On May 29, 1953, Tenzing Norgay Sherpa stood on the highest peak on earth wearing specially designed boots made of reindeer leather by the famous Swiss company Bally.

Sherpa along with New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary were the first men to scale Mount Everest, which spurred many climbers, men and women, to replicate their success.

More than 5,500 climbers have climbed Everest in the last 68 years. In 2019, Nirmal Purja, a climber from Nepal had taken the famous photograph of a “traffic jam” at Everest showing climbers standing cheek by jowl in a queue waiting for their turn to stand atop the peak.

The rush has taken a toll on the mountains in the form of piling garbage, including tin cans, tents, oxygen climbers and other waste. Many call Mt Everest the “world’s highest junkyard”.

Come Thursday, Bally and the Sherpa family will join hands once again, this time to clean the garbage from Mt Everest region.

Jamling Tenzing Norgay, the legendary Tenzing’s son, also climbed Everest in 1996. “Bally through its Bally Peak Outlook Foundation has joined hands with us once again and this time it is to collect garbage from the Everest region and we are looking to collect around 1,000 kg of waste over the next two weeks,” said Jamling, who will be joined by his daughter, Pelzom, 23, and about 30 to 35 odd climbers.

He said his father’s association with Bally started with the unsuccessful Swiss expedition of 1952. “Bally had specially designed the boots for my father for the 1952 Swiss expedition and he used the same boots in the 1953 expedition. While commemorating the 60th anniversary of the first Everest climb, Bally had again come up with a wearable replica of my father’s shoes,” Jamling told this paper.

The original pair of boots are on display at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute museum in Darjeeling.

The Bally foundation’s initiative is part of the “8 x 8000m” pledge to clean up base camps of eight 8,000m high Himalayan mountains. In 2020, climber Dawa Steven Sherpa had removed 2.2 tonnes of waste from base camps of Everest (8,848m), Cho Oyu (8,188m), Lhotse (8,516m) and Makalu (8,485m).

“Last year I was only involved with the organising aspects but this time I will be climbing and participating in the drive,” said Jamling.

The cleaning drive will be undertaken around the passes of Thame village in Nepal, which is a native village of not just Tenzing but also some famous mountaineers like Kami Rita Sherpa and Apa Sherpa, climbers who have scaled Mt Everest the most times.

“Reusable items will be sent to Kathmandu while the rest will be incinerated at Namche Bazaar, (near the Everest base camp) with help from Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee,” said Jamling.