A Mountain is a Quest
Not a Destination
Starting an adventure at 10:55 in the morning felt leisurous, almost indolent. In the past it seemed decreed that all trips had to start with a 5:00 a.m. flight with the attendant 3:00 wake-up and a hurried or non-existent breakfast. To start the first day of a journey without even setting an alarm clock was just totally out of character but such slothfulness was a one-day phenomenon. This would be the last time that the sun rose before I did. So there was every reason to enjoy a slow awakening as the sun filled the house from the rim of the Santa Rita Mountains. There was plenty of time for a measured breakfast and an easy drive to the airport. What a nice way to start a morning.
He who pays the piper gets to call the order of the dance but this time I was not the payer. American Airlines’ frequent flyer program paid for this journey so it got to choose the flight path. The shortest route is from Tucson to Amsterdam to catch the KLM’s non-stop to Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania but alas, KLM is not a partner of American Airlines so I went off on an indirect path. From Tucson the first stop was Dallas. All of American Airlines goes through Dallas-Ft. Worth. Even if you die, I think you get routed through DFW before heading on to your final destination. This time I was not headed for such an exalted place. I was headed for Switzerland.
On this day DFW got only a passing glance as I rushed through from Terminal A to Terminal B. There was not even time for a $3.00 cup of fat free yogurt (chocolate-vanilla swirl). I was off one plane, down the people mover, and immediately in line to board the next flight. I hoped that my luggage could move through the airport as fast as I could. I latched onto my favorite window seat and, for once, the gods of long-distance flights were with me. No one was assigned to the adjacent seat. I could spread out for the ten-hour flight over seven time zones, across two continents, and across one day into the next. This is the greatest luxury imaginable—at least in the coach section of the plane.
From my window half a country flowed by in a slow movie. As usual when I flew through Dallas I was disabused of my firmly entrenched idea that Texas is a dry state. Once again, I was surprised by all the lakes around Dallas that now gleamed golden in the afternoon sun. These amber jewels faded as central Texas merged into east Texas and then into Louisiana. The brown Mississippi marked my journey eastward just before a cloudbank severed all view of the ground.
The ever-moving map in the airliner showed Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia sliding beneath me but all I could see was an endless cottony sky, slowly darkening with end of the day. Dinner arrived; the on-board entertainment center broadcast on eighteen different channels. My eye and my center of interest were drawn inside the cabin while the airplane slipped into the chrysalis of night. There I would have stayed, cocooned for a nighttime, but for a timely alert from the pilot. “Check the left-side window for a wondrous sight.”
The cotton clouds were gone! The sky was as crystal clear as only a winter night can be. Stars were everywhere, above us and below. Immediately off to the left was New York City harbor. The moving stars were ships and ferryboats and cars over bridges. Just beyond them were the multi-storied stars that are all of Manhattan’s windows lit up at 7:30 on a Thursday evening. The whole island was spread out before me: the skyscrapers, the avenues, the Empire State Building, and helicopters blinking like red fireflies as important people scurried from one important place to another. It was a bustling tableau played out in total silence. The magical lights reached me at 35,000’ but all the sounds were earthbound.
First Manhattan, and then all of North America, slid away from view and the dark Atlantic reflected nothing under an as-yet moonless night. It was time to get some sleep. A New York watch may say only 8:30 in the evening but the same watch set on European time records 2:30 a.m. and much of the night was already gone. Put on the eyeshades; pull up the blanket. Let the vibration of the airplane lull me off to sleep and like Hamlet, per chance to dream—dream of lions and elephants and glaciers and a snow-covered mountain rising high enough to reach the sky itself. Such can be dreams when they have been dreamed for thirty years.
Sleeping on airplanes is a necessary exercise for a long-distance traveler and like all exercises it is tiring. One has to wake up occasionally to rest from the exertion of sleeping in a sitting position for too long. This night a fortuitous rest period between bouts of fitful sleep came at five in the morning, in that darkest hour before dawn. Once again the sky was clear and more bright jewels sparkled on the ground below. A large city, one of Europe’s greatest was laid out below. We flew over, just south of city center. The whole map unfolded. There was a large circle with twelve avenues radiating out. Large dark blocks of parks, outlined in city streetlights, sat cheek by jowl to the huge castle, now a world famous museum. A dark sweep made an S-turn right through the middle of the city and in the center of that river was the small island that was the start of the city 2,000 years ago. I’ve walked on those avenues. Many times I have studied that map on paper. Now I could see the map from the air. The City of Light was all aglow and Paris lay at my feet.
There was no more sleep for me that night. All the electrical energy of Paris reached me at 35,000 feet and I was wired awake. From here it was only one long glide path into Switzerland. Dark was gone and pre-dawn had arrived. The sky had just cleared from a two-day snowstorm and the white undulating blanket of the Swiss landscape reflected the late-rising moon only a week away from full orb. The plane descended, the land rose, and village after village of frosted chalets passed by my window in a pattern as ordered and orderly as I would have expected from the Swiss. To the south the jagged Alps caught the first rays of the sun just as we touched down on a newly plowed runway in Zurich. Welcome to Switzerland, home of watches, home of Swiss chocolates, home of Heidi, and home to at least a brief respite from sitting in an airplane seat for a very long time.
The irony of airline travel is that sitting in airports is twice as uncomfortable as sitting in airplanes. So no matter how relieved the traveler was to finally get off the airplane after a ten-hour flight from Dallas, he couldn’t wait to get back on another airplane for another eight-hour jaunt. This time it was a Swiss International Airlines flight from Zurich to Nairobi.
Changes were immediately apparent. This wasn’t the same airplane I’d just left. For the traveler used to the bilingual American Southwest, where everything is English and Spanish, the trilingual world was a new experience where all airline announcements were in German, French, and lastly English. Priorities were different here and the passengers on the plane were different too. There was not a single cowboy hat in sight. I came from a world where people were white or black or brown. On this plane there were more shades than that just in the color black. Nairobi serves as a hub for much of east and central Africa and this plane carried residents of many different countries, cultures, and tribes. There were Swiss tourists speaking German. I heard Italian behind me. Over there sounded a Scandinavian voice. This common European scene was a cacophony to an American ear and there appeared to be only two American ears on this plane, both mine.
The woman in the row in front of me was not very tall so I helped put her bag in the overhead. She was Ethiopian but worked for a multinational in Kenya. The man across the aisle was Danish. He was headed for Malawi to investigate the efficiency of an international aid organization there. The woman behind me was going home to Dar es Salaam. The Swedes were headed for the beaches of Zanzibar—not a bad idea in late January. Once more the gods of air travel were kind. The seat next to me was empty and I could stretch out.
Into the air again, I had fifteen hours behind me and only eight more to go, at least on this day. In only 45 minutes we flew from inland Switzerland to the Mediterranean coast. I always forget how compact Europe is. Looking out my window, I could follow the coastline all the way down the east side of Italy. Offshore a small island was actually a volcano, erupting in the morning sun with a long plume of smoke. I followed the entire Italian coast until heavy overcast blocked my sight just south of Sicily. Then clouds were my only view for the rest of the day. It was time for a book, an airline movie, a nap, and per chance another dream. Daytime clouds darkened to nighttime clouds and the view never changed, only the amount of ambient light, but at least the darkness brought me closer to the day’s destination. Shortly after dark came the descent into Africa and the lights of Nairobi came up from the ground.
