Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25037
training centers with his organization, the Central Asia Institute-think the key to heading off some of the intense environmental pressures in the years to come is to educate the porters in these high-mountain valleys. To do this they devised an ambitious plan: instead of merely setting up another " cash for-trash" incentive program, why not set up a porter training institute that would teach porters Pakista ni trekking regulations, wilderness hygiene, crevasse rescue and environmental stewardship? In a region where porters can earn $200 in a few months while the per capita income is about half that, Brent and Greg think the long-term effects of their program could be sub- stantial . porters ripping up shrubs and cutting trees to build fires, or recycling their diseases into village water supplies by defecating near the glacier-fed rivers that are the lifeblood of this arid region, garbage may be the least of the problems. Much of the 30 percent infant mortality rate can be blamed on diar rhea (and subsequent dehvdration) brought on by cont "ompared 0 he prospect of thousands of . c <>,. Nike, which funded Brent for three successive years on clean-up projects in Everest, is also bankrolling this expedition. He may be the only Nike athlete who doesn't sport a jersey, and the stocky climber doesn't seem troubled by any of the heat that his benefactor has been getting over alleged child labor violations around the developing world. "Hey, if you want to go climb interesting places, it costs a lot of money-for airfare, per mits, porters, and logistics, " he says. "Unless you're independently wealthy, you've got to get corporate sponsorship." If Nike derives some PR benefit from supporting Brent's work, that's fine with him. It allows him to climb and do some good at the same time. The AK brigade After whisking my wife, Liesbeth Gerritsen, and I past the thronging mass of screaming taxi drivers and officious police to the White Palace Guest House, Brent tells tales of the previous day's expedi tion ... to shoot off AK-47 assault rifles in the outlaw town of Darra, near the Afghani border. Brent, Greg, Brent's climbing partner and photographer Kris Erickson, and a couple Pakistani friends thought it might be fun to kill some time playing with small arms. It seems that Apo Razak, a legendary expedition cook who would later accompany us, decided to take a crack at an AK. He ended up accidentally spray ing the village with small-arms fire, nothing terribly unusual in a region where AKs are more plentiful than BB guns in Kentucky. We dally for a couple days in the capital, bargaining for the services of a garishly-painted "Road-Liner" bus complete with pin-