Lhasa, Tibet - Chinese officials in Tibet have vowed to “name and shame” tourists who leave graffiti on Mount Everest, local media has claimed.
The state-run mobile news site The Paper reported that mountaineering officials had removed messages and doodles from two tablets on one side of the mountain's northern base camp.
Messages from visitors were said to include “Let's wander together, “farewell to the mountain” and “here I come.
The messages ending up covering information about the base camp that was marked on the tablets. The camp - which sits at roughly 5 200 metres -is very popular with tourists and in 2015 it received about 40 000 visitors, according to state agency Xinhua.
Gu Chunlei, an official in the local tourism bureau, was quoted by The Paper as saying that a list of names of those caught leaving behind graffiti would be published, while consideration was also being given to setting aside some separate wall space to allow visitors to write messages. “It's a way of getting travellers to change their habits without even knowing it,” Mr Gu said.
May is the most popular month of the climbing season to try and scale Everest, and nearly 300 foreign climbers and their guides are expected to try and make the ascent this year. A high success rate is being forecast, with favourable weather expected this month.
Nepal is hoping for a safe 2016 season on Everest, with climbs from the country being reduced due to natural disasters.
An avalanche triggered by a powerful earthquake killed 19 climbers and injured 61 others at base camp last year, leading to the climbing season being cancelled. In 2014, 16 Sherpa guides were killed by an avalanche above the base camp, forcing virtually all climbers to abandon their attempts.
The Independent