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expeditions that have passed through this glacier-carved valley en route to peaks like K2, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum IV and Trango Towers: tins of Spanish sardines, French pate and Austrian sausages, cans of Polish peas, American pineapples, Japanese tuna fish and Pakistani ghee. In the middle of a group of dark-haired porters, 31 -year-old Brent Bishop kneels in the dirt, flattening fruit cocktail cans with the Balti men he's hired to help him. Bishop, his short sandy hair the same color as the flowing Pakistani shirt and drawstring pants he's wearing, quickly learns that the porters are a lot more enthusiastic about picking up tin cans than they are in toilet 'paper and [hlUII[JijTIC'J [lu \\\\jt!;{)'U:(�l strewn about the site. rupe � I r At dusk, Brent walks around the smoke-fi lled camp surveying the relatively modest expedition he's put together to clean up some of this mess. He's come to the mountainous crossroads where Pakistan, India and China meet with two objectives to start an environmental education and cleanup program with the local porters; and to attempt a first ascent of one of the towering peaks peering at us from farther up the valley. In the fading light, the camp reveals a sobering scene that illuminates how Brent's environmenta l goals are just as daunting as climbing the peaks looming four vertical miles above us. The porters, about 35 of them, are huddled around fires in groups of six or so, mak ing tea and courba, a round, flat bread. To Brent's dismay, they're all cooking with wood scrounged from around the campsite rather than using the kerosene stoves that have been provided. c 01 t)· When answering the call of collecting the food wrappers, Ie 1 ,I j ,01 nature, the porters seek out a place by nearby streams where they can defecate then wash themselves with water, as is the custom in this toilet-paperless society. Brent shakes his head, realizing the enor mity of what he has taken on. "Here we are, this supposedly environmentally friendly expedition, and our porters are stripping wood from all over and doing their business near a water source." He pauses, gives me one of his cocky, crevasse-wide grins. "Hey, nobody said this was going to be easy. " All around the world He's right on that one, Brent, who lives in Bozeman, Montana, when he's not scaling peaks around the world, knows a harsh truth about his moun ta in - cl imbing brethren: a lot of them are s lobs. This unfortunate fact hit Brent like the pointy end of an ice ax when he summitted Everest in 1994. (He and his late father, Barry, who climbed Everest as part of the fi rst successful American team