|
THIS IS a story about failure. Not merely of malfunction - but of deliberate, carefully planned failure. Something that requires huge mental discipline. To attain a planned failure can be counted as a victory in reverse. Its achievement must be seen as a laudable, if negative, triumph.
Well, that's the way I tried to look at it.
It all began after the third, or possibly sixth, bottle of champagne.
We were celebrating - my friend the former American ambassador and I - our third coming of age. He was um-something, and I was um-something plus about a decade, so we decided to split the difference and throw a joint birthday party.
After a few bottles of bubbly. . .
"Who's counting?" George asked diplomatically.
"Count not the bubbles, nor the battles, nor the bottle-scarred years, but sip the wine and taste of the times to come," I adjured.
"Who's sipping?" asked George.
My friend the doctor was busy cutting off his thumb. Or so it seemed until he explained his constructive actions. What he was actually trying to do was cut the head off a bottle.
"Cavalry officers from central Europe hold the champagne bottle like this - with the thumb carefully placed here," said Harold. "Then, with their swords in backhand position like this," he explained, drawing back his right arm over his left ear, "they slash at the champers so that the blade hits the bottle precisely where the champagne cork is wired to the neck. Saves all that messing about with wiring and popping corks." said Harold.
At that stage of the evening it made a lot of sense.
"Try it with a bread-knife," I urged.
Harold hit a mighty backhand cavalry stroke - just missing his thumb, and just missing Sharon opposite him, as the head of the bottle flew past her raised eyebrow. The people at the next restaurant table were behaving badly. Their shrieks drowned our applause as the decapitated head splashed among them.
"Waiter!" my friend Richard the newspaperman called, "there's a bottle top in that lady's soup."
But Harold was not going to let sideshows detract from his triumph. Trying to hide his surprise at the success of his operation, he sought even greater heights.
He emptied the contents of the razor-edged bottle into our glasses, lifted his, and announced: "I'm going to climb Kilimanjaro next month."
Top that one.
"So shall I," I heard myself saying. "I've been meaning to for years. I'll join you Harold."
A look of horror suffused Harold. The same look was reflected in the eyes of my wife.
"You'll kill yourself, you know," she said later. "The only exercise you ever get is at the bar counter, and now you think you can join those young, fit people and climb the highest peak in Africa."
It's not a peak," I lied. "It's just a round pudding. There's a path up the side, and the only hazard is being crushed to death in the queue. Everybody's climbing it. I think Kilimanjaro isn't as high as it used to be. It's sinking under the weight of its own tourists."
This was partly true. I had heard of octogenerians who had reached the rim of the volcano. The route was dotted with sleeping huts and eating halls. I'd heard some-one was training to walk up Kilimanjaro backwards, in order to make the Guinness Book of Records.
"It's a doddle," I said.
This shining, partly true part-truth was dented when I went to sign up for the expedition.
"We're not going up the Marangu route. We're going to try something slightly more vigorous."
"How much is "slightly'?"
"Well," the travel agent from Wild Frontiers laughed, "we're not sending you with a group of tourists. We - my husband John and I - are going ourselves, with a few friends. Our plan is to avoid the beaten track.. . . take a steeper, more remote but more beautiful route."
"Anything else?"
"Well." she hesitated a second. "Well, unfortunately it's the short rainy season. And we'll be six days on the mountain in tents, not in any of the mountain huts. . ."
"Anything else?"
She didn't answer.
"Do you think I can make it?" I asked.
"Well, my husband John is over-weight right now, and he's going up again. But you know about Acute Mountain Sickness - it could affect anybody."
I didn't know about mountain sickness, acute or otherwise, and I didn't particularly want to, right then. She didn't tell me that John, our intrepid leader, had been forced to turn back before he reached the top last time.
Yet it dawned on me that some preparation for the climb was required. I had two week's left to prepare. Harold was already as fit as a hungry wild dog, for he ran minor marathons every morning. He thought he was comforting me by telling me that he ran with "another guy - 61 years old! - who still competes in long distance events". What kind of comfort was that? I suppose, at 61, I might have tried a few runs around the block. Instead, I had collected a list of names of healthy young people who had dropped dead while jogging. Whenever the urge for exercise faintly stirred, I would protect my health by sitting down and re-reading the list.
Exercise would clearly not be the best form of training in the next two weeks. I decided to focus on two greater essentials. First I would arm myself with more information about the challenge - read more. And I would train to avoid dehydration - drink more beer.
