One man mountain clean up

As the season comes to an end on Mont Blanc, the guides are packing up and the clients are going home with tales of conquering the mountain...but what gets left behind?

Sadly, it seems that many who take on this high mountain are unable to take on the task of removing their rubbish when they leave. It took one mountaineer five hours over the course of two days to clean up the Vallot Hut that sits at 4360m, just below the summit of Mont Blanc. The young German man has been travelling the world and enjoying not only the new experiences of each new country but also combining his passion for mountaineering by climbing the highest peaks in each country he visits. Hence his trip to Mont Blanc.

His blog, Challenging the World, begins with this statement - "A journey around the world on bicycle, by foot or hitchhiking in aim to meet awesome people, race competitions, dip into the deepest nature and climb the highest mountains. Adventurous, flexible and spontaneous!"

Those last three words describe his recent exploits in Chamonix Mont Blanc to a T. This 25-year-old German adventurer made his way up the mighty Mont Blanc, highest mountain in France and in western Europe, and after enjoying a relatively rubbish free trail up via the Gouter route, he decided to spend some time at the Vallot hut, cleaning up other people's rubbish and taking it back down the mountain with him.

In a facebook post to the Chamonix facebook group he describes his experience and asks that those who are able to take a little away with them each time, do so.

"At first I want to tell everybody my respect that made it up that high on over 4300m, not a lot of people can handle that, so good on you! I can also understand that some people feel already tired, have already a slight headache or other high altitude sickness symptoms or maybe just before to pass out. That's fine, but there are also plenty of people that feel still good and are able to compensate this. If everybody would take his rubbish with them and just a tiny little piece more, it would look clean and nice again, like everywhere else along the track. A lot of people complained about the mess, the rubbish and the smell, but nobody did something against it. Somebody had to start to do something and so I started to clean up."

Of course, during all of this, he himself made it to the top of Mont Blanc: "the conditions were perfect, we even made a side trip to climb Mont Blanc de Courmayeur and I also went off the track (with all the rubbish) on the way down to also stand on top of the Dome de Goûter ."

I think we can all learn something from this inspiring young man, the same message is true for all walkers, hikers, mountain bikers and climbers in the valley - take your own rubbish away with you and if you see rubbish left behind by others then please take that too.

"Like I said before, if everybody would take this rubbish back down again and a little bit more, it would look nice again in a very short time. I've started, who's doing the second step?" - Challenging the World.