Unsolicited Review – Porters and Safety

Here is an unsolicited email from some clients who recently returned from their climb. What makes this letter interesting is that our guide advised my client Ralph not to summit even though he was 1 day away. The point is – he should not jeopardizes the safety of himself, or the team, even though you traveled half way around the world and paid all this money to climb the mountain. Safety is always first!
And you should always go to the mountain with the intention of NOT making it to the summit. Also, it’s great to see he recognizes the issues with porters and wants to help make it better.

“It’s two weeks since I’m back from Kili, and in spite of the problems that I had, the trip was amazing. I don’t know whether you have regular contact with your guide or not, but he made a difficult call and would not let me try for the summit. I’ve got a history of knee problems from running marathons and 30+ years in the martial arts, and the downhill stages were just torturous for me. He didn’t think that I could make it back down without delaying everyone too much, or worse, suffering a fall and injuring myself or one of the other members in our party. As disappointed as I was, I have an enormous amount of respect for Jamaica, and believe that he made a decision that was right for everyone.

Everyone in our group was moved by the plight of the porters, and we all felt that we wanted to do something to help them. Some of our group left some old clothing with Jamaica, but we all agreed that we had piles of stuff at home that could be put to use by the porters. I’m actually a freight specialist, and I can’t find an economical way to ship things to Jamaica to pass on to the porters.

I was wondering if you had any suggestions on what we could do to help them, other than the obvious of sending money and hoping that it is put to proper use.

Thanks for putting the trip together for us. The dynamic of the 8 people in the group was amazing, and it was truly a life altering experience. By some stroke of luck, I believe that we ended up with the absolute best guide on the mountain. Your guide is truly an amazing human being!”

Ralph Brady