Reading was the more arduous, and more harrowing, training. For instance, I made the mistake of studying Mark Savage's excellent map-guide, which warned:
"Problems are caused through the inability of the human body to adjust to a rapid gain in altitutde. These problems range from mild cases of Acute Mountain Sickeness (AMS) - affecting to a greater or lesser extent 80 percent or more visitors to Kibo hut area (4 800m) and above - through its various forms, to the often fatal Pulmonary and Cerebral Oedema's.
Symptoms of AMS include headache, nausea, vomiting, anorexia, exhaustion, lassitude, muscle weakness, a rapid pulse, insomnia, swelling of hands and feet and a reduced urine output. Climbers with severe problems MUST stop. . .
With Pulmonary Oedema, additional symptoms may be noticed - shortness of breath, even at rest, gurgling bubbly sounds in the chest and sometimes a watery blood-tinged sputum. Skin may be cold and clammy, finger nails and lips bluish. With Cerebral Oedema severe headache, hallucination and lack of co-ordination are symptoms. Treatment must be immediate. DESCEND! even it if means walking down at night. The speed with which these two conditions kill is often as little as 12 hours.
I am inclined to catch symptoms merely by reading about them. Shortness of breath, lassitude, gurgly bubbling sounds in the chest, cold and clammy skin - I had them all, and I hadn't left home yet. Here I was, reclining on my study carpet with the dog, too afraid to check for blood-tinged sputum, blue lips and lack of co-ordination. However, in my fright, I was pretty sure I was not suffering from reduced urine output.
Further reading brought further disillusion. The Kili 'pudding' I intended assaulting was not merely the highest point in Africa, it was "the highest free-standing mountain in the world". This meant, apparently, that instead of climbing a few thousand feet up a little thing like the Matterhorn, perched on top of a mountain range - or 10 000 feet up a big thing like Mount Everest perched on top of several ranges - you have to climb nearly 17 000 feet straight up a volcano. Kilimanjaro, at 5,896m (approaching 20 000ft) is higher than Cape Town's Table Mountain balanced on top of Europe's highest mountain, Mont Blanc. And then there’s the peak to climb.
But these statistics did not frighten me anything like as much as the warning of blood-tinged sputum at altitude. A passage from "Lightest Africa", by F Spencer Chapman DSO (Chato & Windus, London 1955) brought, right into my armchair, yet another symptom of mountain sickness - palpitations. The explorer-mountaineer wrote:
I don't think I have ever felt so ill on a mountain . . . terrible headache, my mouth dry as leather . . . Here (descending from the crater to Kibo Hut) we all felt ghastly, and just lay in our bunks without energy even to take off our boots. . .
Of course the trouble is we climbed from 4,500 feet to 19,563 feet - 15 000 feet (in only five days). In the Himalayas the difficulty of the climbing makes you take much longer over it. . . on Chomolhari, for instance, I climbed from 14 000 to 24 000 feet - an ascent of only 10 000 feet -and took ten days over it.
It did not escape me that this was a Himalayan peak-bagger complaining about the rigours of our Kili - from a bunk in Kibo Hut in the dry season!
I descended to a lower altitude by sliding out of my armchair and re-joining the dog on the study carpet. It was at this moment that I took one of the wisest, most noble decisions of my life. I decided I would not only face the challenge of Kilimanjaro, I would face the even greater challenge within my own soul.
Normally, one faces one's inner challenges by pushing to the physical and mental limits in order to "prove something", to oneself, or more likely, to boast about it to others. Normally, one climbs a great mountain, "because it is there". But those responses, I now appreciated, were immature. Lying there, contemplating my dog's navel, I decided I had reached the age where I had to prove to myself that I didn't have to try to prove something. I would tackle this expedition with the grit, discipline and determination of a man who can control the urge to "get to the top". The superficial drive to conquer a peak, merely "because it is there" would itself be conquered - if I had the will.
Every available form of rationalisation and logic would have to be brought to bear - not the least being that Kilimanjaro was very seldom "there". It was shrouded in cloud most of the time - especially in the two rainy seasons - a mythical snowcapped mountain on the equator whose very existence was ridiculed within the Royal Geographical Society as late as 1850.
Researching the mid-nineteenth century existential debate over whether Kilimanjaro was "there" - or not - proved the most rewarding part of all my preparations for the expedition.
Kilimanjaro's non-existence has always been hard to prove. Ptolemy, made it more difficult by writing about Africa's Big One as long ago as the first century after Christ. Nor was its existence seen as a puzzle to the Chinese in the 12th century. And the local Wachagga tribe has, for at least 300 years, been able to gaze up at a great white dome in the sky several times a year - when not having to dodge behind Kilimanjaro's gigantic trees to avoid the Arab slave-hunters.
