Perhaps not exactly comparable, but I went to a talk at wlog REI from some relatively ordinary person who climbed some famous, but accessible peak (Kilimanjaro?

Perhaps not exactly comparable, but I went to a talk at wlog REI from some relatively ordinary person who climbed some famous, but accessible peak (Kilimanjaro?). I asked about the practice of hiring local porters, and got basically this answer. The local economy pretty much depends on the influx of foreign money from the people climbing. A fit person would be physically capable of carrying their full load, but it simply isn't done because of the economic disparity between the foreign climbers and the local porters. I don't know if that was enforced by law or custom, but the presenter was quite clear that it's not really possible to climb without local porters.