Mount Everest glaciers are under threat and melting — thanks to climbers relieving themselves

Urine trouble, Mount Everest.

After standing the test of time for 50 million years, the world’s tallest mountain is under threat from an unlikely source — our pee.

Urine deposited on glaciers is enough to melt over 150 tons of ice and snow on Mount Everest every year, according to an a-thaw-calyptic study in the journal Regional Environmental Change, the Independent reported.

“Urine, with a temperature of around 37°C (human body temperature), causes the ice to melt,” wrote the study authors, who were sent by Nepal’s Survey Department to determine the impact of humans on Everest.

The international team of scientists studied the Khumbu Glacier, the home of the Himalayan Giant’s base camp on the mountain’s Nepalese side, where each year hundreds of people congregate before attempting to summit the 29,035-foot wonder.

These throngs have turned this majestic pinnacle into a veritable “Burning Man”-esque tent city producing Himalayan trash mounds, and of course, mountains of human waste.

While climbers have been required to pack out their poop in bags since 2024, climbers still relieve themselves directly onto the ice.

The researchers focused on the spring season in 2023, when roughly 2,000 people descended upon base camp, situated some 17,958 feet above sea level, the Daily Mail reported.

According to their calculations, the pee generated by the alpine livestreamers totalled roughly 3.181 liters (0.8 gallons) per person. When extrapolated out to the total number of people staying there for approximately 50 days, the overall leakage amounted to 338,299 liters or more than 89,000 gallons.

The researchers estimated that the heat from heeding nature’s call up high could melt around 154 tons of ice in a single season.

When coupled with the thousands of gallons of gas used for heating and cooking, that figure jumped to 2,492 tons — enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

“The increasing number of climbers, trekkers, and support staff, particularly at the campsite area, has intensified environmental impacts on the Khumbu Glacier,” the researchers wrote.

The one caveat to this trickle-down theory is that the projection assumes that all the heat given off transfers to the ice, which might not be true.

“This estimate is therefore likely to represent an upper bound, as it does not account for heat losses through percolation into debris, runoff, incomplete heat transfer, or other dissipative processes that are difficult to quantify under field conditions,” the team wrote.

Nonetheless, the team is calling for Everest Base Camp to be moved to a spot that’s free of ice.

“Relocating the base camp to an ice–free site could help to mitigate human–induced glacier melt while fostering more sustainable mountaineering practices,” they wrote. “If implemented, relocation could reduce the stress on the Khumbu Icefall, enhance expedition safety, and contribute to a more resilient mountain ecosystem.”

Unfortunately, Everest is under threat from more than mountaineers making water. The face is reportedly littered with more than 50 tons of trash, earning it the moniker “the world’s highest garbage dump,” according to National Geographic.

Last year, Nepal even shelved a scheme to have Everest alpinists bring their own trash down for cash after it failed to show tangible results, the BBC reported.

Part of the problem is that climbers would only haul back refuse from lower camps and not from the higher slopes, where the trash was most plentiful.