Nonetheless, the scientists of Europe and America were prepared to dismiss its existence until - unfortunately in my view - two German missionaries, Johan Rebmann and a Herr Doktor Krapf, independently reported in the mid-nineteenth century that "it is there". To his credit, the admirable Mr W Desborough Cooley, a critical geographer of great merit, quickly put them right. Rebmann's discovery, he said, was merely "a most delightful mental recognition, not supported by the evidence of the senses", while Krapf's confirmation was dismissed as coming from a man "of vaulting ambition" whose "taste for dealing with mighty problems was not accompanied by that mental acumen without which intellectual activity becomes to its possessor a highly dangerous endowment".
I could not have put it better myself.
Then, in 1861, Baron Von der Decken spoilt it all. He saw with his own eyes, the main peak of Kilimanjaro, "bathed in a flood of rosy light, the cap that crowns the mountain's noble brow gleamed in the dazzling glory of the setting sun." He also saw the jagged outlines of Kilimanjaro's second peak and, "three thousand feet lower, like the trough between two mighty waves, is the saddle which separates the sister peaks one from the other."
The Baron was accompanied by one of Dr Livingstone's men, the geologist Thornton, and a year later the Baron returned with Dr Otto Kersten to climb 14000 feet up the mythical monster. "During the night it snowed heavily," he says in his account of the expedition, "and next morning the ground lay white all around us. Surely the obstinate Cooley will be satisfied now?"
But the Royal Geographic's Mr Cooley was made of sterner stuff. He wrote: "So the Baron says it snowed during the night. In December, with the sun standing vertically overhead! The Baron is to be congratulated on the opportuneness of the storm. But it is easier to believe in the misrepresentations of man than in such an unheard-of eccentricity on the part of Nature. This description of a snowstorm at the equator during the hottest season of the year and at an elevation of only 13000 feet, is too obviously a 'traveller's tale', invented to support Krapf's marvellous story of a mountain 12,500 feet high covered with perpetual snow."
Touche, Mr Cooley. Too bad, that so many explorers kept returning from Africa to report that the snow-capped, cloud-shrouded mountain "is there!" Too bad that the Royal Geographic Society should present the Baron with a medal and Mr Cooley with the boot. But, as flat-earthers know, none of this proves that the mountain will actually be there when you are there.
And if it wasn't going to be there when I was there, I reasoned, there would be no point in going to the invisible top. I rationalised further: even if it was there - was I so inadequate within myself that I needed to prove something? Be mature. Be still, and observe Nature in Africa, and the frailties of your fellow climbers.
The logic of planned failure was compelling. There was no point in suffering headaches, nausea, hallucinations, snow blindness, frostbite, sun burn and blisters, merely to stand in the mist and rain where a thousand tourists would stand in the next few months.
There was every point in avoiding blood-tinged sputum, and sudden death from Cerebral Oedema. . . . Though my friend, Doctor Harold, said I was in little danger of the cerebral thing, owing to the lack of size and inaccessibility of my brain. "Watch out, rather, for the Pulmonary infection", he said. I would keep watch like the virgin guarding the eternal flame.
The mental struggle between macho and mature was exhausting - but not as exhausting as the need to be adequately informed, where others were training to be adequately fit. For instance, I would need to be able to lecture the young eager climbers on the geology, ecology, minerology and hydropography of the dormant volcanic chain we were visiting. The more information I collected beforehand, the more opportunities I would have for halting the actual ascent in order to "consider the facts", and thus change from short pants to the long pants which help prevent the dreaded Pulmonary Oedema.
Here is just one example of the strenuous preparation I had to make.
Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest and youngest of East Africa's three largest volcanoes. The other two are Mount Kenya (5199 metres) and Mount Elgon (4 321 metres) which straddles the border between Kenya and Uganda.
The volcanic origin of Kilimanjaro is linked to the tectonic forces of the African Rift Valley and geologists believe that the first lava flows started about a million years ago. These flows were generated from three main vents which formed Kilimanjaro's peaks of Shira, Kibo and Mawenzi. Half a million years of activity saw the mountain reach an altitude of 5 500 metres. Then Shira collapsed into a caldera, followed closely by Mawenzi which rapidly eroded into a sharp, shattered peak.
Kibo continued to grow. . .
Exhausting, isn't it? I shall spare you the next 450 000 years or so and move to the present.
. . .Today Kibo, at 5 896 metres, is the highest and best preserved of the three peaks, although you can still see Shira clearly on its western slopes at 4,006 meters, and to the east the jagged spine of Mawenzi rears up to 5,149 metres.
