Have you heard about the rowing machine dumped on Mont Blanc? The dead octopus on Scafell Pike? Or the Vauxhall 4x4 parked on top of Snowdon? Not jokes, sadly. These are all true stories related to the endless piles of junk appearing on and around the summits of the world’s mountains.
Local authorities in France rightly reacted with fury last week when a British charity climber – due to adverse weather conditions – abandoned the rowing machine he was attempting to carry to the summit of western Europe’s highest mountain. Faced with the decision of compromising his own safety or leaving behind a large and heavy piece of gym equipment, Matthew Paul Disney made the only sensible choice at that point, which was to get down the mountain safely.
But should he and his rowing machine have been there in the first place? Mont Blanc is a dangerous mountain, only to be attempted by people with serious mountaineering experience and in-depth knowledge of how to avoid hidden dangers such as avalanches and crevasses. Fifteen climbers died on the mountain last year. It is not a place for publicity stunts, but this is becoming a depressingly common occurrence on the busiest peaks.
Mount Everest has famously become an overcrowded mess in recent years, with hundreds of climbers each year stepping over oxygen bottles, broken tents, piles of human waste and even dead bodies . Scafell Pike, Ben Nevis and Snowdon – Britain’s famous Three Peaks – have their own fair share of problems: 4kg of chewing gum was retrieved from the Scottish peak last year, along with the wrapper of a pack of peanuts from the 1980s.
Banana skins and orange peel can take two years to biodegrade, crisp packets last 30 years and discarded plastic is killing our wildlife and entering our food chain. Mountains are wondrous places, offering an unrivalled sense of adventure and true wilderness, and it is our responsibility to keep them that way. So if you carry something up, make sure you carry it down, too.
• Oli Reed is the editor of Trail magazine
