To climb Everest is to climb to the moon. At 29,028 feet (8,848 meters), the summit of the world’s highest point is no less inhospitable than outer space.

If you want to get there, you’ll need to be well-equipped: tents, medical equipment, food, stoves, miles of rope, ladders, pitons, hammers, ice axes, and dozens of oxygen tanks. A good-sized expedition might bring tons of supplies to the foot of the mountain.

That’s the way it had been since 1924, when Englishmen George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made the first organized attempt to reach Everest’s summit. They never returned — but other climbers came. At last report, over 2,200 adventurers had made it to the top. And they left a lot of garbage along the way.

Trash at the top of the world

Conditions are so difficult on the mountain that it’s tempting for climbers to simply dump their used gear than carry it down. This was common practice until the Eighties, when the government of Nepal, alarmed at the pollution of a mountain many consider holy, began requiring expeditions to demonstrate they’d brought back everything taken up Everest’s mighty incline.

Since then, things have improved. Japanese climbers, in particular, took Everest’s trashy condition to heart, mounting expeditions for the purpose of cleaning-up the main ascent routes. But at the base of the mountain and in the poor Sherpa villages which surround it, you’ll still see piles of collected gear. And that’s where we meet eco-artist Jeff Clapp.

In 2004, Clapp traveled to Nepal to see if he could secure some of the salvaged oxygen tanks for his workshop in the United States. He knew that beneath their expedition stickers and oxidized paint lay gleaming aircraft-grade aluminum and the potential for something truly beautiful. $7000 USD later (and almost as much in shipping fees), Clapp was the owner of 132 slightly worn, lovingly used climbing cylinders.

Garbage that glitters

Back home in Maine, Clapp set about turning Everest’s garbage into strikingly individual pieces of art. The top sections of the tanks became marvelous bells: elegant, full-throated, and accented with traditional Nepalese designs and native wood. Clapp fashioned the tank bottoms into gleaming bowls, similar to the singing bowls used in the liturgy of the hundreds of Buddhist temples and monasteries which dot the Himalayas.

Clapp’s work doesn’t come cheap: his creations are featured in some of the United State’s best art galleries. But for many, touching Clapp’s work is an immediate connection to the rare and forbidding beauty of Mt. Everest. And some say that in the sound of the bells, you can hear the voice of the mountain.

Snarfd caught up with Clapp a few weeks ago to ask about his work, and how it came to be that he began turning Everest’s trash into treasure.

Snarfd: Jeff, thanks for agreeing to field a few questions. First things first: whatever gave you the idea of going to Everest to find materials for your work?

Jeff Clapp:  I made a bell years ago out of a carbon dioxide cylinder from a restaurant — the kind they use them to put bubbles in soda. It made a good bell, but it didn’t have any life. I went back to woodturning. A long time later, I was watching a National Geographic special about Everest. Seeing all those cylinders on the top of the world set a light off in my head. I knew I could make something from those them.

Snarfd: The bells are beautiful. How do you make them? It looks as if they’re milled in some way.

Jeff Clapp: I turn the bells on a fantastic Oneway wood lathe. I use standard woodturning tools to slowly cut away the metal to reveal beads, coves, and grooves. I use a specially designed water jet to cut holes in the bells to change the pitch, tone, and resonance. Then I either install a hook to hang the bell or design a marble or burl base for a sculptural bell.

Snarfd: A lot of the mountain climbing groups say they’ve gone out of their way not just to bring their own stuff down the mountain, but to pick up the trash left by past expeditions. How were things when you visited?

Jeff Clapp: The valley was very clean when I was there. I trekked into Namche Bazaar at 12,000 feet and found the particular cylinders I was searching for had been recovered by the Nepal Mountaineering Association in 2002. The Sherpa told me that most of the oxygen tanks were gone and had been taken to somewhere in Katmandu. These days, there’s a trash fee for climbing Everest. If you don’t come out with as much metal, paper,  and plastic as took in they keep your $4000 deposit. It makes people pick-up trash on the way out to make sure they get the deposit back.

Snarfd: You’ve said you’re hoping to return to Nepal at some point. You’re not looking for more cylinders, are you?

Jeff Clapp: No, I decided early on that the ones I recovered would be enough for me. I don’t want to stop other from copying my work because I don’t want to stop others from cleaning up the trash from Everest. By returning the concept of using the cylinders for art to the Nepalese the whole project comes full circle. I have always wanted this project to help everyone who participated. The Nepalese are fine artisans — I would not be surprised to find they’re already making bells. But I have been looking for sponsorship to send me back with lathes and cutters to create a contingent of artists who can make more bells and finish the clean-up.

Snarfd: This project seems to have taken on a spiritual element for you. How has going to Nepal and coming back to translate your experience into art changed you?

Jeff Clapp: For me, it has been an evolving journey. I have found meaning in small thing that happened along this journey that lead me to very positive thing that have happened in my life. My daughter — who was in the third grade at the time — brought home a weekly reader flyer a month before my flight to Nepal. It was a two page science paper about Mt. Everest and the trash left there. It showed a climber coming down through the kumbu with a back-load of salvage from the mountain. In the next image, the same Sherpa was kneeling next to a pile of cylinders. Long story short, I ended up finding that exact pile and buying them.

Before beginning his work on the bells, Jeff Clapp was well-known as a skilled woodworking artisan. He continues to transform Everest’s trash into art at his Maine studios. His work is on display around the country, and at his website, Bells from Everest. This article originally appeared on our sister site, Lighter Footstep.