The volcanoes are now dormant and the likelihood of further eruptions is minimal, although there are active fumeroles (jet streams) and sulphur deposits. Permanent ice and snow are found only on Kibo.
Nobody told me about fumeroles. Nobody mentioned permanent ice on this damn mountain. My exhaustive inquiries, however, (the above is a snippet from an article in the magazine Getaway) provided a hint of hope. The article went on:
It is feared that the famous ice-cap is shrinking. Judging from the position of past glacial moraine deposits, scientists believe that the summit was once covered with a layer of ice more than 100 metres thick with glaciers extending down to 4,000 metres.
However, only a fraction of this layer remains and, if the current rate of retreat continues, most of the glaciers of Kilimanjaro will vanish with the next 50 years.
Fifty years? Could I postpone the expedition that long? Would the ice be destroyed much sooner than that by the dreaded beams coming through the 'holes in the sky'? (I can never avoid using that technical term). Would spraying my under-arm Odourono on the mountain-side, accelerate the snow-disappearing trick? It was too slim a chance. I researched the article desperately for other options.
Don't underestimate Kilimanjaro. Three of the five main routes are difficult and dangerous and can be climbed only with special permission and some of the techical rock faces, ice cliffs and glaciers are regarded as the toughest in Africa.
In fact the Breach Wall, on its south-western face, was scaled only in 1978 by world-famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner when he was training for the first ascent of Mount Everest without oxygen. Messner described the Breach Wall as 'more serious than the north face of the Eiger'.
Well, let's not worry about things we don't need to worry about. Which route does Getaway's¯ explorer advise?
Although the least scenic, the five-day Marangu Route is by far the easiest and therefore the most popular, and it is commonly referred to as the 'tourist route'. This is the route I followed.
Wise fellow. So was the German author of the only other article I could find on the subject. He too went the proper, recognised route. Both of them made it to the top, even though some in their parties did not. Asked what climbing Kili meant to him, the German quoted one of his party as summing up all their feelings: 'In terms of physical endeavour I regard the achievement as my personal best.'
That's all right then. My challenge was not going to be physical endeavour, but mental discipline. And Getaway's climber? When prompted, he replied:
'It was no picnic. I had a splitting headache, waves of nausea, a raw throat, and I felt as though I had run a marathon with one lung. But I made it.'
'But why did you climb it if you felt so awful?'
'It's that famous old saying: "Because it's there".'
Well, it didn't have to be there for me. I focused with even greater concentration on failure. My research suggested that failure could easily be the most successful route. For confirmation of this, one only had to read "Across East African Glaciers - an Account of the First Ascent of Kilimanjaro" by Dr Hans Meyer.
In 1887 he and Herr van Eberstein reached 16,400 feet on Kilimanjaro when "it began to snow, and shortly afterwards my companion sank down exhausted. For some time I pressed forward alone, but at last found myself confronted with a solid wall of ice, 150 feet high, which effectually barred the way." So, Dr Hans went back to Leipzig and wrote a very successful book on the failed expedition.
In 1888 he and Dr Oscar Baumann set out again to conquer Kilimanjaro, only to be captured by natives, put in chains like slaves, and handed over to the rebel Arab Sheik Bushiri. He held them to ransom for a large sum (something, curiously, which was to be repeated on our own expedition, when I fell into the hands of hordes of local con-men at the entrance to the international airport at Dar es Salaam. I was lucky to escape, leaving behind only my credit card. But that is another story). Having failed even to reach the mountain, Dr Hans Meyer and Dr Baumann retreated to Vienna - where both of them successfully published more books on their non-achievement!
In 1889 Dr Hans, accompanied by Herr Ludwig Purtscheller, managed to reach Kilimanjaro for the third time and, pioneering the Marangu route - later to be known as "the tourist route" - finally stood on the topmost point of Kibo peak.
Dr Hans claimed to be the first to get to the top. But was he? He measured the highest point of the mountain, which he named Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze, at 19 720 feet, but when my son Barry stood on Uhuru point (the modern name for KWS) it was 19,865 feet. And, at 6ft 3inches in his socks, Barry was even higher.
One may accept that it was quite possible for the meticulous Dr Hans to be slightly out in his measurements - but, in any case, didn't Herr Otto Ehlers of the German East African Company get 'there' first?
