Not everyone in Nepal is a guide. All the guys up there are tough as nails, but there isn't much education about safety or equipment. The most advanced tool in

Not everyone in Nepal is a guide. All the guys up there are tough as nails, but there isn't much education about safety or equipment. The most advanced tool in a porter's repertoire is a t-shaped walking stick. Even the Sherpa are relatively recent migrants to the region (~400 years), and the Rai people have only moved into the highlands with the modern demand for labor. By and large they're coming from a tradition of subsistence farming. As an example, a friend was traveling in the Khumbu last year and his party came across a deceased porter around 6000m. He had presumably been paid off after getting sick and sent down on his own. All they could do was build a cairn over his body.