Now 23 hours after Tucson came the big test. Did my two duffle bags in checked luggage make the same plane changes I did? If not, they were lost forever. I was leaving Nairobi in twelve hours and the next flight from Zurich would not arrive for two days. Luggage carousels went round and around. Luggage carts banged in the background and suitcases thumped onto conveyor belts someplace in an airport tunnel. Soon out came black bags and green ones and cardboard boxes and satchels. The various parcels of air nomads were being thrust out in front of us for us to catch and reclaim. Please let the gods be kind one more time! Then a green bag, circled with a rope I tied in Arizona, was quickly followed by a blue duffle that I knew well. The gods have been kind—or was it the Swiss gnomes?
Following airport customs and immigration procedures, with visa in hand for a twelve-hour stay, I stepped out to the lobby and into a Babel of African tongues. Now after 23 hours I craved a landing spot, a bed. My lighthouse beckoned across the lobby, “Mr. Richard W*** Welcome to the Hotel Stanley.” A sign in the crowd, my waiting driver, arrangements made two months ago had come together and someone was indeed waiting for me at the airport. I had a ride to a bed.
It’s amazing how much easier sleep came in a prone position! Then at 4:00 a.m. I was up and ready to go again. Breakfast was a hamburger and fries from room service. Who would have guessed that ordering a hamburger required making a choice between chicken and beef? At 5:00 the green bag, the blue bag, the backpack and the ranger made their way down the hotel hallway where the guard summoned the elevator to the 5th floor. The hotel proudly advertised that there was an armed guard stationed on every floor.
Another gun protected the hotel lobby and two more stood outside the front door. Private security guards were the growth industry of Nairobi. Traveling in from the airport last night, I saw guards posted outside of apartment complexes, most industrial plants, and almost every retail store. Government guards protected the roadways to the airport and at least twenty Kenya Police patrolled the terminal itself. I couldn’t decide if I was in a dangerous environment, or conversely in a very protected and safe cocoon.
At 5:30 a.m. I was back at the airport to I check in for my 7:15 flight to Tanzania on Precisionair. “I’m sorry sir. Your name is not on the list. We seem to be overbooked on this flight. If you want to hang around the coffee shop, I’m sure we can get you on the next flight. Hakuna matata (no worries).” Well, it’s certainly no worry for them! But for me, if I miss the flight, I’ll miss my ride from the airport and it’s a 25-mile hike to the hotel.
Unlike U.S. air travel, where airlines have to ask for volunteers to give up their seats when planes are overbooked, much of the world uses a different system. When flights are overfull, some clerk in a hidden office decides who flies and who doesn’t and if you’re bumped, you’re bumped. There is no recourse, no free cup of coffee, and no free ticket for flying at a later date. The airlines only obligation to you is to fly you there sometime, not necessarily at the time they promised.
In cases like this, where the bureaucracy has dumped on you, there is only one course of action that has a hope of succeeding. Be calm; be polite. Don’t get yourself mad or anyone else mad or the whole jig is up. But also do not go gently into the night (or the coffee shop). Be persistent and above all, be visible! Every time the clerk checks in another passenger, she sees, out of the corner of her eye, there’s that guy over there who really wants to get on this flight. Never out of sight, never out of mind, is the watchword for this plan of attack.
One hour before the flight was the time to switch venues and head for the gate. With red boarding pass in hand for the 10:30 flight, I joined other passengers with blue passes for the 7:15. “Good morning, Mr. Gate Attendant, I just want you to know that I am here to help you fill up that early flight in case someone doesn’t show up. I’m here to help you!”
But while I was at the gate, I might as well look out the window. There were birds flying out there. There was a Little Swift. That was my first bird in Kenya so I started a Kenya bird list. There on the ground were a dozen starlings in the gaudiest colors. Those were Superb Starlings and a life bird, the first one of the trip. On the ledge were Speckled Pigeons, House Sparrows, and Pied Crows, while in the field across the tarmac a Black-headed Heron and two Cattle Egrets were hunting insects and rodents. Barn Swallows and Intermediate Egrets flew by. A Common Rock-Thrush popped up on a baggage cart quickly followed by a White-throated Bee-eater, my second life bird of the day. In ten quick minutes I had a tally of eleven species for my newly formed Kenya bird list. As it later turned out, this would be the only time I would see two of these birds on the whole trip.
Birding at foreign airports is an iffy proposition. Somehow binoculars and ideas about homeland security don’t mix in some countries, particularly those with paranoid governments or military dictatorships. Did I just say something redundant? Some countries just can’t tell the difference between a simple birdwatcher and a CIA spy. But I ask you, would a spy be caught dead in a dorky hat like this one?
About every five minutes I put the binoculars down and smiled at the gate attendant and waved my little red pass. He waved back and made the first call for the flight. Five tourists walked out to the tarmac and the miniature airliner. I watched more birds, waved the red pass. “Second call for Precisionair to Kilimanjaro International Airport.” More birds, more waves, “Third Call.” Things were not going well for the gate attendant but things were looking up for the green bag, the blue bag, the backpack, and the ranger. “Fourth Call.” Finally it was flight time and one seat was still empty. This time the gate attendant waved first. “See, I told you I was here to help you out. I’ll be glad to help you fill up your airplane.” Hakuna matata, just like the clerk said.
My Magic Carpet
The pride of Precisionair was an ugly duckling that will never become a swan: seventeen passengers, six rows of seats, one to the left of the aisle and two to the right. A passenger not only pulls his knees up tight but his elbows as well. The carryon luggage was stacked in a closet in the back along with the checked luggage. The only difference between checked and carryon was who carried it out to the plane. Nothing was tied down. If the plane hiccupped in the air, there would be bags flying. There were two pilots, one for each engine I guess. In this day of air piracy there was no reinforced cockpit door. Actually there was no door and no wall to put a door into. The cockpit was just the forward part of the plane. The only difference between the pilots and us is that they get to sit up a little higher and they have a better view.
We bumped down the runway (I think one tire was square) and lumbered into the sky. There certainly was no feeling of being thrust back into one’s seat while the plane was catapulted into the sky. This was not that kind of plane. As we climbed I watched the plane’s altimeter slowly arc its way around the dial a slow hundred feet at a time. That strange bump I felt on the runway continued here in the air. A little hiccup up, a little drop down, a little lurch to the right, it felt like the airplane was a marionette and someone was pulling the strings. But the plane did fly, however haltingly. This 45-minute flight beat the heck out of an all-day bus trip with its interminable stop for bureaucratic formalities at the Kenya-Tanzania border.
My seatmate was from Brussels but most of the passengers were coeds from a school in Sweden. Looking around me I saw numerous pairs of blue eyes starting to widen as the little drops in the airplane became more exaggerated. Soon there were a couple of blond heads bent over paper bags.
Mt. Kilimanjaro soon loomed on the port beam and distracted everyone from the plane’s gyrations. At 19,340 feet, Kili stood taller in the sky than our little plane with no pressurized cabin. With its glaciers shining white in the southern sun this was my first glimpse of that enormous mountain I hoped to climb. Tomorrow I would set foot on its flanks but the summit was almost a week away. The massive bulk of volcanic outpouring filled the window for almost half of the flight.
When the mountain disappeared behind us, the airport appeared right on schedule. It was back to the ground with a little plop and then we rolled down the runway on that square tire again. As soon as the props stopped, I was the first one off the airplane and out into the bright sunshine. Here, I was at 2500’ elevation and only 200 miles from equator. Even at 8:00 in the morning the sun held the promise of a hot day. Welcome to equatorial Africa.
Another customs inspection, another immigration procedure, another visa in the passport, all were cursory and quickly accomplished. Seventeen passengers didn’t take long to clear. Once again Superb Starlings surrounded the airport. How can such a common bird be so beautiful? An hour’s drive to town passed through parched and brown grasslands. The short rains of November and December failed this year. Young men and boys herded cattle and goats. Their distant homes were mud brown, wattle and daub, with grass-thatched roofs. My mental pictures of East Africa were now becoming a reality outside my Land Rover’s window. Closer to town, in many front yards, tarps were spread out and covered with millet drying in the sun. Soon it would be fermented for three days and turned into a potent drink—a local tradition and strong enough for any party I was told.