In the autumn of 1888, Ehlers, "pressing on alone", says he reached the north-western side of the summit of Kibo at an altitude "not less than 19,680 feet." The other Germans decided that Ehler's lone final assault was "a preposterous narrative" and dismissed him as a failure. Maybe. But the fact is that Dr Hans failed even to name Uhuru peak properly, and his marvellous book, translated into English by E H S Calder in 1890, finds its finest hour on the lower reaches of Kilimanjaro - not at the top, where the prose tends towards purple.
What did Herr Doktor Hans prove by vanquishing Kilimanjaro's Kibo peak? His claim merely makes him the first of tens of thousands of slightly unbalanced people to slog up to the very top of the mountain. I like to think it was the failed and discredited Ehlers who was the first. But surely in the previous 400,000 years or so, a couple of local tribespeople must have got there - either by accident, or to escape the wrath of the resident chief or the slavers? And that accounts only for humans.
But I stray from Dr Hans Meyer's account - and my own. Quite apart from squashing Herr Ehlers, Dr Hans's book recorded many excellent failures, and I decided to use "Across East African Glaciers" as my sole guide and inspiration for our own expedition. Before I get to my latter-day tale of travail, which I've been trying to avoid, let me list a few of the early triumphant failures.
Triumphant Failures
The missionary Rebmann, apart from being called a liar by the cool Cooley, failed three times on Kilimanjaro. On his third try, "armed only with an umbrella" and accompanied by a caravan of 30 porters, he reached a point "so close to the snowline that, supposing no impassable abyss to intervene, I could have reached it in three or four hours". Unfortunately, illness and privation (AMS to you and me) compelled him to turn back.
Rebmann's colleague Krapf failed twice to climb Kilimanjaro, as did Baron Von der Decken. They blamed failure on "the stress of the weather". The English missionary, Charles New reached the snowline in 1871 "the first European to penetrate the equatorial snows," says Dr. Hans. But, on his second attempt at the peak, New was robbed by a rapacious local chief and "utterly broken down in health and spirits, died on his road to the coast." ("Opting out", we failure experts call it).
Then there was the Scottish geologist Joseph Thomson, who hardly got beyond the forest at 9 000 feet. But, in his failure, Thomson "covered much new ground, and gathered the materials for a clear and comprehensive account of the probable origin and main geological and geographical features of the mighty volcanic mass."
“As much cannot be said for Thomson's sucessor in the field, Mr H H Johnston," Dr Hans continues. He dismisses the famous Johnston - after whom some of Kilimanjaro's unique flora is named - as having a facile pen which is "completely at the mercy of his ardent imagination".
Johnston related that, "at a point nearly as high as Mont Blanc" he made his way along a narrow ridge, till by degrees he was completely overcome by the feeling of "overwhelming isolation" and was obliged to have recourse to "some brandy and water from his flask" in order to restore his sinking courage.
I cannot but empathise with Mr Johnston, after whom the Senecio Johnstoni is named. He celebrated his failure by finding, in the foothills, material for "a very charming book of travels," according to Dr Hans, "full of clever sketches and equally delightful word-pictures. . . Unfortunately these are in many instances over-drawn."
In the decade 1879-1889 - prior to Dr Hans Meyer's successful mountain-climb at the third attempt - no less than 49 naturalists, botanists, mountaineers, missionaries and "American and English sporting caravans" came, saw, and were conquered by Kilimanjaro. It is as glorious a record of failure as anything produced by the explorers of the Earth's Poles, or of the Himalayan or Andean peaks.
In Dr Hans's account, most of the men attempting to climb Kilimanjaro were "seized with illness and could go no further." But their failure allowed them to "survey the lower slopes. . .and contribute to man's store of knowledge".
* * *
Preparing for the worst
These grand precedents in failure pointed to the only honourable course.
Yet one must prepare for the worst. One must prepare, and be equipped, to reach the top. For this remote but awful eventuality, I resolved to follow Dr Hans's advice to the very letter, wherever possible.
Herr Doktor spent three months on "the thousand details" of preparing for an expedition. This was a slight setback for me, as I had only three hours in which to get my stuff together, but I reasoned that, as the third Hans Meyer expedition took nearly six months to make the climb, and we would have only six days, my equipment-assembling period was proportionately correct.
Dr Hans devotes much attention to detail, the first priority of all being
Clothing. How eternally wise was the good doctor! Clothing - even for those of us who sometimes absentmindedly wear one brown and one black shoe, and always the wrong tie - clothing becomes obsessively important on Kilimanjaro. It is a subject I shall return to often.
As for Dr Hans's conclusion that "the dearest" proved in the end "the cheapest", well, I found there wasn't much choice. I bought an "essential" sweatshirt under protest ("What! I don't intend to sweat") for the price I would normally pay for a three-piece suit at Woolworths. I bought thermal longjohns, post-office-red stockings, and a pair of spats to keep scree out of my boots. . .
