To the Roof of Africa

The wind rustled the mosquito netting above my bed, and the sounds of the African night, a discordant symphony of high-pitched insect song mixed with the distant, plaintive bleating of goats, echoed around the room.

“What have I gotten myself and my daughters into?” I scribbled in my journal as the inky African darkness enveloped my home for the evening, the 42-room Mountain Village Lodge in the outskirts of Arusha, Tanzania. “Bad enough I could get hurt, but if anything happens to those two girls ... “

“Those two girls” were my daughters, Katie, 22, and Betsy, 19, and together we were about to climb Africa’s highest mountain, 19,340-foot Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Our guide, 47-year-old Wilbard Minja, outlined it this way: “You will travel through five climates. You will walk 50 miles and climb over 13,500 feet. This may be the most challenging thing you have ever done. The mountain takes away your breath. Not everyone will make it to the top. I will do everything I can to bring everyone back safely, but you never know.”

It hadn’t seemed quite as daunting when I hatched the idea of the climb. Merely as a way to escape the sweltering July heat at home, my wife, Colleen, and I had gone to the David Breashears IMAX film “Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa.” It told the story of six climbers, including a 12-year-old girl from Massachusetts, who reached the snow-capped summit in the company of a film and expedition crew. I was hooked from the opening credits.

I had recently retired and needed something significant on which to focus my energies. That film made climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro seem like the right physical and mental challenge to keep my juices flowing. I wondered whether my daughters would be interested in joining me.

Betsy, always up for an adventure, wanted in from the start. Katie, who is generally more reticent, kept her own counsel for several months. Then one night at dinner, she said, out of the blue, “Why should you guys have all the fun? I’m coming, too. Mother can stay home and pray for all of us.”

Now I was looking the dream squarely in the eye. I put my journal down and tried to sleep, but my imagination was in overdrive, tormenting me with a seemingly endless series of scenarios, each more grim than the one before.

We had trained hard for this climb. betsy, a sophomore at syra- cuse University in New York, and Katie, a Chicago public relations professional, both good athletes, had undergone six months of hard aerobic and endurance training. Katie had even resorted to hiking home from her trendy Michigan Avenue offices, her full trekking gear often surprising the well-coiffed urbanites she passed.

During the past two years, I had dropped 60 pounds and embarked on a rigorous physical fitness regime that included two hours of exercise six days a week. I never passed a flight of stairs that I didn’t tackle two at a time, and I was a near-fixture on the toughest hiking trails near my Kansas home. At 55, I was in the best shape of my life.

Still, we knew about the hazards of mountain sickness and, worse, high-altitude pulmonary edema. Being a flatlander from Kansas made me all the more apprehensive.

Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world. The summit was first reached by German geographer Hans Meyer and Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller in 1889. Today, more than 23,000 people attempt it each year, but only a quarter of those who start up reach the summit. Most take the Marangu Route, dubbed the “Coca Cola” route because of its popularity. We had chosen the more challenging, longer and scenic route featured in the IMAX film. We figured if a sexagenarian and a 12-year-old could make the climb, why couldn’t we?

Our tour operator, Thomson Safaris, reported a better than 90% success rate for this nine-day climb, which included an ascent to the summit by way of the difficult Western Breach Route.

A colorful cast of characters joined us for our July adventure. Bernice Kuca, 45, was an accomplished outdoorswoman who had taken successful treks in Thailand, made an ascent of Mt. Rainier in Washington and gone kayaking in Patagonia, Chile. Laura Anderson, 22, a recent graduate of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., had kayaked throughout Alaska and had hiked the Swiss Alps. Semiretired lawyer and Georgetown University adjunct professor Mark Kantor, 47, was a veteran of treks in the Himalayas. Brothers Paul and David Savino didn’t have the climbing credentials of some of our other compatriots, but at 42 and 47, respectively, they were fit and mentally prepared. I was the elder statesman of the group, but I felt reasonably confident in my abilities.

As we gathered for breakfast, it was clear I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t slept the previous night. The group was subdued, each of us alone with our thoughts about the days ahead.

Betsy’s diary reflected a quiet determination. “We’d come so far and trained so hard for this climb,” she wrote, “that I wasn’t going to let anything get in our way.”

It was an hour’s drive from our hotel to the Machame Gate, where we would meet the rest of our support team and begin our adventure.

Wilbard introduced us to our assistant guides -- Bernard, Simon and Andrew, each of whom brought a special quality to our ascent. Bernard knew the mountain intimately. Simon was stoic and strong. Andrew had a ready smile and spoke excellent English.

