Hand of Everest is a giant hand built from Himalayan expedition waste by 📝Benjamin Von Wong at Sagarmatha Next, a waste-to-art center at 3,775 meters on the trail to Everest Base Camp, completed in August 2024.
Von Wong spent two weeks on site transforming waste from the Khumbu region. Salvaged twelve-foot flagpoles and rebar form the structure; old yellow tents retrieved from Everest Base Camp were cut into strips and wrapped around the frame; an oil drum became the fingernails; and roughly eight kilograms of PET bottles were drilled and wired together across the hand's surface. He built the piece with Nepali artist Dipak Lama and the Sagarmatha Next team, with support from Kiehl's.
The installation promotes the Carry Me Back program, which invites trekkers descending from Everest to carry a bag of waste back down the valley for processing — turning every visitor into part of the mountain's waste-management system, the same participatory move that runs through all of Von Wong's monuments.