Wednesday, September 11, 2013

A Glimpse of My Journey

After three weeks of writing a blog of the entire trip to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, a thief decided he needed my computer more than I.  Along with the pages of work I produced for this blog, he also took all of my grades for 8th grade chemistry, a portion of my teaching notes, and my accumulated media from the first 11 months in Mozambique.  I try to forget that I put off creating a system backup copy for the last eight months that could have saved the loss of any of these personal treasures.

However, life moves on, and I’m certain the person who stole my computer will suffer some horrific accident; if not in reality, in my imagination.

Concerning the blog, I was and am proud of what I started writing about my trip.  For me, religion exists in nature.  In nature I feel most alive, most intimate with God.  As much a testament to physical endurance, this trip represented a pilgrimage of sorts, my own Mecca.  I will not, at this point, reattempt rendering all of my notes into prose.  Instead, for this blog, I’ll throw you into the final ascent to Uhuru.

Our camp, Barrafu, rested on a sharp ridge at an altitude of 4,650 m (15, 260 ft).  Earlier that day, when we first arrived at camp around 1500 (3 p.m.), our guide, Kuzlight, pointed to the trail ahead of us and exclaimed, “Look at that f****** s***!”

Day 4.9 – The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done

The regular early morning “hello” woke us from sleep.  But instead of the early sunlight entering with Kennedy’s voice, moonlight illuminated our tent.  Moonlight and the biting cold showing its strength now for the first time on our hike.  The others spoke of cold days before this, but Iowa nurtures a person in cold and I refused to call the weather cold, until now.

The plan sequenced a 2200 wake up call following four hours of sleep, a half hour preparation period, a half hour for eating, then departure at 2300.  Gabby, being from Equador and using a thinner-than-comfortable sleeping bag, had slept in her layers and required little preparation for the hike.  I took my time choosing my cloths before our short rest and after ten minutes I donned my twenty year-old Dallas Cowboys stocking cap, gloves, two jackets above two thermals, snow pants above thermals, two pairs of socks, and hiking boots.  We quickly consumed a very welcome bowl of hot chicken broth with bread.  Following the typical yo-yoing that occurs with any hiking group, our small group of four set our minds and our feet to the trail at 2330.

Immediately after crossing the boundary of camp, the attitude of the trail became serious: changing to switchbacks climbing a (relatively) small hill.  After summiting the small hill, the trail quickly descended into and crossed the final valley before arriving at the base of the last, the steepest, and the longest hill of the entire hike.  The trail, and now we, had reached that base of pebbly, ashy flow leading up to a gap in the rim of the volcano.  That gap that almost appeared to say, “Yes, I have laid out this grey carpet just for you, if you dare tread it.”

After a period of hiking up through the pebbles, I took a quit look back to see what we had gained.  Of course, disappointment, the same disappointment that hits every hiker who looks back too soon, hit me.  Our gain appeared minimal in comparison to the hike ahead of us.  Pole pole (a mantra of the guides that means slowly, or bit-by bit in Swahili) evolved to a whole new level at that point in the hike.  Imagining our pace from a different perspective, we likely appeared as a group of arthritic old women passing down the sidewalk between errands at the post office and the bank.  Even so, at that infantile or geriatric pace, I felt my heart rapidly, forcefully beating inside my chest.

At that altitude, the thinner air holds roughly half the oxygen content than sea-level air.  Because the body uses oxygen to produce the energy used for every cellular process, my body compensated in the following noticeable ways: each inhalation was deep in order to transport the maximum amount of air to the lungs; my blood, more thoroughly enriched with the oxygen transporting hemoglobin, thickened; and my heart beat faster to pass more blood through the lungs.  These processes were not instantaneous or even new to me at that point.  I had been monitoring my heart rate for the entirety of the hike.  At base camp, at rest, my hear beat at 108 beats per minute (normally less than 60).  However, until this point, the physiological adjustment my body made remained docile.  Now the intensity of my heartbeat and breathing battled to consume the entirety of my consciousness.

After an hour of hiking, we took our first break.  After the second hour of hiking, we took another break.  Other groups (including on large group of older folk and one pair of Israeli soldiers) departed camp before us, but through our constant pace we overtook them and now lead the pack.  During our breaks, we would look down to see groups of headlamps moving along the trail from camp, but no more looked down to us.

Gabby and I forwent headlamps.  I knew for weeks the full moon would rise during our hike.  Having shown its whole face just two nights before, the waning moon was brilliant and for our purposes, its light made our hike all the more intimate.  The blacks outlined the rocks and people amidst the grey sea that flowed up to the sharp white snow at the top of Kibo.

After the third hour of hiking, the snow moved noticeably closer.  I could no longer drink water during our breaks because the hose from my camel back froze shut.  As I hiked, I recited a chant from Remember the Titans:
                Hoo Hah!
            How you feel?!
            Hoo Hah!
            I feel good!
Hoo Hah!
            How you feel?!
            Hoo Hah!
            I feel good!
Hoo Hah!
            How you feel?!
            Hoo Hah!
            I feel good!

The chant not only reminded me I wasn’t dying, but kept my breathing regular and helped to keep my spirits up.

Around 3:15 our guides told us Stella Point, the first point on the trail to reach the rim, was about an hour away.  The trail took on a new, greater steepness.  I used my entire body to accomplish each step, felt every heartbeat and heard each breath.  Hoo Ha!

