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Issue No. 34 - $1.91 | Thursday, March 25, 2010 | ||||||||
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Check out rule #2 - I broke that rule and paid for it |
I hadn't known. And I wished he hadn't told me. Besides being a bad walker and susceptible to altitude sickness, I am afraid of heights. But greater even than my fear of heights is my fear of death. I didn't like the thought that I was spending a lot of money to do something that might result in my early demise.
After we finished that depressing conversation, we looked at the signs posted for prospective hikers -- large brown placards on which all sorts of admonishments and warnings were printed in yellow.
For example, we found out that:
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Hiking above 15,000 feet could cause sudden death. (We were hiking to 19,650 feet.)
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If we got seriously injured above 12,000 feet, we could not be rescued by helicopter because helicopters can't fly that high.
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Anyone with a cold should not ascend more than 9,000 feet. (I had developed a definite case of bronchitis by that time.)
How to Heal a Sports Injury
But I wasn't worried about my cold. At least not at that point. I was worried about my left leg. As luck would have it, I'd strained my Achilles tendon a few days earlier. I was limping. Not badly, but limping nevertheless. Dr. Sears said, "See how you feel when you start hiking. It might work itself out."
I thought he was just trying to get me to keep my commitment. But turns out he was right. Within an hour, my calf had loosened up and the pain went away.
That brings up an interesting subject: how best to heal sports injuries. In the old days, orthopedists recommended immobilizing the injury for several weeks or even months and then getting therapy. Nowadays, many doctors like to get the joint in operation as soon as possible. And in my experience (I've had two Achilles tendon operations, a meniscus repair, and an ACL replacement), that approach works better and faster.(Check out this Total Health Breakthroughs article for more guidelines.)
Words Cannot Convey the Bliss...
Raymond came back with the required documents in hand, and stuffed them in his chest pocket. "Ready?" he asked.
"Ready!" we said, putting on our sunglasses and adjusting our walking poles. And with that, we were off.
I was mildly surprised that there was no little prep speech from Raymond or words of advice or something more to transition us from wannabe hikers to the real thing. It was simply that one word -- "Ready" -- and we began what became our predominant activity of the next four days: walking uphill.
How can I describe the walking?
If you've never hiked Mount Kilimanjaro, I can say this: It is nothing like what you may have imagined. It is not exhilarating. It is not majestic. It is not rapturous or transcendental or any other adjective that outdoorsy people use when they attempt to entice you into their lifestyle.
A much better set of adjectives would be:
- Hellish
- Painful
- Unbearable
- Insane
The drill is this: You begin your climb at 5,000 feet (about the altitude of Denver) and walk about 52,000 linear feet (10 miles) every day. That would be nothing if you weren't going uphill. I can cover 10 miles in less than two hours without breaking a sweat. But when, in addition to covering those miles, you are ascending 4,000 feet, everything changes.
For one thing, the demand on your heart and lungs surges. For another thing, as you ascend there is less oxygen in the air to feed your heart and lungs. This is what it felt like to me: After a few minutes, my heart was pounding and my breathing was heavy -- the way it would be if I were trying to run as fast as I could for an hour.
In other words, each step becomes a physical challenge. Each inhalation is labored. After an hour, you are ready to quit but you cannot. If your guide is kind, he may allow you stop for five minutes to have some water and adjust your equipment. But then it's up and at it again. For a second hour. And then a third hour. And then a short lunch. And then three hours more.
Cold as a Witch's...
And while this is happening, it is getting colder. Mount Kilimanjaro stands at the equator. In February, the average daytime temperature at the base of the mountain could be 80 or 90 degrees. But at the summit, the temperature ranges from 0 to minus 15 degrees.
As you ascend, it's about 15 degrees cooler during each day. And there is another 10-degree drop -- at least -- at night.
It's not cold when you start out. But by the time you are at the top, it is well below freezing. And with wind. And rain. Or sleet. For us, it was sleet.
That kind of cold isn't extreme if you have a way to get warm. The problem with climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is that there is no way to get warm. Your inner garments are soaked with sweat from six hours of incredible exertion. You can strip them off at night, but don't expect to be able to wear them again. They will stay cold and wet until the day you leave.