Headgear. Dr Hans advises: "The best headgear for all weathers is an English sun-helmet, such as are supplied by Messrs. Silver & Co., London; while a soft fez or smoking cap should be kept for wearing in the shade - one with flaps for drawing down over the ears on a cold night to be preferred."
I could not find a genuine imperial pith helmet, and my fez was fuzzy and had lost its tassle, and my wife said I should not be seen in it. I nearly bought a modern skiers' cap with Sherlock Holmes flaps - for a sum I would hesitate to pay for a Victorian roll-top desk. Fortunately I was able to borrow an ancient balaclava. If I may modestly imitate Dr Hans and "not be amiss in offering a hint": Remember to shake the dead moths out of any climbing clothes you borrow. You may lose some emergency protein, but more important, you reduce the dead weight of your pack.
Medicines. Dr Hans's advice is: "The most satisfactory medicine-chest is that supplied at the Berlin Simons-Apotheke, prepared according to Dr Falkenstein's directions for travellers in the tropics. The best plan is to have the medicines put up in doses in the form of lozenges, and the whole enclosed in a strong tin box, as a protection against breakage and damp."
Dr Hans provides surprisingly little detail on the vital matter of prophylaxis and remedies, so I tried to phone Dr Falkenstein, but he was dead - which did not say much for his medicines. Fortunately Dr Harold was available to assist our whole party. We were issued sufficient pills to ensure that everyone of us would be banned for life from every organised sport, including amateur ping-pong. The trick, when you're on a wet mountain in the cold dark, is not to swallow your sleeping tablets when you're trying to overcome diarrhoea, and not to eat your steroids when you are groping for half a sleeping tablet.
Weapons. Dr Hans is more explicit on this score. "I have arrived at the conclusion that two guns only are necessary to meet every emergency - a .450 or .500 Express (a double-barrelled Lancaster or single-barralled Mauser) and a double-barrelled 12-bore fowling piece (No 5 swanshot) for wild-fowl, but in the case of attack by natives, large shot is always the best."
However, the doctor simply cannot take his own advice. He then urges you to carry a revolver to use at close quarters, and a double-barrelled 8-bore in case you need to shoot an elephant or two. Also, a smaller fowling piece should be added by ornithological collectors. Dr Hans concludes: "For my own part, I never found it necessary to use my elephant-gun."
If it is not amiss, may I venture a further addendum: For my own part, I never found it necessary to use a shotgun on the natives. Indeed, as you will see, never will you find such civil, unaggressive guides and porters as we had the good fortune to employ. My advice is, save your powder for the tourists on the Marangu route.
Instruments. Dr Hans stipulates that "for determining latitudes, the small, compendious, portable theodolite of Hildebrand & Schramm of Freiburg in Saxony is quite sufficient."
I should think so too.
Dr Hans discusses compasses, psychrometers and other gadgetry I cannot pronounce. However, he warns: "Instruments requiring delicate manipulation are quite unsuitable for roughing it in the wilds of Africa."
So, after much agonising, I settled for an old camera that exposed only one section of film in every ten, and a cheap oriental watch, even though it seemed incapable of adjusting to Tanzanian time. I was, therefore, precisely one hour late on many occasions, but this gradually became understandable to others.
I felt anxious about not carrying sufficient of Herr Doktor's recommended instruments - but when it came to his views on "the sheepskin sleeping sack" and the vital need for "snow spectacles" I was with him all the way.
My pack finally weighed 30kg. We were allowed a maximum of 15kg. I dumped half the stuff, apologised to Dr H, and set off.
* * *
Team build-up.
The expedition was gathering under the aliminum monument in the departures hall of Johannesburg International Airport. All expeditions gather there, whether going to Serajevo, Samarkand, or Stilfontein. It was 10.30 in the morning - an hour before take-off - and we hoped to be at Kilimanjaro Airport two hours before dusk. Travelling north-east, we would save an hour of GMT, although my watch steadfastly refused to recognise this.
My estimation of our intrepid leader shot up and hit the bell before our departure, when he led us along a narrow, devious passage, and into a hidden pub, seemingly sheltered from all officialdom, and all other travellers. We were in a silent oasis, filled with cold draught beer, a frothing brew of bonhomie.
There I met Big John, a tall, broad, amiably silent man with legs like tree trunks. I was depressed to learn that he ran often in marathons.
