[OfSanguineFire]

Within the Central and Eastern European mountaineering scene that occasionally does expeditions to the Eight Thousanders, there are plenty of climbers who do not come from wealthy families. After all, such intergenerational transmission of wealth got interrupted during the socialist era, but the state provided infrastructure for people to enter the sport regardless of their background. Instead, the money comes from sponsorships.

I know this firsthand, as a friend of mine is such a climber, and my language-services business has provided native-English revision of his and his peers’ sponsorship applications for some years now. In between expeditions, it is a constant hustle for money.