Is this beginning to sound like a litany of complaints?
I'm Saying This for Your Own Good
I don't mean it to be. I want to convey to you what this experience is like. Because you might one day want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. You need to know what to expect. And you certainly won't find the truth in travel brochures.
So let me share a few more details.
The ascent takes four days. The descent takes two. The ascent is unbelievably hard on your heart and lungs. But the descent can be crippling to your hips, knees, and feet.
You will be in some form of pain the entire time you are hiking. And even when you are resting, you will be cold and wet.
Actual toilets with toilet seats exist only at the first campsite. Thereafter, you will be using open bowls and holes in the ground. The floors and often the latrines themselves will be covered in shit. You will not care, however. You will be happy to use these "facilities," because the food you will have eaten will have given you diarrhea.
Oh, by the way. Don't forget to bring your own toilet paper. None will be provided for you.
As for the living quarters along the way, most of them are small A-frames that contain four "beds." They are not really beds at all. Just wooden rails that hold mattresses so thin that you could feel a pea through them even if you weren't a princess. The space is so small that only one person at a time can get up and get dressed. And the structure is entirely without insulation. Even with four bodies in a tight space, the air temperature is just a few degrees warmer than the outside.
Our Itinerary -- How Does This Sound?
Day One: Fifteen minutes into it, my calf was feeling better but I was concerned by how hard it was to walk. The trail itself was well maintained and not especially steep. Yet it felt steep. "Surely the trail will flatten out in a while," I thought. But that never happened.
After about five hours of hiking, I was exhausted. "What the hell am I doing here?" I asked myself. But I wasn't going to quit and abandon my teammates. I vowed to push on. That is when it suddenly became cold and dark and started to rain. I had been sweating. Now I was freezing. Then, just as suddenly, the rain stopped and the sun came out. We made it to the campsite, known as Mandara Hut. Altitude: 8,000 feet.
Day Two: I woke up tired. We had a good breakfast and set off again. The trail was steeper this time and, as we ascended, rockier. The rocks made walking more difficult. We had to pay attention to our footfalls. It would be easy to turn an ankle.
Under the lightweight jacket K had bought I wore a cotton shirt. It became soaked with sweat and, as the temperature dropped, I could see that cotton was a mistake. I eventually took it off and wore the outer jacket only.
We didn't talk as we walked. We couldn't because the hiking was too difficult. I remember from my cub scout days that the proper pace for hiking was to go as fast as you could while maintaining a conversation. Our guides could converse at this pace. But we couldn't. We were breathing hard and wondering when we would have our next break.
Although Day One felt very hard, Day Two was much harder. Not unbearably hard, but as hard as something can be and still be bearable. We bore it. But just barely.
I wondered later whether the people who designed the trail didn't specifically create the first leg the way they did. It is challenging but nothing like the rest of the climb. In fact, each day was harder than the one before. Had it been otherwise, we might have given up. Altitude: 12,000 feet.
Day Three: At 12,000 feet, Horombo Hut is about as high as a ski lift will take you in Colorado. People don't normally live at 12,000 feet. The air is too thin. And so, to make sure we could acclimatize to Mount Kilimanjaro's 19,650-foot summit, we spent the day at Horombo and took a three-hour hike to about 14,000 feet.
I learned something that day about hiking in high altitudes. It is much, much easier to hike three hours than it is to hike six hours. And not by a degree of 100 percent. It is much more like 1,000 percent.
As I mentioned earlier, there are other approaches to the peak that are considerably easier and, thus, have a much higher success rate. Why we took this one, I don't know. But I'll say this: If anyone says they climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and it wasn't that hard, they are either lying or they didn't take the damned Coca Cola trail.
Spending the third day at 12,000 feet and taking that hike to 14,000 feet was a good move. It gave us a little rest, and we went to bed confident that we could make the next goal: hiking up to Kibo Hut, which stands at 15,500 feet.
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Dr. Sears seems genuinely happy, doesn't he? My mood is genuine too |
Day Four: And the next day, that is exactly what we did. But it was colder and harder than we expected. The terrain became very rocky with lots of switchbacks and hundreds of opportunities to twist an ankle or fall off a crater rim.
