DHAKA: Six decades after the first conquest of the world’s highest peak, tons of rubbish and human waste abandoned by hundreds of Mount Everest climbers is starting to raise a stink.

Nepal is cracking down on the mountaineers who seek to emulate the 1953 feat of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, in the process giving the 8,850-metre peak the dubious honor of being the world’s highest garbage dump.

About 300 mountaineers and as many Sherpa guides battle the elements on Everest’s icy slopes during the annual climbing season, which begins in March and runs until May.

But in the absence of toilets climbers must squat in the open or hunker down behind rocks to do their business.

BDST: 1229 HRS, MAR 04, 2015