However, sherpa (with a lowercase 's') is a generic term used to apply to anyone who assists climbers. On my trek we had a head guide, two assistant guides and three porters. None are ethnic Sherpas. The three porters did about 99.99 percent of the work.
I am in awe of these guys. The hikers all carried small daypacks and the porters carried our backpacks as well as their own gear. So they were each carrying three backpacks. Like so:
But that's nothing. Because the terrain is so steep and so high, the only way to transport anything up or down the mountains is to carry it. Yaks do some of the work, but the vast majority of the gear is carried by people.
That means toilet paper, Pringles, kerosene, lumber, windows -- everything. I'm still astounded that it's possible to hike for weeks in the world's highest mountains without needing a tent or food. I don't think I hiked more than an hour between lodges.
These are mostly cozy, clean places that offer beds and homecooked meals at surprisingly cheap prices. Normally after a hard day of hiking come the chores of setting up camp, starting a fire, cooking, etc. What a relief it is to arrive at an inn and be able to sit in the warm common room around the hearth, have someone serve you a hot meal and then go to sleep in an actual bed.
And everything in those lodges was carried there by people. If you consider for an instant that maybe $2 is too much for a candy bar, you realize what it took to get it there, and suddenly the price seems pretty reasonable.
Porters either tie the baggage together, as ours did, or use a basket, called a doko. It's about 2.5 feet wide by 2 feet deep, with a flat bottom. Think of a big, wicker coffee filter. The bottom is flat so that they can rest using a t-shaped piece of wood called a tokma. They can simply stop when they're tired, rest the tokma under the doko, and take a breather. When they start moving again the tokma becomes a walking stick.
They'll fill the basket up and then as many boxes on it as they're able to carry, sometimes a foot or two higher than their heads.
To put it in perspective Americans can understand, we saw two young guys each carrying dokos with 10 cases of canned beer. Here they are resting on their tokmas:
Let's do the math:
24 cans of 355 milliliters = 8.520 liters per case
A liter of water weighs 1 kilogram
8.520 liters weighs 8.520 kilograms
10 cases weighs 85.20 kilograms
So, with the basket and the actual packaging of the beer these two guys were each carrying around 200 pounds on their backs.
But wait, there's more. Whether they use a doko or not, sherpas secure the weight the same way, using a tumpline. This is a strap that they brace against the top of their head, allowing them to lean into the weight, thus transferring all of the stress onto the spine. (You can see the tumplines in the top photo.) It seems absolutely insane that the tumpline is the onlything securing the weight to their bodies, but you can't argue with the results.
Sherpas are not big people. This is me with our three porters in Namche.
They look like kids from the local little league team, but (from right to left) Asharman is 20, Lakapa is 22 and Dhana, Asharman's little brother, is 21.
When we stopped for the night the hikers would be in bed before 9 p.m. but all the guides and porters would hang out and play cards together all night. I believe the going rate to hire a porter is $10 per day or less, plus expenses. These guys do work that you couldn't find an American to do at any price, and yet they were always smiling, always laughing, always friendly. It was truly humbling.
Westerners like to wring their hands at what they perceive as exploitation of the local people by the tourist industry. But tourism is the only industry here. If these people didn't carry gear for tourists they wouldn't have any work at all. It really is the only way to get stuff from place to place. The more they carry, the more they get paid. The trails used by tourists are the same ones locals use to get around. We passed hundreds of people every day. This is a country where there is dignity and prestige in putting in a hard day's work. What a concept.
Yaks do some of the work, but even they pant and sweat on the steep trails, which are also narrow. When yaks are coming, you get out of the way. I think that's a pretty good rule to follow anywhere, that when you encounter an animal that weighs 1,000 pounds, is carrying 400 pounds of gear and, oh, by the way, has foot-long horns, you yield the right of way.
Because Nepal is Hindu and Buddhist in most parts killing and eating cows and yaks is not allowed. Lodges offer meat dishes, but usually this means the animal was butchered in Lukla and the meat was carried to the lodge. Seeing (and smelling) baskets of animal parts on the trail was enough to turn even a serious carnivore like me into a vegetarian on the trail.
Shops and lodges also sell yak cheese and yak butter, but strictly speaking this is not something you should eat, because a yak is a male, and I'd prefer not to consider where the milk came from. The female is called a nak. (Most of the animals are actually cow-yak hybrids.)
It's allowed to eat an animal that died because it "fell off the trail" (wink, wink). Despite their bulk yaks are actually quite nimble and sure-footed. In the center of the picture is a black one grazing on the face of a sheer hill.
So the odds of one "falling off the trail" are roughly about 0.0 percent.
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