Yes, you can fall down the side of the mountain at any number of places on the climb. But by the time you get to those trails, you no longer care whether you fall or not. You are putting one foot in front of the other. You are staring at the ground. You are thinking about nothing. You are trying not to think. Because the only thing possible to think about is your pain.
From Hades to Hell and Back
Day Five: We had heard that Kibo Hut was terrible -- crude, rude, etc. But we actually liked it better than the other campsites -- because instead of those stupid A-frames, it has one big barracks with bunk beds. We had a room that could accommodate eight people. Desperate for a little space after being cramped for so long, we resorted to bribery in order to be allowed to occupy the room by ourselves. There was even a table and chairs in the room so we could have our dinner without leaving the building.
You wouldn't want to leave the building. It was freezing and windy and before long it was hailing. The hailstones weren't big but they hit hard. We huddled inside, eating our tasteless soup and abominable stew and drinking canned coffee. At 7:00 p.m., we were in our sleeping bags trying to get some sleep.
At midnight, we were awakened to start the ascent to the peak. We had some biscuits and tea and were outside climbing again by 1:00. The hail had been replaced by a steady snowfall. It was very cold and very dark. We wore our warmest jackets and used headlamps to guide us.
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It was beautiful... of course I couldn't appreciate it then. Always take photos |
It didn't seem possible, but the ascent to Gillman's Point was even worse that the ascent to Kibo Hut. My bronchitis had only worsened on the climb. I had a runny nose and a fever. Every step felt impossible to take. Yet I took them.
We climbed in the cold, over the snow covered trail and upward along narrow switchbacks of stone and gravel. My breathing was loud. Everyone in our group could hear it. Daryl had charged up my iPhone and I was listening to music, which helped a great deal. If I had any thoughts in my head, I can't remember them now. I remember only putting one foot in front of the other and telling myself that eventually it would be over.
Finally, after six hours, we reached Gillman's Point. Technically, this meant that we had reached the summit. But this was not the only summit. Some two hours away stood a higher summit: Uhuru Peak -- the one that is Mecca for hikers.
When Yours Truly Fell Apart
But everyone knew that I was on my last legs. Raymond had a device that measures oxygen in the tissues. Dr. Sears used it to examine me. A good count is 97 or 98. If it falls below 90 in the states, you are usually put on oxygen. When you are at extremely high altitudes, a lower count is expected. Raymond said that as long as the count was about 80 he had been told not to worry.
My count was 73. "If it drops below 70, you could be in serious danger," Dr. Sears said.
Then he decided to make sure Raymond's little appliance was working. So he tested it on our guide. It read 93. He then tested it on himself: 86.
"See that," I thought. "We're all hiking under duress. And I have bronchitis besides. There is no oxygen going to my vital organs. No wonder I am dragging."
"If you want," Dr. Sears said, "We can all go back now. We've reached the summit."
"But it's not the highest point," I said bravely.
I looked at Daryl. He seemed beat. Then I looked at Kevin. Like me, Kevin was nearing in on his 60th birthday. I expected him to be in my sort of shape at this point in the climb -- meaning bad. But he looked kind of okay. "He doesn't have bronchitis," I thought. I asked Dr. Sears to test Kevin's oxygen.
Big mistake. He tested at 70.
Dr. Sears couldn't believe it. He retested him, and it was 70 again.
"You should be gasping for breath," he told Kevin.
"I feel pretty good," he said.
"There is no medical explanation for this," Dr. Sears said.
Kevin was smiling. Why was he smiling?
"I'll give you an explanation," I said. "The son of a bitch is a vampire!"
"Check his pulse," Daryl said.
We didn't. I think we were all afraid.
"Let's get going," I said, pulling myself to my feet. "I don't need no bloody oxygen."
"Are you sure?" Kevin asked. "What do you think your chances of finishing are? Better than 60 percent?"
"Ninety-nine percent," I told him. But I was bluffing.
