Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

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bobby49
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by bobby49 »

I agree completely. It does sound paranoid.
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by dave54 »

I do not believe carrying food in for a friend as a day hike is illegal. You run into a permitting issue if you set yourself up as a business and advertise for customers. Then you are making a profit off public lands and the gov want their cut (IMHO a valid reason).
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by oldranger »

A few years ago I asked the guide service in Bishop if they could do a resupply at the top of Shepard pass. They said they could, I think for about $200 for 30 lbs. My plans fell thru early enough that we never firmed up the deal. The following year I tried it again but they said that they couldn't because it was outside the condition of their permit. If a friend was willing to do a similar resupply I would be happy to pay for a motel room and breakfast and a couple of dinners. (No questions asked on how they actually spend the funds.)
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by Harlen »

WD, if only there were a local Sierra community of Hindustani and Nepali folk; or if we could learn to carry like them.
Their men, women, and even their kids for that matter, can carry us into the ground! I never engaged a porter myself, (your pack is light already since you get most of your food at guest houses and lodges) but for fun, I would temporarily exchange loads with porter folk I met on the trails of the Himalaya-Karakoram when traveling there, mostly in the 1980's. They laughed and skipped about with my pack on! They'd say: "Koochnay!" (means- "It's Nothing!") and I would just stagger beneath the truly immense loads of theirs ... "Bahout muskil hai" I would gasp (means- "Extremely difficult it is!). It is the honest truth that their loads sometimes weigh more than their own body-weight! It is difficult doing the math, since in Nepal they often they use a weight called a "tola," which equalled I forget how much, but many folk know our kilos. And it was just obvious when I put on their packs that they commonly weighed over 100lb., and as much as 165 lbs. The most obvious case of loads weighing more than the porter, was seen when my trails intercepted pilgrimage routes- for instance up around the headwaters of the Ganges River. I have seen small stocky porters carrying much larger pilgrims in a special seat arrangement. Some of the rich pilgrims are quite overweight, and chose not to walk.
The porters who carry the heaviest loads work re-stocking the lodges and markets that are well beyond roads; these porters carry loads many times heavier than the mountain expedition porters. The former porters are paid by the amount of goods they provide.., hence the desire to over-load themselves.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but my point is that we humans can develop our bodies to carry very great loads, and that even half-heavy loads of 80 pounds would allow a single porter to resupply three to four hikers. I would have happily done it for a summer job.

Note: Even today, at my advanced age, I can still carry a six-pack of cans in as a surprise for a beer-drinking buddy (*but just as often I sneak it into their own pack at some point.) :evil:

*BTW, there is a pretty good chance my 18 year old son and I would take on the resupply challenge, for a pittance or just for a laugh if anyone seriously needs it done. We're in there anyway often enough.
Last edited by Harlen on Wed May 02, 2018 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by balzaccom »

Since we're on the tangent, in Peru the government restricts porters' pack weights to a maximum of 25 kilos....and actually sets up a weigh station from time to time along the trail to make sure that nobody is taking advantage. 25 kilos is roughly 55 pounds.
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by Wandering Daisy »

Interesting to note that in a lot of countries, you are required to use guides who provide porters. It is a jobs program in countries who rely heavily on tourism for income.
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by rightstar76 »

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Last edited by rightstar76 on Wed Aug 14, 2019 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by SSSdave »

Likely because there has never been a porter system set up in such a low population region as the Eastern Sierra. And most Mammoth Lakes residents are already well to do. If there was a 50k population city on the east side probably many takers but with just 5k in Bishop not so.

Nepalese porter carrying weight study:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandso ... uch-weight

I'm of a similar size to Nepalese men at 5'6" 137#. My carrying weights as a senior are now about 65# for a week long trip or 47%. A few years ago with 4x5 view camera gear more like 55%. Like those in the above link, I've trained my body to do so over decades. And like the Nepalese porters carry such weight slowly and take frequent short stops to relieve the stress. From experience of letting others trade my pack for theirs short distances on group hikes, the usual result is a quite unpleasant experience.

