his mother's sister had [breast] fed Mir Nazeem Khan's son. So on the basis of this relation my uncle got the yarpagi for the first time". Although the Mir's tax system came to an end in the 1960s, Shimshalis were still not entirely free from carrying loads for others. The Pakistan army came to Shimshal in the late 1960s and was posted in Pamir because of border disputes with China. Many Shimshalis worked as porters for the army. One narrator (Pakistan 20) explains: "we had to take their ration, ammunition from Passu to Quz (a pasture)... the government didn't pay our daily wages directly to our own hands. They had contractors… And these contractors were not honest enough to pay our wages. Sometimes they gave us a piece of cloth instead of the amount and most of the time they paid nothing." Today many Shimshalis work as porters for trekking and mountaineering groups and expeditions. Shimshal Pass Shimshal Pass () rises above the village. It lies on the watershed between the Indus River and Tarim River basins, and leads to the valley of the Shimshal Braldu River, a tributary of the Shaksgam River on the border with China. Francis Younghusband was probably the first Englishman to reach the pass (1889). At the time it was used by raiders from Hunza to attack caravans traveling between Leh and Yarkand. There was a fort manned by Hunza soldiers, or raiders, or both. The pass is not part of Khunjerab National Park, but the Shimshal community has set an organization called SNT (Shimshal Nature Trust) which oversees the entire region and takes care of its own land. It is a community-based organization and is registered with the Government of Pakistan. Annually, in the last week of July or the first week of August, there is a festival at Shimshal Pass, where locals partake in a yak race, followed by singing and dancing. In Wakhi language it is called Woolyo. This yak race is the only one of its kind, and is a unique event organised at high mountain settlements of Pakistan. Shimshal Nature Trust Shimshal Nature Trust is a community-based development organization. In January 2008, The Science and Practice of Ecology & Society Award (SPES) was granted to Shimshal Nature Trust by the Resilience Alliance. The trust was created with the aim of providing community based nature conservation in response of National Park