Springlands Hotel was a walled oasis of green pitched in a sea of dusty brown. Within, trees and gardens were green and well watered and there was a bustle of activity. Gardeners were pruning; gardeners were raking. If one leaf fell, there was a gardener to rake it up. Maids were scurrying everywhere. All forty rooms were full last night and all forty rooms had to be cleaned for new guests tonight. This was not a resort where guests stay for a week. This hotel was a way station for mountain pilgrims to refresh, repack, and start out for the heights tomorrow. Seasoned hikers, who last night had their first shower in a week, were packing up to either go out on safari or to head back home. It was easy to tell which hikers were successful on the mountain. They had the biggest grins and the reddest eyes. Last night was also the first beer in a week and for many trekkers the more successful the climb, the more the drinking at the end of the trek.
To add to the hubbub, new arrivals were pouring in with green bags and blue bags and red bags and yellow bags. “No, the rooms are not ready yet! Go relax in the garden. Go have a beer; the sun’s already hot. Kilimanjaro is a good brand and it’s cold.” Or if you’re a birder, it was time to start a Tanzania list. Weaverbirds were weaving their unusual nests in the big trees at the front of the hotel. The first bird I could identify was a life bird, Jackson’s Golden-backed Weaver. It was quickly followed by a Blue-naped Mousebird, African Mourning Dove and Red-billed Firefinch.
Nest of the Weaver Finch
The best way to see the birds in the trees in the front yard was to go to the balcony on the second floor. This put me at eye level with the weaver’s nests and the colorful bits of feathers flying around in the treetops. Unexpectedly this height also opened up a window on the world beyond the walled oasis. Springlands is parked on the side of a major roadway coming into town. It’s a dirt road and dusty but it’s also a parade ground as Tanzania streamed by on Land Rovers, pickups, bicycles, rubber-tired sandals, flip-flops, bare feet, and hooves.
The view from over the wall
Moshi, Tanzania, like all towns of more than a few thousand, was a conglomerate of cultures as people of many different groups moved into an urban setting. From my balcony perch I watched men in coats and ties pass by followed by Masai warriors in full costume, including spears still useful in protecting cattle herds. These men, however, were the extremes and the exception. Most men here, as men throughout the third world, favor some form of jeans-like trousers and dark shirt irrespective of culture. It is through the clothing of women and girls that the different cultures are often preserved.
Certainly on this Tanzanian road the differences were obvious. Muslim women, covering all skin but hands, face, and feet, had all their hair tucked neatly beneath colorful head coverings. Wildly patterned, colorful clothes marked other well-dressed African women. Many walked proudly by Springlands with bundles, baskets, buckets, and jars perched confidently on their heads. Young school girls in matching blue blouses and plaid skirts could have come from a Catholic school anywhere in the world. Young boys in shorts and flip-flops herded goats along the railroad tracks. In another place they would be in school. Here their work as a goatherd was an economic necessary to their family.
Architecture and institutions also show the cultural mix in Moshi. In a short drive through town I passed mosques, a Hindu temple, a Sikh social club, a Lutheran hospital, and a Catholic school. A pickup truck came by with a crowd of colorfully dressed people in the back, all clapping and singing. The words were in Swahili but after a moment I recognized the tune: “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” My local guide smiled and pointed at the truck, “Assembly of God.”
What a good first day in Africa. I arrived on time in Tanzania after all. I found a hotel with a garden of new birds and a colorful parade of humanity continually marched past my front door. An afternoon walk took me through rice fields with farmers and egrets, into forests with Colobus Monkeys and life birds, and past irrigation ditches full of naked little boys diving, swimming, and just splashing in the afternoon heat. Evening was a red sunset and a cold Kilimanjaro. The night’s dreams were of a big black mountain with gleaming white glaciers piercing an azure African sky. “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
K-Day arrives. The ranger meets Mt. Kilimanjaro. Springlands was all a bustle as forty hotel rooms emptied out. Trekkers were doing a frenetic dance on the narrow garden paths as they jostled past each other relaying duffle bags, backpacks, hiking poles, and rucksacks into different piles. Eight different parties of hikers were loading into six different vehicles going to four different trailheads at five different times. In addition almost everyone had an additional bag to be put into storage at the hotel for the duration of the trek. People finished breakfast and lined up to pay their hotel and trekking bill. “We accept dollars, pounds, euros, and Tanzanian schillings but no credit cards.”
The green bag, the blue bag, the backpack, and the ranger
“Hurry up—no wait.” “Pile your things here—no pile them over there.” “You’re the group from African Adventure Travel. Get in this van—You’re not? Oops, wait over there then.” I’m in this Land Rover but my duffle is in that one. Pile out and let’s start over again. Amazingly this dance goes on every morning throughout the two-month high season for trekking. Nobody learns from the day before and each day is a brand new day. But in only ninety minutes it was all sorted out and Land Rovers and Toyotas and busses roared off in a cloud of dust—for all of five miles.
Then it was time to stop by the tour office in town and pick up tents, food, guides, equipment, and who-knows-what-all. All this had to be piled on top of the trucks on top of the already piled-high duffles and backpacks. There was much tarping and tying down with huge rubber bands made from truck inner tubes. During this half-hour of hubbub, souvenir hawkers surrounded the six vehicles of trekkers offering a selection of hats, T-shirts, wooden carvings and worry beads. Is it bad karma to buy a T-shirt that says, “I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro” before one even sets foot on the mountain? It sounded like tempting fate to me.
Off again we headed down the main street of Moshi but then we detoured onto a side street. The main street was blocked because the local Muslims were having a revival in the city park and spilling out into the street. Who knew Muslims had revivals? But all the trappings were there, the big tents, the loud speakers, the folding chairs, and the ladies with the fans trying to keep cool. I may not have recognized the words in Swahili but I recognized the tone and the pacing of the words coming over the loudspeakers. There was some real preaching going on. Take away the Muslim headscarves and the men’s lace caps and plop this Tanzanian scene in the middle of mid-America and you’d say there’s a Baptist out there somewhere.
We finally cleared town and buzzed down the highway with a roar. There was a hole in the muffler somewhere. To compensate the driver turned up the radio. Rap music in Swahili filled the vehicle. Now we were truly into the culture. After the flatlands, we turned toward the mountain and the Toyota Landcruiser noticeably slowed on the uphill climb. The dry plains were behind us and everything was green. The fertile volcanic soil here will grow anything one sticks in the ground. Here, rainfall is frequent and predictable. Corn, potatoes, and squash are grown for food, millet for drink, and coffee for cash. If you love coffee, thank a volcano. Around the world, coffee is always grown in volcanic soil.
There were numerous villages close together here on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro. All I saw had Christian churches. We’d left the Muslim world behind in the larger city. It seems that the early missionaries must have divided up the villages because each one has only one church and each village has a different church. This community was Lutheran, that one Catholic, the next one Baptist. Prior to World War I, Tanzania, then called Tanganyika, was a German colony so the Lutherans were particularly strong here.
The pavement petered out four miles before the dusty road suddenly ended in a scene of mass confusion. Our two vehicles from Springlands joined eight or nine more from other hotels. Forty hikers were milling about, each trying to see if his duffle really did make it up from town. Guides were busy hiring porters. Potential porters were loudly trying to get jobs. Money made working now in the tourist high season might have to last all year long. Souvenir hawkers just over the national park boundary were loudly calling to hikers, “Come see my T-shirts. I have hats!” Several vehicles were trying to leave through the mass of people while other vehicles were just now arriving.