"And this is Goerts." I looked down, and missed him. Then I looked up, even above Big John's head, and there were his glinting spectacles and whiskers. Goerts was from Namibia. He carried a pack as if it were a handkerchief, and it looked as if he could walk the entire Skeleton Coast before breakfast.
"This is my son, Barry, " I said, introducing him now, so that he and Goerts could look at each other levelly over Big John's head. "You two should be acclimatised."
The rest of us cradled our pints of beer, and huddled in collective protection over the bar. Our leader, Little John, bearded and slightly rounded, with a warm look of life about him, was already talking about the party we would have in our hotel at Moshi, below The Mountain. Just the leader I wanted. But I suspected that his petite wife, Debbie, wanted to climb Kilimanjaro merely in preparation for something more strenuous.
Harold I already knew well. A tireless bundle of unending energy. I wished he had cut off his thumb with that bottle of champagne - he'd never have mentioned Kilimanjaro that night.
The eighth member of our expedition offered little hope. He was normal height, thank goodness. Handsome lad, open face. But he had about him that easy grace of a born athlete. Some-one whispered to me later: "That's Steve. He does an hour's gym every day. He runs ten kilometres every morning."
It was so depressing, I downed a second pint and looked at life as I had never seen it before. Steve was about 28, I assessed. Harold was 20 years younger than I. And the rest? You could add the ages of any two of them and still not reach mine.
But there was still hope. A slim woman, with two teenage sons, had attached herself to our party. Teenagers are impossibly fit, but perhaps I could lean on their mother. It also occurred to me that if I kept tripping up her smaller son, it might yet be possible to slow down the caravan. My plans were thwarted when she revealed that she and her boys were going up the Marangu route.
* * *
Setting Out
The long convivial flight restored some proper perspective. As we circled and landed at Kilimanjaro Airport, the big peak was not to be seen. The mountain is not there!
It was an encouraging philosophical concept. . . until the clouds mysteriously and suddenly re-arranged themselves. Some-one shouted "Look!", and there it was, just above the scarlet blossoms of the African Flame trees. The clouds had formed themselves into a flat, grey scarf at about 10 000 ft, leaving the bottom half of the mountain in darkness. But the westering sun lit up the rest - an upturned bowl of rock, resting on the clouds, its dome covered in dripping, dazzling white.
"There you are," I thought. "A pudding, after all. A pussy-cat with gently sloping flanks." I'd forgotten it was about 70 kms away. But I had not forgotten Dr Hans Meyer's ecstatic description of it, from afar: "High above the masses of cumulus clouds which drifted slowly over the steppes rose the snowy dome of Kibo, solitary, serene, majestic, yet soft and shadowy as a mirage. . . I gazed in rapture on the phantom shape hanging thus suspended in mid-air. Only once in the Himalayas, looking from Darjiling towards Kanchinjunga, have I seen anything to equal it at once for beauty and impressive grandeur. . .".
The difference in perspective, between my view and his, is easily explained. He had already climbed it. I hadn't.
Between disappearing acts, Kilimanjaro humped high above us, all across the dry barren plain, until we reached the Keys Hotel at Moshi. Armed with Safari lagers and Kenyan pilseners, we sat beneath the sheltering branches of a giant ficus, and stared at the white moonlight on the mountain. There were tremors of doubt rising in our party, but the soft, unhurried voice of Julius Minja, our chief guide, acted as a placebo. Perhaps he meant it to be.
"Pole Pole," he said, knowing that we had heard and read the words a hundred times before arriving here. Pole Pole (Slowly, slowly). The sweetest phrase in the Kiswahili tongue of the Wachagga tribe. "We go Pole Pole. Otherwise we will not make it. Otherwise - the mountain sickness". He sipped his beer. "You know the mountain sickness?"
Oh yes, now we knew the mountain sickness, the one which drains your brain and chokes your lungs unto death.
Julius smiled, his white teeth glistening in the dark. "When you feel sick - not before - you come and ask me. I'll tell you which pill to take."
In his slow, quiet voice he gave us a reassuring resume of our intended trek. It sounded just like the picnic which the books said it wasn't. However, as it turned out, Julius's briefing hardly mattered, for we never went the intended route anyway. At the last minute it was decided to take a "slightly more technical route. . . we have to take an ice-axe and rope. . . but nothing difficult, of course."
Of course.
Little John, our intrepid leader, led us to the bar, where we knew we were going to taste our last beers for a long time. I set a non-pole pole pace until the clock signalled the beginning of DAY ONE of the great expedition, then I slipped away for a final forty winks of preparation, hoping the last stayers would do themselves major damage, thus ensuring a slow and late start. Unfortunately I heard them clumping about on the wooden stairs soon afterwards, at about 2 am. In the morning they were merely pale and red-eyed.
