Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25037
climbers and skiers dread. Brent stood just below a knoll when the crash of an avalanche hit. He had just enough time to plant his two ice axes, take three deep breaths, and say to himself, "Here it goes. I'm going down." A plume of white exploded around him. Moments later, he realized that the knoll had acted like a boulder does in the middle of a river, creating a small snow eddy that broke the force of the avalanche. Brent and the rest of the party were buried, but none of them completely. Digging themselves out, they realized how perilous their situa tion had become. While Brent's altimeter told them they were near the pass, near white-out conditions made it tough to see exactly where it was. The temperature was ten below. He and Kris had realized that their guide and porters-having finished their supplies waiting out the storm-had become liabili ties rather than support. They were living on tea and crackers. "We just about bonked there, " recalls Brent. "I thought we were goners for sure." They finally decided that heading down would put them in the path of more avalanches and chose to head up, following the slide that had hit them. Like all good mountaineering stories, they made it, with fingers and toes intact. The close call with a premature burial spooked Brent and Kris, however, and they realized that they'd have to be very lucky to attain their climbing goals if the iffy weath er continued. They spent another couple days scouting routes, only to be dissuaded by more avalanches, "grim-looking approach es, " and blizzards engulfing the peaks. Brent cut bait. He didn't have time to wait out the weather and conduct the porter training seminar that Greg had been preparing. So Brent and Kris headed to Khane, met Greg and put out the word that a half-day's wages (1 00 rupees, or about $2.50) and a hot meal of goat and rice await ed any porter who attended the inaugural Central Asia Institute/Nike Environmental Training Program. They wondered if anyone would show. They got 112 porters. Three were literate. Four knew about the govemment regulations that spelled out their food rations, pay, and working conditions. Brent, Greg, and a local social worker named GM Parvi took the porters through a crash course in hygiene, knot-tying, first-aid, and environmental awareness. Greg explained to the men that they need to give their wives some pro tein-an egg, a shred of meat-"so they can work harder in the fields. " The anemia rate in women, he later tells me, is appalling. This is holistic porter training-something worthwhile to take back to the villages as well as into the mountains. At the end of the day, Brent and Greg are ecstatic. "They were totally into it, " Brent says. "They took it very seriously. " They plan another all-day session in the village of Kuardu, in the Skardu valley, and get 105 porters. Things go even better, and Brent con fides in me that he had been really despondent after his first attempt with the porters at the beginning of our trip in Paiyu. "I wondered, 'Are we going to accomplish anything?'" It's probably too soon to tell exactly what he did accom plish. For now, all the porters who attended the seminars received a certificate, and some are now wandering around Baltistan with Nike T-shirts and caps. The next trekking and climbing season is just around the corner and Brent is planning his return to conduct more training sessions. He's not so wide-eyed that he thinks he can single-handedly change the behavior of trekkers and climbers, and is particularly forlorn that most international climbing organiza tions tend to ignore the unintended consequences of their mem bers' quests. Attitudes are definitely shifting in some climbing circles, but focusing climbing organizations made up of independent-mind ed iconoclasts to change their ways is like trying to herd cats. "Basically, they don't do shit, " says Brent. At the same time, he's convinced that climbers are becoming more aware, and that he's going to continue doing what he can do to change some bad climb in9.. �abits. "Hey, " he says, flashing another one of his cocky gr II I: oulve got to start somewhere. j�s.