Representatives of the tour companies were trying to get all the hikers to queue up to sign in at the national park office. Each person had to sign in and there was only one book. No, the tour companies couldn't submit a list of hikers, each trekker had to sign in the official book: last name, first name, address, nationality, passport number, age, tour company, guide’s name, hike route, signature, comments. The tour company then wrote a check to the national park to pay the park fee for each of its clients. The fee of over $400 a person seemed high until I realized that that was the only way to pay for this and other Tanzanian national parks. The government was poor and wasn’t going to pay for parks from its meager tax revenue.
The army of porters and cooks was hired and order began to coalesce. My party of one had a guide, a cook and three porters. A party of eight might have a guide, assistant guide, cook, assistant cook, and eight or ten porters. In all cases the number of workers exceeded the number of hikers. This is how it works in much of the world. Parks are successfully preserved only if they provide an economic benefit to the local population. For seven days work and fifty miles of carrying, porters were paid $30. A cook received perhaps double and the guide double plus a little more. With luck and generous clients workers might double their original wage with tips but sometimes they will ended up with college students for clients who didn’t see the need to tip at all.
Porters, of course, aspired to be guides someday. The pay was better. The stumbling block that prevented many from moving upwards was their ability to master English. Swahili is the native language of most of Tanzania and Kenya although English is taught in the secondary schools. In addition to language skills a guide must obtain a license from the national park service after successfully completing guide training. I watched the park service carefully check the license of each guide just as the parties started up the mountain.
Just because one became a guide or cook didn’t relieve them from carrying. Guides were carrying at least all of their own bedrolls, clothing and equipment for the week and cooks were carrying food and other items in additional to what few personal items they take. Trekkers, like me, were carrying no more than ten or fifteen pounds. I took whatever I might need during the day: lunch, at least two liters of water, jacket, raincoat, camera, etc. Oh, did I mention binoculars and a bird book?
A lot of pounds go up the mountain on a lot of backs. From reading outdoors magazines many Americans think of food on camping trips in terms of lightweight, freeze-dried foods and designer meals in foil packages. In the third world such things are prohibitively expensive and simply unavailable. These cooks and porters were carrying real potatoes, carrots, pineapples, watermelons, and loaves of bread. Weight was saved in other ways. The staff may be lucky to have one change of clothing for the entire week. My staff took one tent for all five of them and that doubled as the kitchen tent too. When I had my “three course meal,” the soup bowl that I used in the first course was taken back and washed and reappeared holding something else in the second course or the dessert.
The two-handed carry
Even with all this skimping the weight loads were daunting. I know that the porter who carried my duffle, as well as a number of other items, was carrying more than fifty pounds. Most of this was carried on the head. Unlike African women who carry their loads balanced on their head without the use of hands, these porters have unwieldy burdens that have to be held with one or both hands above the head at all times. These loads would be carried for fifty miles in seven days and up to elevations of 15,000’.
At the trailhead all the paperwork was finally done and hiking parties started out slowly one by one. Guides were trained to keep the hiking pace turtle-like and even here at the beginning the pace was less than half the speed of a normal walking gait. Porters started later than the hikers but passed them en route and had the tents set up before the hikers arrived. Or at least that was the plan.
At the moment, however, the porters had not even started. There was much milling about around the scales in seeming confusion. The park service required that each porter’s load be weighed. If there was a maximum weight permitted, I didn’t observe it. No load, no matter how staggering was denied, however, bad packing was stopped in its tracks. If there were items sticking out of the bags that looked like they might dislodge on the trail, the porter was sent back to repack with much yelling and sometimes slaps on the side of the head.
Rumisha, my guide finished his paperwork just as some of our porters cleared past the confusion of the scales. We started up the trail at about the same time the sun finally went behind one of the big clouds that had been floating around all morning. That brought immediate relief from the hot rays that pushed the temperature into the mid 80s even here at 5800’ above sea level. Of course, the humidity was still fully as high as the temperature. As he was trained, Rumisha began his slow walk. He’s made this climb about twenty times a year for the past three years. Dutifully I fell in step. It felt very slow but the guide must know what he is doing. Today’s plan was to hike about eleven miles reaching an elevation of 10,000’ at our first night’s camp.
Fifteen minutes up the trail some porters stopped to readjust their loads and get better balance. Rumisha decided that he needed to stop and talk to some of them for a few minutes. “Just walk on ahead slowly and I will catch up with you,” he said. Little did he realize what he had done.
I did walk ahead slowly, at least slower than my normal walking gait, but at a pace that felt much more comfortable for me than the snail’s pace we’d started out with. After all, the day’s hike was planned to be less than what I usually did in a day back in Arizona. There on a normal day I would hike 15-17 miles and gain over 5,000 feet. So I hiked away at a comfortable pace and had a gay time enjoying the solitude of the forest. I’d stop and take pictures and stop to look for birds and then hike again at a comfortable pace. Poor Rumisha, he didn’t catch up for over three hours and then it was less than thirty minutes before the end of the day’s hike and he was puffing from the push.
When I had signed in at the trailhead, Rumisha watched as I wrote in my age. He smiled and joked, “old man.” Now the old man had hiked at a pace he hadn’t expected and wasn’t used to. Rumisha has just learned that he had a client who could hike and I learned that it was a lot more fun to walk at my own pace and not be afraid of the mountain. I had trained well for this trek so I decided to trust my body to tell me when I need to slow down.
The first day’s hike traversed the rainforest belt that surrounded the mountain up to the 9500’ level. The forest was thick enough that direct sunlight didn’t reach the forest floor except in clearings. Vines and moss were everywhere. Some kinds of mosses were lush green carpets while others hung from tree branches like Spanish moss. Birds were surprisingly sparse but I suppose the frequent foot traffic on this trail kept most birds back into the forest. It was a disappointment not to see as many rainforest birds as I had hoped but for this week, at least, I had already planned that birding would be secondary to hiking and enjoying the mountain. After all I had been dreaming about this mountain for thirty years.
The trail was smooth and easy walking most of the way. Much of the first day’s trail was no steeper than the Super Trail on Mt. Wrightson in Arizona, although there were some short steep stretches. Well, at least it was an easy walk for me. I wasn’t carrying fifty pounds on my head. The trail was super smooth, not rocky like an Arizona trail. Here in the rainforest there had been so much trouble with trail erosion and people tripping over all the tree roots that two years ago the park service built a raised trail with logs on both sides and filled in with a combination of dirt and gravel. I’d always enjoyed the rainforest and this one was pure pleasure to walk through. With no tree roots or other obstructions on the trail I could just watch the trees and enjoy the forest. Occasionally I passed other parties of hikers or porters but otherwise I had the forest to myself.
Trail in Kilimanjaro rainforest
With trees blocking out direct views of the sky I was slow to notice that the few big clouds around, that sometimes erased the sun, had become one large cloud that now blocked the sky. I didn’t notice, that is, until somebody pulled the zipper on the cloud and the innards come pouring out. Quick, out came the rain suit. This was a rain forest after all. It rained; it poured; it misted. Then it rained again. It was warm: I was dry in my rain suit. This was great fun. Oops, then it was lightning, thunder, even hail. That beat hard on my head so I quickly found the tree with the biggest leaves to stand under. This too shall pass and it soon did. But how good everything smelled now.
When the rain stopped, I found a big rock for a lunch table. I still didn’t know where Rumisha was but hakuna matata there was no way to get lost on this trail. Montane White-eyes sang their after-rain song and I enjoyed a meal of fried chicken, grated carrot sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, and sweet cake. Life was definitely good!