Vampires and Zombies
The next two hours were not as difficult as the previous six had been, but I was getting weaker. Every once in a while I began to cough, and my coughing was deep and exhausting. We pushed on, poli poli (slowly slowly) as the locals say. And finally, Raymond put his hand on my shoulder and motioned for me to look ahead. There it was. The sign on top of the summit. We had conquered Mount Kilimanjaro.
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Here we are, finally, at the top... triumphantly ignorant of the hellish hikes ahead of us |
I was very happy but I was too tired to enjoy it. I sat down and settled into a blur. Some time later, I got together with the guys for a group photo. Then, looking at me as if he were concerned, Raymond urged us to start our descent.
The ascent was not the relief I had hoped it would be. I had completely exhausted myself going from Gillman's Point to Uhuru Peak. I had nothing left in me but I did my best to keep up with the others. I couldn't. They moved ahead. I slowed down. Raymond stayed with me.
It took three hours for us to get down to Kibo Hut. The last hour, I was walking like a zombie. Like I was dead.
Raymond walked with me to the door and said, "After a good meal you'll feel better."
I didn't say anything but I knew what he meant. We couldn't stay at Kibo Hut for more than an hour. We had to hike another three hours down to Horombo. But I knew I wouldn't make that hike. I didn't have the energy to take another step.
I did my zombie shuffle into our room and, with my teammates looking on slack jawed, walked passed the table of food and crawled into my cot.
When the guys started getting ready for the next hike I told them I wasn't going with them. You can't stay here, Dr. Sears said. It's too high. You will get sick.
"I'm already sick," I said. "And I'm going to stay."
He called for Raymond to get him a stethoscope. He examined my lungs and took my temperature and used that oxygen-measuring device. In every department, I was in bad shape.
This guy can't go on," he told Raymond. Raymond seemed upset.
Blessed Relief
"What about a stretcher?" Dr. Sears said.
"It's a lot of red tape to get one," Raymond said, "but I'll check it out."
A half-hour later, I was strapped to a stretcher -- really a metal rack suspended on a bike tire. And with four men, one on each side, I was transported from Kibo Hut to Horombo, 4,000 feet below.
It was a very bumpy journey. I was half-delirious but happy to be headed toward a lower altitude. At one point, they stopped and tilted the stretcher forward. I had the sensation that I was at the edge of a cliff and they were about to dump me over. I'd be one of the 60 people who died this year. I almost didn't care.
Back in our first A-frame, I curled up in bed and stayed there until the next morning. When I woke up, Dr. Sears examined me. I was considerably better in almost every regard. "One thing, though," he told me. "You have to get a complete exam when you get home. I think you have walking pneumonia."
I hadn't wanted to go on that climb. But I went. And even though I made jokes about how I had no intention of finishing it, I did feel, deep inside, that I would make it or die trying.
Mandatory Philosophic Speculation
What does this say about me? I don't know. Dr. Sears and Kevin and Daryl all had their own reasons for pushing themselves to the top of that mountain and their own difficulties along the way. I hardly saw the landscape, beautiful as it was, because I was looking at the ground. I don't have funny stories to tell, because there were none.
But I will say this about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. If there is a better way to test the limits of your endurance, I don't know it.
There is a saying among Tanzanians: "If you have never climbed Kilimanjaro, then you will never know what it is like. If you have climbed it once, then you do. If you have climbed it more than once, there is something wrong with you."
I won't climb Kilimanjaro again. But I will be proud that I did it once for the rest of my life. By the time I've told this story a dozen times, it will seem much more dramatic than it does now. If I live long enough to tell the tale to my grandchildren, my feat will seem mightier than Jon Krakauer's in Into Thin Air. (If you haven't read the book, I recommend it.)
Dr. Sears, who has climbed half a dozen tough mountains, tells me that, as time passes, I'll forget about the pain and remember only the fun. "What fun?" I asked. He just smiled.
But I did it. (Though Kevin says I need to put an asterisk on my certificate for the stretcher ride I got.) And nothing I've done so far in business (or ever expect to do) will take that kind of willpower.
Which is a good thing, when you think about it.
[Ed. Note: Michael Masterson welcomes your questions and comments. Send him a message at AskMichael@ETRFeedback.com.]
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