African High

A writer recalls his ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

By Jon Rosen | 01.18.05

It was sometime past 3:00 a.m. and I felt as if I were dreaming. Under a cloudless sky, amorphous figures wavered in front of me, seemingly going up, yet slower than any sane being would dare to imagine. Around us — as I was part of the group — lay a barren world of sand and rock, the occasional boulder basking in the light of the moon, and providing intermittent shelter from the bone chilling winds associated with this extraterrestrial world. Losing focus on the figure in front of me, my mind began to drift into a state of semi-consciousness as I tried to remember why I was here. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my back. It was my tent-mate Pierre.

"Jon, you're stumbling all over the place," his Swiss enunciation as alarmed as ever. "You'd better eat something or you're not going to make it."

In a most literal sense, the 'it' in question was a curiously oft-photographed signpost atop a slab of rock deemed worthy to possess the name Uhuru ("freedom" in Kiswahili) Peak. Also known as the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. At 19,340 feet, long rhapsodized by everyone from local Maasai herdsmen to Hemingway, "Kili," as it is known by those who've conquored it, was not yet ready to back down. Taking Pierre's advice, I set down my pack and removed my gloves for long enough to rip the wrapper off one of my last remaining bite-sized Mars bars. Frozen to the core, it took some time to go down, rustling up just the slightest bit of altitude-induced nausea as it entered my esophagus. But clearly worth it. In minutes, my zombie-like state was fading fast. With a bit of luck, I figured, it would be only three more hours to the summit. Continuing into the frigid depths of night, we were off, yet again at a painfully slow tempo. "Pole Pole," our guide would say, the Kiswahili term for slowly known by anyone who has ever visited East Africa. "We don't want throw up."

It had actually begun five days earlier. Starting out in the bustling Tanzanian tourist hub of Arusha, I'd met up with our team: four fellow travelers, a guide, his assistant, a cook (who would seem to be culinarily versed in nothing other than beef stew), and a whopping eleven scantily clad porters. Enduring a mind-numbing onslaught of synthesizer Christmas tunes from our vehicle's radio (as it was the Holiday season), we hopped an hour and a half long shuttle across the Tanzanian plains to the Machame trailhead where we began our hike. The team — including myself, Pierre, two American women, and a somewhat hesitant Aussie — watched in awe as our luggage blew past us on the backs, and sometimes heads of our hired staff. Though many of them lacked proper gear, including hiking boots and winter coats for the sub-freezing temperatures soon to come, the crew would remain remarkably upbeat. Still, by the first night, when all fourteen staff climbed, with no sleeping bags apparent, into two worn and tattered tents, there was no hiding the toil of professional life on Kilimanjaro. As the tourists there was little for us to do except act graciously and tip well. We'd paid a pretty penny for our tour and it was time to get on with the itinerary.

The terrain gradually changing from thick jungle to lunar-esque wastelands as the days rolled past, we continued on our ascent. Confined to tents for twelve hours a day due to darkness and the extreme chill that came with it, we labored hard enough during light hours to put the rest to proper use. Layers of protective gear multiplying by the day, we'd reach each new camp-site before dusk, greeted each time to popcorn and cups of tea to accompany a main dish of diminishing oxygen.

After four full days of hiking, we arrived at Barafu camp — roughly 15,000 feet above sea level. With Kilimanjaro's snow-capped western rim glistening in the afternoon sun, we looked on in amusement as our porters, who would stay behind (along with the Aussie, who'd already succumbed to Kili's wrath), and celebrate a job well done. With our staff nowhere in sight, a most suspicious cloud of smoke began billowing from the campsite's wooden hut: Bang, without a doubt, highly illegal, yet perhaps as good a cure as any for the impregnable headaches one suffers at such altitudes.

Altitudes, however, soon to be eclipsed, as the toughest part of our trek was yet to come. After an evening nap that yielded little sleep for my ailing body, I rose from my tent shortly after 11:00 P.M. and set out on what was sure to be a night to remember. Headlamp securely fastened and endless layers of borrowed warm weather garments on my back, I found myself at the end of the procession to the peak. As minutes passed like hours, my mind seemed to atrophy bit by bit until I reached the brink of failure. Focusing on nothing but my breathing and the next stop for water and a Mars, I began to question my motivations. Six hundred and fifty dollars for misery? Still, I continued on, soon finding solace in the first light of day. As the sun gave first warning of its imminent arrival, shortly before six, I realized I had found my second wind. Seeing the previously veiled rim of Kibo crater just ahead, Pierre and I drastically picked up the pace, accompanied by our assistant guide Emmanuel. Once reaching the rim, the 45-minute hike to Uhuru peak — on only slightly higher ground — was but a formality. In the crisp air of the East African morning, we relished in our newfound glory. We'd reached the top.

Though global warming had caused the ground beneath our feet to be bare, a look to the west revealed a massive, blue-hued glacier. To the east lay endless snowfields gradually fading into billowing clouds bisected by rays of the continually rising sun. After posing for the obligatory shots at the aforementioned signpost, it was time to head back down. But not before an object caught my eye.

Twenty yards behind the sign marking the summit amid a small throng of rocks lay nestled, in a most inconspicuous fashion, a small wooden cross. Kneeling down, I tried to make out any discernable words, but found all to be illegible. Yet, the effect was clear. Kili had not been kind to all. But for this particular traveler, in the footsteps of 13,000 some-odd trekkers who'd summited already that year, by my shining moment on December 21, 2004, the hill had a little place in its heart.

As we embarked upon the day and a half descent, whizzing down at more than three times the speed it had taken to get up, I thought back to the short Hemingway piece The Snows of Kilimanjaro I'd completed in preparation, unable to help but dwell on a line from its opening.

"Close to the western summit," the story goes, "there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude."

Nor can I explain, to this day, what I was seeking. I do know, however, that it was found.