Machame Camp at 10,000’ was just above the rainforest belt at the beginning of the moorland, an area of head-high shrubs and grasslands. The eleven miles took four hours and was a most pleasant walk. I felt good enough to walk around and do some birding while waiting for the porters to arrive and set up the tents. Dusky Turtle-Doves were feeding not far from camp and African Gray Flycatchers and Mountain Greenbuls were easy to find.
Home for the night was a mountain tent that could sleep three in a pinch. I had it all to myself and room to spread out. Afternoon tea, that holdover from British colonialism, brought biscuits (hard cookies), popcorn, and of course tea, tea that is actually grown here in Tanzania. Dinner came at sundown: roast potatoes, meat, vegetables and sauce.
With the coming of dark I retreated to the tent to spread the bedroll and let the mattress self-inflate. The air, 68 degrees warm at dinner, cooled quickly at this elevation when the sun departed. I was well satisfied with the first days hike. It'd been a walk in the park, literally. With the coming of sleep I wondered what the next day would bring. That hike went up to 12,500 feet, three thousand feet higher than anything I could hike in southern Arizona. How would I adjust to the altitude? That was a question for another day.
Machame Camp
My first wakeup on the mountain was cool, damp and drippy. There had been fog and mist a good part of the night. The morning’s breakfast was en suite. That’s Swahili for, “Don’t get out of your tent. We’ll stick it in through the door.”
Breakfasts were surprising good on the mountain and like all meals came in generous portions. It all started with a thermos of hot water for making tea or instant coffee, followed by toast, hard margarine, jam or peanut butter, and three thin slices of cheese. Porridge came next, like cream of wheat, nice and hot first thing in the morning. The sweet-toothed ranger added lots of sugar for energy for the day. Then came fresh fruit: mango, papaya, or melon. The meal was finished with scrambled eggs and a sausage that looks much like a hot dog.
It was time to repack. I had brought a box of plastic trash bags and now it was time to put them to use. Everything in the green duffle was brought out and repacked in several Hefty bags. Even the sleeping bag, pillow, and the air mattress each got their own Hefty. All were tied up tight and repacked in the duffle. The duffle manufacturer advertised waterproof cloth, except for the seams. It turns out there were a lot of seams. Hefty literally saved the hike because at the end of every day the outsides of the plastic bags were wet and the inside of the duffle was soaked for almost the entire trip.
The threatening rain held off until after breakfast and until just after I hit the trail. The super highway of a trail of yesterday now turned into a rocky cow path going immediately upwards out of camp. Within five minutes I was using hiking poles to get over rocks and high steps. About the same time the drizzle began again. It was 46 degrees and neither the temperature nor the rain varied in the slightest during the day’s hike.
The rain forest belt was left behind and we spent the day hiking in the moors. The trail wound through scrubby trees festooned with hanging moss. Vegetation was short but lush. Rocks were everywhere covered with lichens and mosses. Small streams and rivulets were frequent. Often we passed small waterfalls, the result of frequent rains and melting glaciers up high on the volcano. This climatic zone must get as much rain as the rain forest lower down the mountain but the colder temperatures here dictated a much different vegetation.
Rumisha and I were the first hikers to leave camp and with the pace that I set, none passed us. Even all the porters were behind us today. It seemed we had the whole mountain to ourselves. The drizzle, dark sky, low hanging clouds, dense tangled vegetation, and hanging moss on every tree presented an almost gothic atmosphere. Here on the mountain I expected to feel a great sense of expansiveness, with Kilimanjaro still towering more than a mile and half above, but today the feeling was of being closed in. In the fog nothing existed that did not exist in the next 500 feet. Sounds were muffled and we were almost on top of waterfalls before we could hear them.
Moss is everywhere
The almost six-mile hike was programmed to take six hours at this altitude. At my normal walking speed I found that three hours and twenty minutes was a more comfortable pace. I’d decided not to do the “pole, pole” (pol-E, pol-E) (slowly, slowly) that Rumisha and the park service recommend. It was important to me to know what I could do. I wanted to know now, not two days later, if the altitude was going to affect me. If I went too fast and ended up with an altitude headache, that would be my own fault but I could deal with that.
In the cooler weather I’d traded my sun protection hat for a fleece hat. The brand was Turtle Fur and the hat had a turtle logo on the front. Rumisha now dubbed me “Old Man Turtle” and thus I remained for the rest of the hike. Rumisha was still dealing with the fact that he had a client that wanted to lead instead of follow and he was also dealing with a much faster pace that what he was used to. Old Man Turtle didn’t take rest stops. He took photography stops and birdwatching stops but at this altitude there weren’t enough birds to suit Rumisha.
We reached camp in the late morning just as we left the moorland vegetation and entered into the semi desert zone. I discovered that one of the disadvantages of hiking at a faster pace than a caterpillar shuffle was that we arrived at the camp before the porters. So here we were standing in the drizzle with no tents set up and no welcoming cup of hot tea. But Rumisha knew a nearby cave where we could hang out to have lunch. It was really more of a rocky overhang than a true cave and water dripped down through cracks in the ceiling but if we sat in just the right spot on just the right rock we could sit in between the drips.
Lunch today was a piece of fried chicken (cooked when?), a muffin, small banana, small mango, sweet bread, and a small bottle of fruit flavored drink. As we finished lunch the first of the porters arrived. Then the mountain weather gods flipped a switch: the drizzle stopped and the wind started. It was time to dig out the fleece jacket. A temperature of 46 feels a lot warmer when you’re hiking uphill in a soft rain than it does when you’re standing around in a strong wind.
Lightweight mountain tents were a blessing for any porter who had to carry them up the mountain but when the wind came up just when it was time to set up camp, the thin tents become big sails in the wind. Two and three men were needed to hold down and set up each tent. The ground was too rocky to put down many stakes so guy ropes were tied to rocks and then another rock was piled on top of that.
Shira Camp
What was a rocky flat an hour ago now became a multi-colored small city with yellow tents and blue and red and green. Hikers, now arriving, dove into their tent like gophers into a burrow. They were cold and they were tired and many were short of breath. For some, mountain headaches had already started here at Shira Camp, 12,480 feet above sea level. I decided to take a short nap myself to wait out the wind.
Within an hour the wind was down to a breeze. Since all the tents were now erected, the weather gods went somewhere else to play. The ranger also went out to play. There were ridges to climb behind camp. I wanted to know what was on the other side. There were birds to find, flowers to seek, and streams to follow. Some hikers followed the theory that one should hike for a portion of the day and rest for the remainder, the better to acclimate to the altitude and prepare for the next day’s climb. My plan was, that after a strenuous hike in the morning, I would take leisurely walks in the afternoon to get my body further accustomed to the new elevation. Besides I saw more things that way.
At 4:00 p.m. the sun miraculously came out for almost an hour. I draped the outside of my tent with all sorts of gear to dry and traded my hiking boots for sneakers so the boots could dry in the sun and breeze. It helped a little but it turned out that all would be wet by mid-morning the next day. With the brief sunshine also came the first close up view of Kibo, the central cone of Kilimanjaro. “Hello glaciers! I’m coming up to see you in a few days. Save me some good weather, would you?”
Dawn brought 37 degrees but also the sun and great views of blinding white glaciers on Kibo, seemingly hanging right over camp. But only early birds got the view. The sun was gone within the hour not to reappear for another three days. After another good breakfast en suite, it was time to hit the trail. I put on a fleece jacket over two shirts and windproof pants over my hiking trousers. Old Man Turtle straightened the logo on his namesake hat.
This was the day that I was looking forward to ever since I first read the program for the trek. Starting from 12,480’ the day’s hike would climb to 15,000’ and then descend back to 12,549’ to camp on the other side of the ridge with a total trail distance of nine miles. I felt that this would be the day that would tell me if I was ready for Kilimanjaro. Could I handle the altitude and thinner air?