This day’s climb would take us 12 miles through the rainforest that rings the base of Kilimanjaro. We would climb from 5,900 to 9,850 feet in little more than seven hours.

Bernard led the way up the steep path, and we fell in behind him. The pace was deliberate. Pole, pole, Wilbard had told us -- Swahili for “slowly, slowly.” Step. Rest. Step. Rest. It was like walking in slow motion.

An hour into our climb, the path changed from hard-packed red earth to slippery muck that stuck to our clothes and sucked at our boots. We dodged fallen trees and snarled roots amid shin-high pools of sludge. My legs felt as though I was wearing ankle weights.

It was hot -- about 80 degrees -- and the humidity hovered near 100%. Sweat rained from every pore. My cotton T-shirt clung to my body, and my red bandanna headband kept the worst of it from impeding my vision. My camera lens fogged continually.

The trade-off for this torment was the spectacular beauty of the rainforest. The damp, rich earth gave rise to pink and white impatiens that edged our path and stood out against a sea of multihued jungle and giant ferns that glistened in the dew. Silvery-cheeked hornbills screeched overhead, mocking our slow progress as we clawed our way upward.

After eight hours of fighting our way through the mud, we staggered into camp just as the sun was setting.

Katie, Betsy and I collapsed outside the pod of 10 purple tents, then summoned our remaining strength and helped one another shuck our mud-encrusted clothes.

Our muscles screamed in protest. We couldn’t imagine walking to the mess tent, never mind walking eight hours again the next day.

We needed to fuel our bodies for that, so we stumbled across camp to dinner. Inside the mess tent, illuminated by a single kerosene lamp, was carbohydrate heaven: The table overflowed with pasta, rice and mashed potatoes, which we doctored with ketchup and hot sauce. The more adventurous slopped on some sort of indistinguishable meat. We consumed cup after cup of hot, sweet tea. Nobody talked; we were too numb.

Wilbard joined us after dinner and briefed us on the next day’s climb, which would be easier. “The worst is over!” he said.

Relieved, I hugged both girls. Katie immediately burst into tears. “This was much harder than I thought it was going to be, Dad,” she mumbled between sobs. “I wanted to quit 100 times, but then I saw you and Betsy and I vowed to keep on going.”

I hugged her again and told her how proud I was. The decision to go on or not was hers alone, I told her, but if she wanted to turn back, I promised we would figure out a way to get her back to the hotel in Arusha.

Katie’s diary that night reflected her despair. “I wanted to come on this trip more than anything,” she wrote. “But I could have trained harder. Today was the hardest day I’ve ever spent physically, mentally and emotionally. I hope I don’t let Dad or Betsy down tomorrow. I want to keep going, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

Sleep came fitfully. I got up several times to check on the girls, a father’s habit that was no different in Africa than anywhere else. This time, though, the moon and stars were so close I could almost touch them, and, for the first time, the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro beckoned in the distance.

All was quiet in Katie and Betsy’s tent. A good sign, I told myself.

Refreshed from a good night’s sleep, Katie emerged from her tent in the cold, clear dawn ready to continue the climb. Spirits high, we set off on what would turn out to be my favorite day.

Each of Kilimanjaro’s five climatic zones covers about 3,300 feet in altitude, and this day would take us through the heather and moorland zone into the alpine desert.

The trek was as steep as the day before, but the absence of mud made it seem like a walk in the park. Exotic flowers and shrubs dotted the path. Colorful lichen added texture to the boulders we scrambled over. Up and up we went, along a fin of volcanic rock.

About three hours from camp, we came to a semicircular rock wall. Unfazed by the sheer drop, Bernice and Laura led the way, with Katie and Betsy close behind. Mark and I, and then Dave and Paul, followed. Our faces to the wall, we inched around the obstacle. I didn’t dare look down.

Four more hours of hiking brought us to the Shira Plateau and another campsite, this one at 12,600 feet. We walked past several boisterous groups and settled into our two-person purple mountain tents. Besides the green mess tent, we also had our own toilet tent, complete with a real toilet seat, quite a luxury on the mountain.

Dinner that night was an instant replay of the day before: enough white food to send a Dr. Atkins devotee into decline. Meals, we would come to find out, were formulated to fuel our bodies and rejuvenate our aching muscles, not to win culinary awards.