This August will pay any of you that want to play porter to carry up a piddly 20 pounds up the Shepherd Pass trail just the first hot 2800 feet. That will reduce my own weight on that section to maybe 50#. So start the bidding. (:
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by Harlen »

From the article Dave cited:
.... On average, the [Nepali] men carried nearly 90 percent of their body weight. A quarter of them carried more than 125 percent of their own weight, according to the new study, which appeared in the Journal of Experimental Biology. The heaviest load, Heglund says, totaled 175 percent — or nearly twice as much as the porter's weight. The porters in the study weighed between about 100 and 140 pounds.
The women carried an average of 70 percent of their weight – a good 10 percent more than the heaviest of loads carried by women in the African studies.

Compared to the muscles of European graduate students, the study found, the porters' muscles were slightly more efficient at turning oxygen into work. But there was nothing unusual about their gait or energy use.
Thanks so much for your contribution Dave; that is an interesting study.
I am not surprised by the weights they found, but I, and others more knowledgeable than I- do not agree with that last sentence. I've shared the trails with mountain porters in Asia for about 2,000 miles, and I definitely agree with the author of the best trail guide to Nepal, who is also a doctor, when he described the differences in the porter's gait and hiking method. For instance, he noted, and I definitely noticed, the porters smooth, bent-kneed, feet placed flat, gait on downhills. Their packs seem to float, they are so stable. Porters gait in general was supremely controlled. Slow, steady, balanced movement that serves to keep the huge load perfectly in sync with the body's movement. Also, there is very little heel to toe rocking in their gait- I am reminded of that book Hobbes is into-Born to Run, which documents the natural, and quite different from ours, running style of native runners such as the Tarahumara.

Like Dave implies above- their secret may be how they pace themselves so perfectly. They know how not to burn out. All along Nepal's trails, there are many high bench rest stops, where the porters can back in and rest their packs. This is because it is so dreadfully difficult to lift those size loads from the ground- it would tend to blow out the knees! Porters in Nepal also carry a stout, 'T'-shaped staff which they deftly place under their load to rest from it. They stop to rest a lot!

There is also a subtle something which might escape a researcher who is a physician first, and a hiker second, that most of us old hiker cats have learned long ago. That is, the simple, but so important fact that every damn misstep and trip wastes a ton of energy. So the fact that experienced porters have learned to walk with such control, actually translates into much greater ability to carry heavy loads long distance. Isn't it true, that the heavier the load, the worse it is to trip with it? A boxing analogy is the fact that to miss with a heavy punch takes so much more out of you than to connect with the same punch, or to just miss with a jab. The physiology of this is that in both cases- the backpacker who trips, or the boxer who misses, they are thrown off balance, and it takes a lot of energy to recover the balance.
This is part of my problem with the statement below:
there was nothing unusual about their gait or energy use.
It is something very special to be able to cruise along trails in good balance, and it isn't so easy. Balzacom, you would be well placed to tell us about the gait of novice hikers that you have taken out. Don't you think the reason they get tired and sore so soon is that they misstep and stumble so frequently? Anyway, it's a fascinating subject to me; thanks for the post. Ian.
Last edited by Harlen on Fri May 04, 2018 1:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Why no porters/"sherpas" in the Sierra?

Post by SSSdave »

Even when I hike without a pack, I tend to continually vary my speed depending on slope gradient. Drives some inexperienced hikers nuts. Most hikers only slow down as trail gradients increase after their body starts to tell them to do so due to the increased exertion, sweating, and especially increased respiration breathing rate.

On group hikes I train people to immediately slow pace as a trail steepens instead of waiting for one's body feedback to do so. Doing so keeps peak respiration levels lower that over a several hours effort will make a difference. And one will of course end up sweating a lot less too. Although some may think hiking slow is easy, that is not the case. It is not normal for those used to walking on level surfaces and takes zen-like concentration to move one's body ahead slowly step by step trying to be as relaxed and efficient as one can otherwise. I tell people to relax their arms, shoulders, torso removing the usual tension normal walking tends to cause. Much easier on well structured trails where one can shuffle feet ahead on level inclined surfaces versus irregular rocky trails especially with step ups.

And conversely where a trail levels off tend to speed up to a normal easy pace.
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