April 29 2009
  Garbage Count 3936 Kgs
 This morning I thought my contact lenses were fogged over until Walter asked me if there was something burning in Base Camp. Alas, there was no such drama and I never could pinpoint the reason why there was a light haze over camp. In any case, it was another beautiful sunny day in paradise and everyone was happy to have the opportunity to moan about the climbers who came through our camp at 3 a.m. on their way to the icefall shouting at each other and waking everyone up. The Principal of the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, who also has a team attempting Everest, had come by a couple of days ago bearing gifts of brandy. Since I had indulged in respecting his generosity, I slept like a log and didn't notice the stampeding wildebeest.
This morning Bud gave us some amazing stories about flying airplanes. Actually, as a aerobatic pilot, it was more about crashing. If you ever go flying with Bud and he shouts "bail, bail, bail," you are now the pilot in control! Not surprisingly, there were very few people who took him up on his offer to go flying with him after the expedition is over.
When one has nothing to do, time flies. At least, this is what it feels like.
After lunch I received an email from our dear friend Jerry Mika, out in Salt Lake City who gave me the great news that Apa has won Utah's Best of State in the Sports Athlete Category. He will need to be back in Salt Lake by the 30th to receive the award. There is motivation to have an early summit.
In the afternoon, when some of the kitchen staff were free of their duties, Pertemba and I rallied them together and we started to sort through the garbage. We separated the garbage by type: aluminium, mostly old ladders and tent poles; rusted tin cans; biodegradable and burnable material like cardboard, paper, old tents, plastics, etc.; batteries and other toxic items; helicopter parts; and treasure, like tin cans that says "1964", wooden beams with crampon marks that were used before the advent of ladders (some could quite possibly have been used in the 1953 Tenzing-Hillary Expedition in the icefall), old oxygen bottles, ancient film reels in what looks like little lunch boxes, miniature stoves for high altitude, etc.

Despite working hard for about three hours today, we feel like we barely made a dent in the huge pile of garbage that is left and the pile keeps growing everyday. At the moment there are a lot of Sherpas who are up at Camps 2, 3 and 4 and I am looking forward to what amazing and disgusting things they will bring down. I would like to mention the encouragement I am receiving from Willie Benegas [from Salt Lake City] who has been spreading the word around base camp and even collecting contributions to keep the cleaning project going.
Before starting the "Cash for Trash" program my target had been to collect 2000 Kgs. Since achieving that so quickly, my new target is 5000kgs but I am like a greedy little child and just want more and more. Pertemba better stop me at 5 tons or else I'm going to bankrupt Asian Trekking. Sorry Dad!

Dawa Steven Sherpa