter the mountainside, earning Everest yet another unofficial title: "the world's highest trashcan.

A typical dead body on Everest weighs over pounds and is frozen solid. Before the body can even be moved, it must first be broken free from the mountainside. Most bodies freeze to the mountainside less than one hour after death and freeze solid in less than four hours. Due to the temperature, these corpses remain frozen days a year.

As a result, most of the bodies are nearly perfectly preserved, even after being abandoned for decades. No better example exists than the still-frozen body of George Mallory, which was discovered in He and his climbing partner disappeared over 80 years ago, but his body has barely decayed. The phrase "death zone" refers to all parts of Everest above 25, feet in elevation. This is where the majority of climbing fatalities occur. Most of the mountain's dead lie in what's called the "death zone," or the part of the mountain above 25, feet where the air contains only a third of the amount of oxygen as the air at sea level.

As a result, helicopters cannot fly to this altitude, making airlifting bodies impossible. Each body must be hand-carried down icy rock faces and slippery frozen slopes.

Since they are frozen solid, the bodies are stiff and cumbersome, so carrying one is almost like carrying a section of a tree trunk. Hand-carried bodies may also act as sails in Everest's unrelenting winds, further adding to the danger. Multiple Nepalese government ministries, the army, and other organizations have set a goal to remove 11, pounds of trash from Everest and the surrounding area by the end of the season. This is a joint effort by public and private entities, with the Coca-Cola Company and WWF Nepal providing significant financial support.

There will be a person team paid to collect trash, plus a cash-for-trash program. Asian Trekking has run similar programs for years, but it takes more than one team.

One encouraging report said that 2, pounds of waste was flown from Lukla airport to Kathmandu for recycling on the first day of the effort. A similar effort is underway in Tibet, driven by the Chinese government. Earlier this year there was a highly publicized announcement that China would limit the number of climbers this season and require teams to carry out their waste as part of an effort to cut down on the amount of trash.

The Chinese have set up stations to sort, recycle, and break down garbage from the mountain. Tourists can only go as far as a monastery that lies just over a mile away from that base camp. Both China and Nepal require climbers to retrieve several pounds of rubbish or face fines, but this has never been enforced.

Some teams still leave trash at the high camps where there are no monitors. Historically, neither China nor Nepal have addressed the growing problem of trash on their mountains and trails.