Pole pole, one step at a time, we reached Stella Point on the rim, 200 m below Uhuru Peak.  I bent over my walking stick and breathed, heaved deeply.  At this point, aside from the physiological assault my body underwent, my mind fought against a great amount of doubt and strain.  Kuzlight assured us we only had a bit further to go and that we’re strong.  After five minutes, the Israelis arrived and we departed.

The hike around the rim had a more gradual incline, but we remained at pole pole pace.    During the last stretch of the hike, I began to realize the proximity of the terminus of this great struggle; that this will have been the hardest thing I’d ever done.  For days, weeks even, the fear of injury and altitude sickness weighed heavily on my mind, and in that moment I finally cast it all off.  My eyes began to water at the happy thought.
Against the still dark, starlit sky I saw the dark form of the sign of Uhuru Peak.  Hand-in hand, Gabby and I, casting aside pole pole, rapidly strode towards, extended our hands to, and touched the sign.

I howled!  I screamed!  I jubilantly announced to the world that I had conquered Kilimanjaro!  Hugs were had, laughs were shared, and merriment was thick at that moment atop Africa.  Alone we stood, first among hundreds still battling the mountain and their own minds, the summit to ourselves.

Even then, amongst that esoteric celebration, the world took no time in reminding us where we stood.  During the process of taking pictures, gloves came off in order to handle the small camera buttons, and within a minute my hand burned.  After quickly putting the glove back on, I laughed at the familiar uncertainty of whether my hand would ever warm up.  I would put the wind chill at -20 degrees Fahrenheit at the summit.  For this reason, along with the dangerously low amounts of oxygen, the guides only allowed us 20 minutes at the summit before leading us back down.

At the beginning of our descent, a cloud of euphoria surrounded me.  I now had the time (and desire) to look around.  On our right, what I called snow before turned out to be the first glaciers I had ever seen.  Fifteen meter high glaciers of ice glimmering in the moonlight.  To our left, the great crater of Kibo opened for more than a mile across.  Also to our right, far, far below shown the lights of Moshi.
After a half hour, we reached Stella Point again, but this time a crowd waited for us.  A knowing and (I’ll admit) slightly arrogant smile stretched across my face as I looked at people sitting against the rock wall or putting their entire body into the act of breathing with the look in their eyes saying, “Why the hell am I doing this?”  After another short break, we continued down.

Shortly following our departure from Stella, the sky began to grey.  The colors of coats and hats now replaced the bright lights of headlamps still hiking up the mountain and the rocks themselves started to take on a more brownish hue.  The grey, pebbly carpet remained and allowed the feet to sink in with each step.  Kuzlight demonstrated a way to use this property in descending and another smile came across my face.  The method was not new to me.  For years, I played with this same method on the sand and rock piles at home.  If you keep your weight above your knees and twist your feet ever so slightly to make them dig into the rock, you can actually run down the rock pile (in this case the mountain); and this Kuzlight and I did.
Because of our method, we descended quickly.  

During the descent, a bright orange crack split the boundary between the earth and sky not only to the direct east, but across nearly the entire eastern half of the horizon.  Never in my life had I seen such a sharp, broad sunrise.  We reached halfway down the slope before the sun herself began to peek above the edge of the earth.  The sun now continued up, and we, down.

About an hour away from camp, exhaustion fell heavily on me.  Our break on the ways down had been short and sparse.  The frozen water in my camelback remained frozen and no water had passed my lips for nearly 5 hours.  I started to sweat during the descent due to our speed and the rising temperatures.  Dehydration along with sore legs cast me into a gloomy mood.

When we reached camp, my energy utterly spent, we made a quick plan for two hours rest, followed by lunch, followed by another hike towards the gate.  The guides graciously gave us three hours of sleep, and after packing and a quick lunch, we set off to our final camp.

A half hour after leaving Barrafu, we passed out of the alpine desert into the moorland (which has more grasses and bushes).  At this point, we stopped.  Apparently, Gabby had been hiking on a bum toe.  The pain stayed miniscule during the ascent, but almost every step down wedged her big toe into the front of her hiking boot and caused her significant pain.  Being a little ball of duro, she toughed it out, but now she needed to stop.  I let her try on my blue Nikes (which she later called “the most comfortable shoes ever,”), she approved and used them for the rest of the hike.

(The night of the following day, I was able to inspect said toe.  It was not broken, but thoroughly bruised.  The back side of the toenail rose nearly half a centimeter over the end of it.  I told her I thought puncturing the nail was the only way to relieve the pressure and keep the nail itself, but she laughingly elected to tough it out.)

From the moolands, we passes into heath.  Again amongst the lichen bearded trees and rare flowers our hike continued for three more hours.  Finally, once again on the edge of the Kilimanjaro rainforest, we arrived at our last camp, Mweka.

We had descended nearly three vertical kilometers in just over ten hours (including three hours sleep).  After a bucket bath, supper, and dessert of saved Peanut Butter M&M’s, Gabby and I nestled down into our first full nights sleep since night 3.

“There’s no better food than that served with hunger, and no better bed than that comforting exhaustion.”-Gabby

The following day, the mountain shed tears down on us as we marched towards the gate.  We left the park, passes through the coffee fields, and arrived back in Moshi by early afternoon.  After saying goodbye to our group, we went back to our hotel and thoroughly enjoyed a long, hot shower.  We bought our bus tickets back to Dar Es Salaam for the following day and used that night for a celebration worthy of our expedition.  And my, oh my, what a hike it was.

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