The next day, with Bernard in the lead and Simon bringing up the rear, we set off on the day’s journey through the alpine desert, a stark landscape in which only the hardiest plants survive. The journey was equally monotonous. Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe. Pole, pole. The air was getting thinner. Bernard’s easy pace was designed to minimize our group’s fatigue, although Katie, Betsy and I had no difficulty breathing.

Later that morning, David began to have trouble catching his breath. He was nauseated and he was staggering -- all signs of altitude sickness, which would haunt him and, later, his brother Paul for the rest of our trip. We next saw David, Paul and Simon, who had stayed behind to help, at our lunch stop, and we feared the worst: The color had drained from David’s face, and he couldn’t take more than two steps without stopping to rest.

Wilbard decided to split us into two groups: David, Paul and Simon would go on to Barranco Camp, our evening’s campsite, and the rest of us would ascend to Lava Tower to continue the acclimatization process, from which point we would descend 2,050 feet to join the others at Barranco. The theory, Wilbard explained, was to “hike high and sleep low.”

Lava Tower was a 300-foot-tall pile of craggy volcanic rock that, at 15,000 feet, was nestled in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro. We took some photos and then proceeded down through the alpine desert to Barranco Camp, tucked in a secluded valley. With giant groundsels, 15- to 20-foot-tall trees whose cottony leaves form a thick skirt around the tree’s trunk as they die; huge lobelias, which close their leaves at night as a defense against the cold; and brilliant white and yellow “everlasting” flowers, the scene looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

After a day of rest at Barranco, we returned to Lava Tower, and this time we stayed. Betsy, Laura, Mark and I even inched our way to the top, accompanied by Bernard and Simon, who made sure Mark and I didn’t end up splattered on the rocks below.

That night, the wind howled, rattling the tents and making sleep difficult. By morning, the temperature had dropped to about 15 degrees.

The day’s trek was a short one -- up 1,000 feet to Arrow Glacier Camp -- and we reached our objective before lunch. We needed the afternoon to rest and learn how to function at an altitude none of us had ever before attained. It was increasingly difficult to breathe, and I had to remind myself to inhale and exhale. That, coupled with rumblings of avalanches on the mountain, conspired to keep me awake most of the night.

“This is going to be tougher than anybody thought,” I wrote in my diary. “We keep asking Wilbard if he can show us the route up the Western Breach Wall, and he is vague in his reply. I’m pretty sure we are going to go straight up that sucker. How, I don’t know, because there’s snow all over the face of the mountain. I didn’t think we’d have to scramble up something like that. But there’s no turning back.”

All too soon we heard the porters clanking around the mess tent. Hot tea arrived at 5 a.m. We dragged ourselves out of our mummy-style sleeping bags and tried to deal with the zero-degree cold. At 16,100 feet, even a simple task such as getting dressed was an ordeal.

The sky was brightening when we fell into line behind Andrew and set out for the Western Breach Route. The guidebooks call this route a Class 3 Scramble, at the top end of difficulty for trekkers, although technical mountaineers would scoff at its relative ease. One false step could send any one of us hurtling hundreds of feet downward.

My breathing quickened as I grew more anxious, so I tried to relax. I was worried -- about myself, yes, but more about my girls. I knew I would be powerless to help them if they started sliding downward. I forced myself to stop thinking about what could happen and focused on the 18 inches between the toe of one boot and the heel of the other. “One step at a time, one breath at a time,” I chanted, mantra-like, to myself.

And then we were through the worst of it. We scrambled up a series of rock chimneys and over some 6-foot boulders, and had an early lunch at 17,500 feet, an exhilarating setting for a meal. I began to enjoy myself on the mountain, and Katie, Betsy and I high-fived one another, exuberant at having faced the challenge.

Two more hours of post-lunch climbing and we were on top of the Breach Wall. To our left, the Furtwangler Glacier shimmered; to the right, the route up the last few hundred feet to the top of Kilimanjaro beckoned. Ahead, a touch of sulfur lingered in the air over the sleeping Kibo volcanic crater.

The beauty was a fitting reward for our labors. At 18,750 feet, the setting of our camp that night was spectacular, and we had it to ourselves. The air was frigid, but there was no wind. The stars twinkled with an intensity I’d only seen inside a darkened planetarium.

It was so cold, though, that we glimpsed this spectacular sky show only as we scuttled from mess tent to sleeping tent, eyes watering and our exhaled breath like a thick cloud.

The next day we would head for Uhuru Peak, at 19,340 feet, the “Roof of Africa.”

