Mount Everest Will Be Closed Temporarily For Maintenence. China Regrets the Inconvenience.

China plans to shut down half of the mountain it calls Qomolangma for a cleanup of what's fast becoming the world's highest dump. 

Some 40,000 people visited Everest's Chinese side in 2007, leaving behind discarded oxygen bottles, food tins, packs and the odd left glove. In addition to the rubbish, there are believed to be some 120 corpses lying frozen on the mountain.

The Chinese mountaineer-janitors will attempt to summit the mountain in 2009, according to British newspaper The Independent.

Whether they will carry those trash picker-upper poles a la Boy George remains to be seen.

--Emily Matchar