When Babu Chiri Sherpa fell to his death in a crevasse on Mount Everest last month, he was in pursuit of a dream that his six daughters should never have to "carry someone else's gear up Everest" as he had done so many times. He wanted to build a school in his village of Taksindu in Solu Khumbu, the Sherpa homeland. Nepal is still mourning the death of Babu Chiri, a hero to his people and the holder of speed and endurance records on Mount Everest. He reached its summit on 10 occasions; last year he did it in an amazing 16 hours, 56 minutes from Base Camp compared with four days for "normal" Everesters and in 1999 "camped" for 21 hours on the top of the world.All this was without bottled oxygen or "English air" as Sherpas called it decades ago. This spring he planned to climb the mountain twice and break Apa Sherpa's record of 11 Everest ascents.
But in an accident of almost poignant ordinariness, Babu fell into a crevasse while taking photographs near his team's camp in the Western Cwm.Babu started work as a trek porter when he was 13 years old, earning less than 50p a day. But though success had turned him into a star with little need to carry others' bags, poor pay and heavy loads are still the lot of thousands of porters in Nepal, including Sherpa people. How much has changed in our concern for porters in the high Himalayas since the infamous Aleister Crowley sat sipping tea in his camp on Kangchenjunga rather than go to the aid of three of his expedition porters and a Swiss climber buried beneath an avalanche?All four perished. Crowley said he had "no sympathy whatever" over an accident he claimed would not have happened had the victims not been roped together.
The "Great Beast 666", as Crowley styled himself, is better known as a priest of black magic than a climber; callous indifference may have been another of his character flaws.The accident,
04/11 Procure Lil Wayne Tickets performing in Honda Center, Oracle Arena. Lil Wayne is performing in Anaheim, Oakland and Los Angeles. Lil Wayne tickets
04/11 Acquire Miami Heat Tickets staging in American Airlines Arena, 1. Miami Heat is staging in Miami, Tampa and Baltimore. Miami Heat tickets
04/11 Capture Lady Gaga Tickets performing in Nassau Coliseum, Prudential Center. Lady Gaga is performing in Uniondale, Newark and Cleveland. Lady Gaga tickets
in 1905, put paid to the first attempt to climb Kangchenjunga, the world's third highest peak, and the ensuing scandal scuppered Crowley's reputation as a mountaineer. Unfortunately, it was not the last instance of unconscionable neglect of porters on trekking and mountaineering expeditions. As many of us book up for a hike in Nepal's fabulous mountains perhaps for a first taste of trekking we should give some thought to the men and teenage girls whose backs will bear our holiday comforts.Last autumn, a group of Irish climbers came to the aid of a porter abandoned by a trekking party in the Khumbu region, south of Mount Everest. He was slumped by the trail, had no money and was suffering from acute mountain sickness (AMS), a potentially fatal malady brought on by the lack of oxygen at high altitude.The porter was helped to a clinic at the Sherpa village of Pheriche where volunteer Western doctors placed him in a Gamow bag a life-saving tube in which the oxygen pressure can be increased by a foot pump.Climbers took turns pumping through the night, and in the morning the 29-year-old had revived sufficiently to be evacuated. But his unknown employers most likely a trekking group bound for Island Peak had provided neither money nor insurance for a helicopter. Moreover, other porters were afraid to carry him lest he die, entangling them with the police. Eventually, they were shamed into helping by Judy Klein, an American doctor at the clinic, who put the sick man on her own back and carried him to the next village.Anyone who travels regularly in the Himalayas will know of such stories Porters get a raw deal. Pat Falvey, leader of the Irish group, has seen far worse than last year's incident.
