Muscle on the Mountain: Everest Sherpas and Kilimanjaro Porters

Adventure destinations are on the rise. People are looking for experiential travel over resort vacations and places like Everest and Kilimanjaro are seeing more and more visitors. Traveling on the mountain isn’t possible without the help of the people who live there. When doing some research about ethical ways to visit the mountains I realized the Kilimanjaro porters and Everest Sherpa are two very important components when planning a trekking trip.

The Sherpa of Nepal

A Sherpa is far more than just a job on the mountain. Sherpas not only is a profession, but it is a culture and ethnic group of people. Over 500 years ago this group migrated into the higher altitude lands. It wasn’t until the famed exhibition to Everest that was led by Edmund Hillary in the 1950’s where Sherpa were placed in the spotlight. They had the ability & strength to brave the high altitude hiking and so were hired to assist in the first documented summit.

Westerners want to climb mountains. The people of Nepal traditionally revered mountains and wouldn’t summit them, but hold respect for them from afar. The Sherpa people mostly practice Tibetan Buddhism. The mountains hold a spiritual significance over something to be conquered. Most people in the regions are farmers and herders but tourism to the region has helped change the shape of the economy.

Sherpas for Everest have some of the world’s most dangerous jobs. In a climbing season, the average sherpa may make around $4-6k. If you want to be more supportive of the people who help you on your trek, you can donate to organizations like the Juniper Project. This is an organization committed to helping the local mountain workers, their families and the communities where they live. Many Sherpa people rely on this type of tourism and so it’s only fair to ensure that their families are being taken care of.

Made for the Mountain

An interesting fact about the people who live in this region is their bodies have slowly been designed to be there. After living in high altitude for centuries, they are more acclimated to living with less oxygen. A biological study revealed that people who have lived in high altitude areas, like the Himalayas, are naturally more efficient in using oxygen. Their blood cells do a better and quicker job at moving oxygen throughout their systems, more effectively than those who come from lower elevation living. This is an interesting study in an effort to learn about how to acclimatize better for those of us with a little disadvantage.

The Porters of Kilimanjaro

These are some of the hardest working people in Tanzania. Kilimanjaro porters could be considered the backbone of the mountain. They work tirelessly to keep hikers safe and move trekking groups up and down the highest mountain in Africa by the 10’s of thousands each season. They are in charge of working with your guide, carrying everything that you need for your hike. They will move supplies up and down the mountain to make sure you have everything you need for a safe and comfortable trek.

The Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (KPAP) is a non-profit organization designed to advocate for the workers on the mountain. They ensure that porters have basic rights to keep them safe and give them the ability to support their families by a living wage. Cutting costs on your climb directly effect your porters. Think porters are only men? Think again. There are several female porters who work just as hard alongside their male colleagues.

It is disheartening to hear the conditions for a majority of these workers. Some tour operators don’t pay their staff and they are relying on our tips for their salaries. This creates a complicated relationship between hikers and workers. Organizations like KPAP make sure that the porters have basic rights. When you hear about workers not having proper equipment, not getting three meals a day, things like KPAP become an integral part of planning a safe hike. I had the opportunity to spend time alongside the staff at Fair Travel during my time in Tanzania. Companies like Fair Travel are paying their workers a fair wage and so they are moving away from tipping on the mountain.

Ethical Mountaineering

This world’s tallest mountain has a major issue with trash being left throughout the base camp trek trails and even up to the summit. There have been more and more articles that have come out about the negative impact us humans have had on Everest. Climbers are supposed to be carrying out their own trash plus some to keep the mountain clean. While I think the issue of trash on the trail has been improving, it is still grossly apparent.

I spent each day on the trek quietly collecting pieces of garbage on the trail. I walked towards the back of the group with a small bag that was quickly filled by lunch with candy wrappers, protein bar wrappers, paper scraps. After a few days, I saw our guide collecting garbage, putting it in his pocket and then at lunch or on a break he would put it in my little trash bag. I loved that our group was being responsible for the trail even if we didn’t put the trash there!

Overcrowding is a problem on Everest in particular. While we expand our exploration horizons, people are looking for more exciting experiences. Each year, the mountain becomes more and more congested. Both the Chinese government and Nepali officials do not put a cap on the amount of permits they sell for those looking to summit. This is creating a safety issue for those who are attempting to summit as well as an environmental issue.

Being Mindful on the Mountain

So, how can we be better climbers & hikers? There are a few things we can all be doing when out on the trail to be respectful of nature.

• Leave No Trace. I will always continue to talk about these 7 principles when talking about respecting the outdoors. Taking out everything you’ve brought in. Making sure to be respectful of staying on the trail and keeping theses spaces for everyone to enjoy. There are also companies like Carry me Back that orchestrate a volunteer waste removal system in places like Sagarmatha National Park en route to Everest.

• Ask questions of your tour operators. Make sure the company that is providing your trip is taking good care of their employees. That includes a fair, living wage. Trekking companies should prioritize not only safety, but security for their workers and respect for the place they are touring. If you are looking to book with a company that isn’t giving you straight answers to questions about how they treat their staff or ways they are protecting the environment, look elsewhere. Do they participate in programs to help workers families when they are injured? Do they give back to organizations that are cleaning up our lands? Companies should not be afraid to give you succinct answers to these questions.

• Demand more from the organizations and governments that oversee these locations. Overtourism is an issue not only in urban places but also spaces of nature. If there are trails and treks that are overcrowded. Hikers need to voice our concerns and call for changes if the environment or the people are being put in jeopardy. We also need to recognize that maybe some of the popular trails and mountains may have enough foot traffic. The Himalayas are a beautiful mountain range and there are many other trails we could visit aside from the EBC trek. Kilimanjaro may be the tallest mountain in Africa, but places like Mount Toubkal in Morocco see far less visitors and could be an equally adventurous holiday.

• Get interested about new innovation and positive changes to help correct these problems on the mountain. Projects like the ones I talked about earlier are important to support. If you are spending the money and time to visit somewhere, do yourself a favor and do a little research about issues before arriving. There are new initiatives happening all the time to ensure these places will be around. Organizations like Mount Everest Biogas Project are taking action to solving problems on the mountain. Others like the Khumbu Climing Center are looking for ways to help sherpa with their technical climbing skills to mitigate safety issues as much as possible.