Porters help Mountaineers in their bid to surmount greater and greater heights, but their own plight is something that the authorities concerned must take into consideration
CARRYING loads of approximately 30kg on their backs, walking over frozen glaciers and slippery terrain for weeks, they try to entertain trekkers and climbers coming from all parts of the world. They guide them and quite often lose their precious lives on duty. In case my readers haven’t yet guessed what or whom I’m referring to, the subject under discussion is porters from Baltistan, to whom the brief mountaineering season is much more than just an Alpine sport; it is, for them, a matter of earning ‘bread and butter’.
Unlike their famous counterparts, the Sherpas of the Khumbu valley in Nepal, the Balti porters in the Karakuram are more humble in disposition and less glamorous in appearance. While the Sherpas have earned a name for themselves by providing services to mountaineers at a high altitude on Mount Everest, the Balti porters work more as ‘transporters’ and ‘carriers’ of climbing gears and ration to the base camps for mountaineers, deep into the Karakuram. But that impression is now rapidly changing.
An amazingly high number of high altitude porters from the Karakuram have come up in recent times. Only this year, five local mountaineers and high altitude porters have climbed K-2. This is the first time that such a large number of Pakistanis have made it to the top of the world’s most difficult mountain to climb. Small villages in Hunza and Baltistan have started to produce a big number of such porters, matching the resilience and stamina of the Sherpas. Machlu and Hushe, two isolated villages near Sadpara and Skardu, are fast becoming the areas that produce individuals who excel at reaching high altitudes. Four local K-2 climbers this year were from Baltistan, and one of them was from the neighbouring upper Hunza.
The reason why the Sherpas find themselves more at ease in the Himalayas is the fact that they live and grow up right amidst high mountains; while all the great mountains in the Karakuram are located deep into the mountain wilderness, for which one has to trek for a good week or two to catch a glimpse of K-2 or Gashabrum. Most houses in the region are located in valleys far and away from the real mountaineering area. This may have been a factor in the late discovery of mountaineering passion among the local people.
Apart from the fact that mountains in the Karakuram are more challenging to climb, mountaineering is too expensive a sport for the poor local communities to indulge themselves in, as all they can carry for themselves up to the base camp is sufficient amount of flour to cook chappatis and daal for a round trip. It’s only when different expeditions started to encourage and support local porters and guides to accompany them at high altitudes that Pakistan began to produce high altitude porters like Ashraf Aman and Nazir Sabir, who later earned the qualifications of mountaineers and tour operators.
Among the native Baltis, mountain climbing is gradually gaining popularity. Nisar Hussian from Sadpara has climbed four 8,000-meter-high mountains, including K-2. Rozi Ali has climbed three mountains of the same altitude. Similarly, the likes of Little Karim, Sadiq, Ali Raza, Shakoor Ali, Hussain, Mohmmad Hussain and Hassan, all from Baltistan, have reached the top of more than one 8,000-meter-high peaks. On the other side of the Karakuram, Gojal, particularly the Shimshall valley, is proving to be a fertile ground for porters and climbers. Apart from the above-mentioned names, new faces like Qudrat Ali, Qurban Mohammad, Izzatullah Beg and Sheen Beg are some of the upcoming mountaineers.
Mountaineering skills aside, it is these poor Balti porters who set the stage for great expeditions. Singing and dancing all the way to the most isolated base camps, they provide the basic momentum to mountaineers to win the king’s crown of the Karakuram. Each year, when the snow melts, villagers hurry into tending crops in their small alluvial fields, take their livestock for grazing and make special efforts to complete all household duties in order to be on time for the mountaineering season. By end of May and early June, a great many porters start arriving in Skardu, which works as the launching pad for mountaineering campaigns in the Karakuram. Here, much of the porter-hiring activity takes place.
In a chaotic environment, porters apply all means available to get themselves selected. They show off their muscles, use contacts and even sometimes offer bribes to get their names registered with the expeditions. These porters are paid Rs240 per parao and on an average they cover two paraos (or stops) per day. So it comes to around Rs500 on a daily basis, which is a decent amount. The money also helps to buy food and fuel to counter the harsh winter season.
Thanks to the hype of the Golden Jubilee year of K-2, 2004 has seen a record number of expeditions and successful attempts at climbing K-2. The government has also announced 50 per cent discount on royalties. Each K-2 expedition usually pays more than $12,000 as royalty. This year, it was only around $6,000. In 2003, despite the after-effects of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan earned $293,211 in royalty and collected an amount of $11,800 as pollution fee (for cleaning up garbage etc). Another $19,250 were pocketed from mountain trekkers, thus raising the overall direct deposits to $324,261, which is almost half of the $592,550 in 2000.
2004 is expected to be even better. However, from locals’ perspective, royalties mean little or nothing as the real benefit trickling down to different communities is the money the tourists spend during the course of their stay in the mountains.
According to an estimate, these days around 12,000 people in the Northern Areas directly earn from the tourism business, and up to 90,000 people are indirectly employed in this very sector, mostly on a season-to-season basis. It means that more than 50 per cent of the total workforce relies on mountain tourism to eke out a living.
In Baltistan, from where most porters come, the brief mountaineering season from June to August constitutes a critical means of livelihood for the poor. It is important to develop necessary rules and regulations to protect the livelihood of this vulnerable segment of our society. They need legal cover and protection against abuse by insensitive middle men trying to pocket maximum profit out of the business.
In the first half of the current mountaineering season, five porters from Skardu lost their lives when their jeep plunged into a ravine. To date, it is not clear who will compensate the bereaved families who have lost their bread earners. In this regard, either tour operators, the government or the visitors should be made responsible to ensure adequate financial support for such people. May be a fraction of the millions of royalty earned over the years could be dedicated to the purpose.
It often happens that porters are forced to collect wood so that once they’re burnt chappatis could be cooked over them, as some expeditions do not provide proper fuel or other environment-friendly things used in cooking. This also contributes to rapid deforestation along the trekking routes, which in turn jeopardizes the long-term well-being of the local communities. It is common knowledge that precious junipers trees, shrubs and vegetations become a stabilizing factor against soil erosion.
General complaints by porters against some tour operators about over-burdening porters with excessive load, of not providing proper food and gear for higher altitude work and of not paying dues, are on the rise. There is a need for developing a representative institution or forum for porters so that they could table their grievances.
Let us celebrate K-2 by putting an end to porter abuse and exploitation in the heart of the Karakuram.
Porters help Mountaineers in their bid to surmount greater and greater heights, but their own plight is something that the authorities concerned must take into consideration 