The first day’s hike to 10,000’ had been no problem and I hadn’t expected it to be. After all, it was the same hike I’d done almost 40 times in the past year in Arizona. The second day’s hike to 12,500’ was equally easy just as I had hoped it would be. Many summers in Colorado I’d fished at 11,000’ and done brief walks at 12,000 so I didn’t anticipate any problems. Now the third day was going to 15,000’ and I had no past experience to guide me. How would I do?
The big issue in climbing a high mountain like Kilimanjaro is not muscles and strength; it’s breathing. As one rises above sea level, air pressure decreases and there are fewer molecules of air, including oxygen, per cubic foot. So the lungs must work harder and more efficiently to get enough oxygen for the muscles and for the brain. If one cannot get enough oxygen, one cannot climb any more. In more serious cases acute mountain sickness sets in which can cause damage to the brain or in extreme cases death. People have died trying to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Like all trekkers who take Kili seriously, I got myself in shape for this climb. In the twelve months prior to leaving for Africa I hiked over 1,000 miles. To get what little exposure I could to altitude, I climbed Mt. Wrightson, near my home, 39 times in those twelve months. During the final two months I was climbing that mountain two or three times a week. I met many trekkers who also worked hard to prepare for Kilimanjaro either in fitness centers or on weekend hikes but unfortunately many of them lived at sea level and did not have a chance to workout at altitude. Several of these people did not make it to the summit even though they were in “good physical condition.”
Hiking at altitude, even the relatively low 9,400’ Mt. Wrightson, does strengthen the lungs to gather oxygen more efficiently but even that was no guarantee. At 19,000 there is less than half as much available oxygen as there is at sea level. Then there is the “x” factor. Even among climbers who are used to high altitude, occasionally acute mountain sickness will strike. Coming down to lower elevation is the only cure and ignoring it can be fatal. So oxygen, or lack thereof, was on the mind of every trekker.
Most hikers on Kilimanjaro’s trails had decided to hedge their bets by taking the drug Diamox. This drug was developed to treat glaucoma but it also has the effect of making the lungs work better in low oxygen environments. For most people the only side effects are frequent urination and mild to strong tingling sensations around the lips, in the fingers and toes, on the nose, and various other places. One hiker reported that he felt the tingling in his backside, causing others to wonder if he was taking the medicine the right way. “It’s not a suppository, mate.” But joking, tinkling, and tingling aside, Diamox is a serious drug and can have bad side effects in some people such as destroying the electrolyte balance in the body. My doctor was very leery about prescribing it for me when I requested it. I brought a bottle of the pills with me to Africa but I was still undecided if I was going to take them. To be effective Diamox has to be taken a couple days in advance of need to build up the dosage in the body. I couldn’t wait until summit day to suddenly decide to take it.
When I checked in Springlands hotel I talked to many hikers, both those who had just finished the climb, “I’ll never do anything so difficult again in my life.” and those who would be starting out the next day just like me, “I’ve done everything I can to prepare for this climb.” In my informal survey I only found one hiker out of forty who was not taking Diamox and all started the pills before beginning the climb.
Me, I’m not a pill taker unless absolutely necessary. I decided to postpone my decision. I knew the first two days would not be a problem. Decision time would be the third day. If I could make the hike to 15,000’ and back down without problems, I would skip the pills. If I had problems, I would start the pills immediately. They might not be fully effective for summit day but there was time for them to help some. I really did not want to take any drug if I could help it.
Now was that fateful third day: Shira Camp at 12,480’ up to Lava Tower at 15,000’ and then down to Barranco Camp at 12,549’. Declining Rumisha’s offer and advice to go “pole, pole,” I decided to go my own pace and let Rumisha go at his. Soon a quarter mile of trail separated us. Rumisha said later that he thought he would catch up when I tired and rested but I never stopped. Fog settled in, punctuated by occasional snow or sleet. The trail, worn smooth through the years by a thousand trekkers and porters, was clear to see across the bare desert rocky ground. But when I reached the boulder fields the visible trail disappeared. It was time to follow the ducks.
No, this is not a bird watching story. Trail ducks are three rocks stacked on top of each other to mark a trail. Nature sometimes may leave one rock on top of another but nowhere does nature stack up two rocks on top of a third. It’s a man-made sign and clear to those who keep a sharp eye out. By following the many ducks I threaded the half-mile wide boulder field and hit the trail head-on again. Rumisha traveling behind had been afraid that I would lose the trail and wander off in the fog but no problem.
Trail Ducks
On the backside of the boulder field my altimeter said 14,000’ and the ground had two inches of new snow from this morning. It was a great feeling to be the first one on the mountain again and make the first tracks in the new snow. At 14,000’ I certainly walked slower than I did at 6,000’ but I wasn’t breathing hard. There was no huffing or puffing. Soon 14,500’ went by and Lava Tower was in sight, the high point of today’s hike. I walked faster just to prove that I could and to see what the altitude would do. It was wonderful. I felt no different than hiking on Mt. Wrightson at 9,400’
Lava Tower
Rumisha and I brushed snow off the rocks alongside Lava Tower and sat down for lunch at 15,050’. Two young fellows from South Africa soon joined us and we had a leisurely lunch. (Just how many days old is that fried chicken by now?) There was a light snow falling and I shared my lunch with a couple of tiny Alpine Chats that flew in to see if there were any handouts available. In more ways than one this was the highest that I had ever been in my life. With a small bottle of fruit juice I toasted the mountain and celebrated my new decision that not only was I going to do this climb this whole mountain, I was going to do it without any drugs.
The backside of Lava Tower was steeply down and slippery in the fresh snow. There was no trail for a while, just a general direction across small flat rocks that wanted to slide out from under us as we descended the talus slope. Hiking poles were a necessity and we used them almost like ski poles to catch and direct our slide. It was a relief to find a trail again after thirty minutes of sliding.
Down, down, down, every bit of uphill on the first part of the climb had to be undone on the second half. All in all I would rather go uphill than down. The latter is harder on the joints. But the end of the trail brought a big surprise, a giant surprise. The Barranco Valley is home to giant groundsel, a flowering plant almost as large as Arizona’s saguaro. The trail to camp went through a towering forest here at 12,500’.
Giant groundsel
Barranco Camp was on a plateau hard against a small canyon with a glacial stream rushing at its bottom. On the other side of the canyon were the mountain peak and the infamous Barranco Wall, a seemingly sheer lava face a thousand feet high. Tomorrow we would have to climb the Barranco Wall. The snow had stopped a couple hours ago and now in camp the cloud ceiling lifted to above 15,000’. I couldn’t see the top of the mountain but there in plain sight were glaciers, not that far above the camp and just on the other side of the canyon. The Barranco Wall was a huge black curtain that hung in front of us all afternoon until dark. That wall was going to be a challenge.
Camping under the Barranco Wall
Tonight it would be below freezing again and it would sleet and snow again lightly. I would wake up to hear it hitting the tent. But I would sleep warm in my sleeping bag with fleece shirt and pants, gloves and turtle hat. I’d made it to fifteen thousand and I was going to make it all the way. “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”
The fourth day was programmed to be a short hike. I’d built in an extra day to spend more time on the mountain so today’s hike was only three miles long. This day was a leisurely breakfast and a late start. With a cup of hot tea in hand I sat on a big rock and watched all the hikers in their bright jackets hiking single file out of camp. Soon these multi-colored ants were climbing the Barranco Wall. The line moved in fits and starts as the group moved smoothly over a flat stretch and then bunched up at the rock scrambles.