“Twende .... twende.... let’s go. Let’s go!” our porters chanted at 5 the next morning. We shook ourselves out of our sleeping bags, took short, shallow breaths of zero-degree air, and slowly, ever so slowly, got ready for the final push to the summit.

Andrew led the group. Bernice, Laura, Katie and Betsy made up the first phalanx of climbers. Mark and I brought up the rear. Wilbard followed. Dave and Paul, now both suffering from the dual effects of mountain sickness and possible food poisoning, clawed their way up the mountain with Simon and Bernard shepherding their every move.

We slowed to a crawl. First 40 steps per minute. Then 30. Then 20. After each step, we paused to inhale. Step. Exhale. Inhale. Step. Exhale. Painstakingly, we switchbacked up the mountain. When we crested the top of the wall, we could see the sign marking Uhuru Peak in the distance.

It was an easy 15-minute trek to the summit.

“I never thought we could do it,” Katie wrote later. “But now that we’re all up here, it’s all been worthwhile. All the headaches, the nausea, being cold, being scared. It’s quite an accomplishment.”

More than that, though, Kilimanjaro was a great teacher.

It taught Katie, Betsy and me that each of us is stronger mentally and physically than we ever imagined.

And our time on the Roof of Africa taught us that no matter what we face back in the real world, our chances of succeeding will be greater if we take it pole, pole.

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GUIDEBOOK

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro

Tour Operators: The Tanzania Assn. of Tour Operators, www.tatotz.org, has more than three dozen companies authorized to conduct tours on Kilimanjaro. Additionally, some trekkers simply make a reservation with Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park and secure permits, guides and porters at one of the entrances. Prices vary depending on the tour operator and the routing. Regardless of operator, each trekker must pay a $30 daily park fee and a $40 daily camp fee.

If you’re a novice trekker, you should use the services of a recognized outfitter. Here are some of the more popular:

Thomson Safaris: Thomson offers several packages. We selected the 13-day Western Breach Route, with nine days of trekking. Our price of $4,890 each included airfare from Kansas City, Mo., two nights’ lodging in Arusha, Tanzania and all transfers and meals. Tips for guides and porters were about $120 per person. Gear rental (sleeping bags, pads, gaiters, Gore-Tex pants) added an additional $100 each. 2004 prices start at $4,990. Land packages only start at $3,390. For more information, contact Damon Corkin at Thomson Safaris, 14 Mount Auburn St., Watertown, MA 02472; (800) 235-0289, www.thomsonsafaris.com,

www.aboutkilimanjaro.com.

Mountain Travel Sobek: Twelve-day Western Breach ascents ranging from $4,000, not including international airfare. Mountain Travel Sobek, 1266 66th St., Emeryville, CA 94608; (888) 687-6235, www.mtsobek.com.

Wilderness Travel: Eleven-day Western Breach Route. Prices start at $3,295, not including airfare and park fees. Wilderness Travel, 1102 9th St., Berkeley, CA 94710; (800) 368-2794, www.wildernesstravel.com.

Mountain Madness: Eight-day Western Breach ascent, prices starting at $3,600, not including airfare. Mountain Madness, 4218 S.W. Alaska, Suite 206, Seattle, WA 98116; (800) 328-5925, www.mountainmadness.com.

Geographic Expeditions, 2627 Lombard St., San Francisco, CA 94123; (800) 777-8183, www.geoex.com. Eight-day Western Breach ascent, ranging from $3,295 per person, not including airfare and park fees.

When to go: The best months to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro are January, February and September. Also good are July and August (colder) and November and December (potentially wetter). Avoid the rainy season (late March to May).

What kind of shape should I be in? Different routes demand a different level of conditioning. Trekking at high altitudes is much more strenuous than in lower mountains. Before undertaking this trip, consult your physician. Spending time at altitude also greatly increases your chances of success.

Visa and medical information: United States citizens must have a passport that is valid for six months after their return. You also need a Tanzanian visa and a current yellow fever vaccination for entry into Tanzania. Check with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for other specific inoculations, including hepatitis A, tetanus, polio and typhoid. It’s also a good idea to take a prescribed anti-malarial medication.

Resources: www.kilimanjaro.com; www.tanzania-web.com.

Books: For those contemplating a Kilimanjaro climb, Audrey Salkeld’s “Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa” (National Geographic Society), is invaluable. Other titles and a good selection of maps may be found at www.longitudebooks.com.