Are you taking care of your mountain porters? Dr Jim Duff takes a look at porters and mountain travel - and how hundreds have died in service to mountaineers and trekkers.

Off-road travel in the mountains of the greater ranges usually means employing the muscle of local people to shift our gear to base camp, and Longstaff’s famous dictum “make camp by two pm and look after your porters” is as relevant today as it was at the end of the 19th century. Unfortunately through ignorance or bloody mindedness many porters have had a raw deal since the number of mountaineers and trekkers exploded in the 1970s. As a result hundreds of porters are known to have died and many more have suffered from serious injury in our service.

Understand that we are talking about porters and not ‘Sherpas’ who are ‘high altitude porters’, who carry loads on the mountain above base camp and are usually well paid and suitably equipped being seen as part of the team. It’s all too easy to forget the ragged band of locals who turn up at the road head or airstrip to lug our gear over difficult terrain, at often staggering altitudes in fair weather and foul to make our base camps comfortable and our climb possible.

Portering is hard work and is done to earn precious cash in a subsistence economy. A porter’s death or disablement is a disaster for their dependants, especially wives and children who can end up begging in countries with no welfare safety net and where a widow is seen as a useless burden. It is a part of the mountain ethos that we care for those we employ to carry our gear into remote and hostile country. How cool is it if we climb a mountain or complete a trek if someone dies through our neglect?

Here are the basics to consider when you take on porters:
 

• Often you will not be directly hiring the porters yourself but will use a local intermediary (often called a sirdar, naike, local leader or guide); if so it becomes that much easier to forget your porters welfare.
   
• You need to think carefully about where you are taking them, the terrain, possible weather and temperature extremes and ensure that their footwear, clothing, sleeping arrangements and food are adequate.
   
• If they become ill you need to be on to it early, so check each one of them morning and night and instruct your sirdar or local leader (if you are using one) to report any illness or accident to you. Stress to the sirdar that they must not dismiss one of your porters without letting you know first, as, unfortunately, ill or poorly equipped porters are well down on your sirdar’s list of priorities. Not doing this has lead to many deaths and usually the climbing team has no idea that a porter died.
   
• If a porter becomes ill or is injured you should provide the same standard of care and concern for them as a member of your team.
   
• If they have to descend make sure they are fit enough to do so, are accompanied by someone (and this may have to be yourself or another suitable team member) who can deal with complications that may arise and that they have the necessary clothing and money for treatment, accommodation and food.
   
• You should insure your porters against death or serious disability. Something that is easy and cheap to arrange once in the country, and is a legal requirement in most of the countries where porters are employed.
   
• Remember these guys, and they usually are guys, are tough and proud but being well out of their usual altitude and climatic comfort zones they are very vulnerable to hypothermia, altitude illness, frostbite and so on.

Further information
More information on porters and their experiences can be found on the following websites:

www.ippg.net

www.portersprogressuk.org

www.kiliporters.org

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