I waited until the jumble cleared and then I started up myself. The trail up the thousand foot high Barranco Wall was unlike any other part of the Kilimanjaro Trail. All of the trail so far had been over open country. There were lots of uphill and lots of down but there were no drop offs, no narrow squeezes, no places to make the heart beat faster than the limited oxygen required. This morning was different.
The trail was narrow, less than two feet wide in places. Rock scrambles required using arms, hands, and knees as well as feet to get over giant steps and odd-placed boulders. Anyone with short legs was at a sharp disadvantage. Along the edges a misstep could mean a trip-ending tumble down fifty feet or more. There was a lot of huffing and puffing and sounds of guides encouraging their charges. “Come on, we’re almost at the top!”
And soon we were. At almost 14,000’ everyone stopped at the top of the Wall to take pictures of where we’d been and to take pictures of the great peak towering above us yet, to show where we still had to go in another day or two. Those glaciers were getting closer.
Atop the Barranco Wall
Mountain hiking is not all uphill. No sooner were we at the top of the Barranco Wall than we started downhill again into the next drainage. Down, down, down, back to 12,500’ along a stream, down to the same elevation that we had started from that morning. Then there was nothing to do but start climbing the next ridge. Back up we went again to 13,500’ and another ridge and then down again to 12,500’ and another stream. Some people stopped to camp here in the Karanga Valley but I wanted more of a view, so we climbed up another 500’ on the other side to spend the afternoon and evening on a long slope where I hoped I could see Kibo peak, if the sun ever came out.
Down the steep trail
This day like all others was cloudy. There was some sleet during the hike and more as we set up camp. The good news about sleet was that it didn’t get a person wet like the rain did. One just pulled his hat on a little tighter and enjoyed the day, sleet or no. After lunch, I spent the afternoon hiking. I wanted to know what tomorrow’s trail looked like so I took off and hiked half the distance to the next camp. It was fun hiking without my pack and I could just enjoy the mountain.
Trying to Dry Out in the Karanga Valley
The night brought more sleet. I woke up several times to hear it beating on the tent. So far there had been rain, sleet, hail, or snow on every single day on the mountain. The hot tea and hot porridge tasted wonderful at breakfast. Even the scrambled eggs were good but that little hot dog sausage was beginning to get old. The temperature stood only at the freezing mark but it felt colder than previous mornings because of the damp. I decided not to wait for Rumisha this morning but go ahead and start to get my blood flowing. I told him to catch up when he could. As usual I was the first trekker to leave camp that morning.
The guide, the cook and three porters all slept here in the kitchen tent.
I had only gone a half-mile when the whole world turned white. The sleet showers on my tent had turned to snow showers just a few hundred feet higher on the mountain. The inch of snow highlighted the trail in the early morning fog, which washed out all color. Everything around me was one of three colors: white snow, black rocks, or gray air. I felt closed in and totally alone. I was more alone today than at any other time on the mountain. For hours I never saw another person, not even a single porter. Before, those hard working men had seemed ubiquitous, but this morning they were nowhere in sight.
I crossed a ridge at 14,000’ and dropped down a hundred feet into a broad valley between distant ridges. I enjoyed the solitude of my gray, cocooned world, which stretched out only a quarter mile in each direction before it disappeared in the fog. I could have been on the moon. There was not a sign of another living thing, not a flower, not a sprig of grass, not a plant of any kind, and certainly not a sign of animal or human except the narrow snowy trail.
A faint trail goes across the valley
But then I was brought up short about halfway between last night’s camp and the next night’s resting spot. There in the middle of the trail, right in front of me, was an unmistakable sign of something or someone else in this valley. There was scat on the trail, certainly not human, and obviously from something large. I quickly ruled out rodents and even the high altitude antelope whose droppings I had seen the day before. This was scat from a predator, a large predator like a cat. A leopard seemed the most obvious choice.
The identification came quickly to me. What took a little longer to sink in were the timing and the location. At this altitude and in these cold temperatures that scat could have been deposited anytime in the last couple weeks and then would have been only mildly interesting. But it slowly dawned on me that this scat was right in the middle of the trail, a worn footpath only sixteen inches or so wide. This trail was used by thirty or forty trekkers every day and by double than many porters and guides. Yesterday’s hikers would have trampled anything in the middle of the trail, including this three-inch deposit of scat. So this animal sign, lying at my feet, must have been left sometime in the last fifteen hours. Suddenly being all alone out here took on a new meaning. Being all alone felt great if I were truly alone. But being all alone with a large predator on the prowl was another thing entirely.
Is something hiding in the rocks?
There were no tracks in the fresh snow so I figured that the animal had been here more than four hours ago. “Let’s see, more than four hours, less than fifteen.” The leopard could have been more than ten miles away or it could have been lying in the rocks a hundred feet above my head. I certainly watched the rocks above me with renewed interest as I restarted my hike. For some reason as I walked I thought of the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz and I started to growl. “No leopard is going to mess with me! I’m the king of the mountain! I’m bigger than any pussycat! No leopard is going to try to eat me, even if I am full of scrambled eggs and old sausage.” Burt Lahr and I both growled loudly.
I made it into the snowy foggy camp and Rumisha had still not caught up with me. I found a group of porters enjoying a cup of hot tea in a warm tent and I was invited to join them. Yes, they said, there were sometimes leopards high on the mountain. There were game parks on both sides of Kilimanjaro and occasionally large predators crossed the mountain to get to the other side. Ernest Hemmingway in his story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, mentioned the mummified leopard that was seen here for many years at 15,000’ on Kili.
After my hot tea, Rumisha showed up and we went into the main camp just as some of last night’s climbers were returning from their midnight assault on the summit. They were a beat and bedraggled lot. Many had turned back; some had only climbed to the rim of the volcano and not gone around to climb the true summit. Some trekkers said that this was the hardest thing they had ever done in their life and one woman proclaimed that it was the hardest thing she would ever do.
Last night's hikers returned to a foggy camp
At 9:00 in the morning as I reached Barafu Camp full of anticipation of my climb on the next day, others were coming down into the same camp totally spent from their efforts at the same task. This was an inauspicious start.
They had hit the worst kind of luck. They had started the climb just fine at midnight but it had started snowing about 2:00 a.m. When they neared the rim of the volcano the wind came up and brought white-out conditions. At the rim itself they could see nothing and some of the guides refused to go on because it was too dangerous. A few had staggered on in the near blizzard but had nothing to show for it but a black sign on a white mountain saying that they had reached the top.
At 15,000 feet Barafu was the final camp before the summit attempt. It was a little half-flat patch of rocks on a steeply sloping mountain. In the never-ending fog it was a dreary place. By late morning the temperature rose to the upper 30s, melting the picturesque snowy tent village into a brown, muddy muddle. Last night’s exhausted hikers downed an quick breakfast, folded their tents, and stumbled down the trail to camp at a much lower elevation to let their bodies begin healing. We newbies were left in camp to ponder the fate of yesterday’s climbers and to wonder what lay ahead for us on the invisible foggy mountain that lay immediately behind camp. In the afternoon I attempted part of the trail that I would take that night but there was nothing to see and no way to anticipate what was ahead further up. So I retreated to my tent and spent the afternoon reading and willing my body to acclimate to the 15,000’ altitude that would turn into 19,000’ before the sun rose tomorrow, or so I hoped.
Barafu Camp is a dreary place. My tent is yellow and black in the foreground.
The program was for all hikers to get to Barafu and rest in the late afternoon and early evening. Hopefully, if the excitement and anticipation of the summit hike had not overwhelmed them, they would be able to sleep for a few hours. Then they would then be awakened at 11:30 p.m. and start the summit trek at midnight.
Being a volcano, Kilimanjaro is covered in rock: lava, volcanic pumice, and millions of lava bombs and rocks thrown out of the volcanic crater over many thousands of years. Near the top of the volcano, where the slopes are steepest, many of the rocks are smaller and a type of gravel called scree covers the ground. Climbing scree on a steep slope can be like climbing a big sand pile. By starting the climb at midnight, the guides hope that the scree will be frozen in the pre-dawn chill and will easier to climb. They plan to reach the volcano’s rim in six hours just as the sun comes up over the horizon. Then they schedule another two hours to circle the summit crater for more than a mile to climb 700’ to the true summit on the far side of the rim.
This was my original plan too but then I talked to some other experienced hikers who had done this before. Strong hikers who left at midnight got to the rim too soon and arrived in the dark. Some found high winds and nasty wind-chill temperatures that forced them to finish their climb and go back down before sunrise so that they didn’t have a view to enjoy after all their work. I may not have been in the expert’s league but I was a strong hiker so I decided to learn from their experience and not leave camp too early.
Deciding not to leave camp at midnight did not mean that I got anymore sleep than anyone else. When the camp awakened at 11:30 to prepare for a midnight departure the hubbub and excitement in the air woke everyone. I lay in my warm sleeping bag and listened to the nervous chatter around me as various groups started up the trail right beside my tent.
At 12:30 the cook brought tea and a few biscuits to my tent. The theory was that one climbs better if one doesn’t have a full stomach. That’s never been my hiking stratagem but I’d yield to the “experts” this one time. Soon I was dressed and ready to go. Because the thermometer read 29 degrees and would soon go lower, my ensemble for the climb began with polyester long underwear, to which I added a second layer of lightweight fleece shirt and pants, topped by a midweight Polartec jacket and windproof pants. The various extremities were protected with heavyweight winter gloves, a fleece hat made of Turtle Fur, a double pair of hiking socks and my favorite hiking boots, which now had close to 2,000 miles on their soles.
The summit trail starts just above Barafu Camp
By 1:00 it was time to start for the summit. Thirty years of dreams were coming to a head in the early morning darkness. By now Rumisha knew that I was going to take the lead. I’d come this far; I wanted to finish at my pace.
The trail was easy to follow. Hundreds of feet had walked this way before. The mountain was steeper now and rocks were plentiful. We continually changed direction, zigzagging up the mountain, dodging boulders and climbing over rocks.
Surprisingly, within twenty minutes we began to overtake hiking parties that had started the climb thirty to sixty minutes ahead of us. Groups of six or eight hikers were doing the Kilimanjaro shuffle where the pace was so slow that on each step the heel of the boot came down only three inches in front of the toe of the other boot. For some reason most groups hiked very close together. Each person could easily touch the back of the person in front of him. In my headlamp the brightly colored jackets of the hikers stood out in stark contrast to the black volcanic mountain. I laughed when I realized that a collection of multi-colored hikers, bunched up tightly, doing the slow shuffle in the dark, looked more like a single rainbow-hued caterpillar humping up the mountain than a group of intrepid mountain explorers.
In less than two hours we’d hiked two miles and gained 2,000 feet of elevation. We were high enough now that there were several inches of snow on the trail. We had already passed most of the groups and Rumisha pointed out that in less than two hours we had covered the distance that most groups would do in four. He wanted to know if I wanted to stop and rest. I thought, “No, if we stop we’ll cool down. It’s better to keep going while we still feel good.” I was amazed and delighted that the altitude hadn’t affected me at all. I had found a good pace where I didn’t even breathe hard.
Successful hiking is all about finding a comfortable pace. As long as there was no one in front of us I could go faster or slower as the steepness of the mountain dictated and not get tired or winded. The only problem was when we caught up to other groups. If there was no place to pass, then the only choice was to follow along behind doing the “shuffle.” Paradoxically, slowing down seemed more tiring.
Passing a group was difficult in a different way. The trail was not wide enough to permit one group to pass another. The only places to pass were on steep slopes where the trail would zigzag back and forth make the trail less difficult to hike. Passing required foregoing the switchback and climbing straight up the slope and doing it quickly before the group arrived and blocked the trail again. In most places the trail was hard-packed from all the foot traffic but off-trail was the loose packed scree that made climbing difficult. Passing a group got the heart racing and the lungs pumping because I had to quickly climb a steep slope in loose gravel to gain the trail a switchback above me and then keep going. I couldn’t stop to let the heart slow down or the group would bump up behind me and it wasn’t fair to make them stop just because I got winded trying to pass them. At 17,000’ it was a relief to know that most of the groups were now behind me.
At 18,000’ the snow was six inches deep and the trail noticeably steepened. By my altimeter, there were only 700 feet left to go before the rim of the volcano at Gilman’s Point but now the mountain was going to make me earn the summit. There was nothing left that could be called a trail; there was only a route. It was necessary to bull one’s way up a slope that kept getting steeper. In places the snow was deep enough that I could kick in some steps to aid my way. In other places the snow was thin and the rocks underneath were loose. There I would dig in both hiking poles in front of me and pull up with my arms while trying to push with my legs. Now I could feel the thinner air. My lungs were getting all the workout that they had been promised. I remembered the little engine that said, “I think I can” and I pushed on to the top of the rim.
What a sense of satisfaction. I felt literally on top of the world. It was almost 5:00 in the morning and the first hint of dawn was creeping in the east. Gilman’s Point was programmed to be a six-hour hike and we had done it in a little less than four and had never stopped once. When I reached the rim I stopped to enjoy the feeling of success and Rumisha finally caught up with me. It was quickly apparent that he was spent. He’d probably climbed this mountain fifty times in the past but never at this pace. He was worn out.
We sought shelter among big rocks and sat down to rest. There had been no wind so far but here on the rim there was enough breeze that I got out my windproof jacket and balaclava to ward off the chill. My thermometer showed 14 degrees, warmer than I expected but still cold in the wind. Fifteen minutes later we started off again. Many climbers end their hike at Gilman’s Point. It looks like the top; it feels like the top. Why go any farther? But actually the summit of Kilimanjaro is on the other side of the mountain, halfway around the volcanic rim. So there was another kilometer and a half to hike and another 700 feet to ascend.
There was ten inches of snow on the ground and we bypassed glaciers along the way. The fifteen-minute rest stop had chilled us down and slowed us down. I would never have stopped so long if Rumisha had not felt so bad. Now, after that hiatus, much of the adrenaline had seeped away and my body was aware that it was over 18,700 feet high. The trail wasn’t steep, compared to what it had been before, but the body no longer wanted to move above that caterpillar crawl. The mind wandered and I found myself wondering, “What am I doing this for?” High altitude was affecting the mind as well as the body.
Then just at the right moment, just when the mind and body were getting ready to say, “To heck with this, I want hot porridge and a soft mattress,” a magic sign appeared in the distance. The end of the trail, the Holy Grail, we were almost there. With the first glimpse of the sign, announcing the top of the mountain, the highest point in Africa, all symptoms of altitude sickness disappeared. I speeded up. My mind cleared.
In a flash, well, a slow flash, I was there. There was exhilaration almost giddiness. I had done it, sixty years old and on top of the world. Technically, I was second on the mountain that day. Two other people made it ten minutes before I did but that didn’t count. They started an hour before I did. But I didn’t really care if I was first or a hundred and first. I’d done it. It was 6:15 in the morning, just a little over five hours since I left camp and I was on top of the world.
After descending the seven miles back to camp, I hiked fourteen miles more, down to camp at 10,000 feet, and then walked an additional nine miles the next day back to the vehicle. The following week was spent on safari, seeing lots of animals and new birds, being chased by an elephant and watching my guide be scared out of his wits when a ten-foot poisonous snake reared up at eye-level right beside the vehicle. Ah, but those are stories for another day.