Pole pole we drove into the hills. Banana trees, coffee, pawpaws, oranges. . . the mountainside was lush with fruit and tinkling streams - and more children than any census could cope with. The Land Rovers echoed our groans as they struggled up steepening rutted paths and finally came to rest at the Machame gate. Julius was waiting with hordes of porters. There would be 18 of them, carrying our main packs, our tents, our food, and - in the higher parts of the mountain - our firewood and water.
We each carried a personal backpack, and Harold, for the first day or two, insisted on carrying a tripod, a ton of camera equipment, and "spares" of everything. By the end of the first day he was grey with fatigue. Steve bounded ahead through the forest, often waiting for half an hour at a time for the rest to catch up. Little John was sweating beer, and cunningly bringing up the rear. Big John complained of sore knees, and the rest strolled through "the park". It was a mere 3 000 ft climb - the equivalent of a walk from the seafront at Cape Town to the top of Table Mountain. But this was through a forest which might have made Tarzan and Jane green with envy.
Vines curled part-way up trees, including giant camphors, yellow-woods and others which soared ten storeys into the sky. Green moss hung in luxuriant drapes from their branches. The undergrowth became so thick that it was almost impossible to step off the path. Red and purple Kilimanjaro impatiens, orchids and flowering vines decorated our route. It was the "short rainy season" - not as I optimistically supposed, a period of short light rains, but a short period of serious rains - and the path was often a bog, even on precipitous slopes. I enjoyed the slurp-slurp-splash-"oh-shit" noises all around me.
Dr Hans makes a meal of the dripping forest - even though he was there in the dry season. He says: "No sooner had we entered this conservatory of luxuriant greenery than we were soaked to the skin. The tall wet undergrowth met above our heads" - ¯undergrowth, mark you - "and at every step the trees grew closer and closer together, festooned and bound stem to stem by endless and inextricable trails of creeper, and beneath this leafy canopy stretched a dainty carpet of rich green ferns, unbroken save by the brown band of our boggy pathway. . . The hanging mosses were as full of water as a sponge, and mercilessly added their quota to our dripping misery."
We stopped for lunch, beside a tree across our path - a mossy log straddling a pool of mud. Usual fare in our daily-issued plastic bag: an egg, a banana, a sandwich of sorts. Later the path twisted onto ridges between increasingly steep ravines. Even these rocky spines were slippery with mud. Sometimes the ridge was merely two paces wide, and you peered down onto treetops on both sides. There was a waterfall below us to add drama.
Suddenly we came out of the rain forest, into a dripping heathland. In place of dense forest we found ourselves, within a few paces, walking among tall tumbling grass and wrist-thick heather-like trees, stretching thinly upwards to about thrice our height. Around one twist in the path we arrived at our camp-site, an eerie arena in which the porters were already putting up tents. In the mist, the spindly trees leant inwards, covered in white lichen and fluttering with grey-white "old man's beard". The camp seemed to suggest a convention of ghosts.
When the sun momentarily broke through it was, if anything, worse. The cone of Kibo no longer looked like a pussy-cat. It hunched up its shoulders, directly above us, almost blotting out the sky, as ominous as a hooded Tibetan monk about to step on an ant. . . and I was the ant.
But, before the sun dropped and the moon rose, clouds carried away Kilimanjaro and its Kibo cap. The mountain was not there again! The challenge had evaporated.
We crouched round a wet fire, nursing our feet and watching our boots smoke. In a 17 km climb we had reached 3 000 m (10 000 feet) in five surprisingly easy hours. And now, in the giant heather and moorlands below the desolate volcano, we were summoned to a feast. Reluctantly withdrawing from the fire, we were ushered to a table-cloth spread on the wet ground. A candle spluttered at each corner of the cloth, lighting up the glistening tin bowls of soup, the warm bread, and the main-course of beef, spaghetti, potatoes and greens. A paper napkin marked each diner's place where a knife, fork and spoon were set at precise angles. If only our stiff limbs had allowed us to squat, this would have been luxury. Instead we gulped down the meal and scrambled into our low-slung tents, escaping the mist and a biting wind that had replaced the warm dank forest air.
I slept fully clothed, inside a down sleeping bag, and wrapped in a "thermal fibre" jacket with hood - but still shivered from the damp and sudden cold. What I longed for was Dr Hans Meyer's "india rubber” bath.
"Tomorrow will be a short walk. . . with just a little more climbing than today," Julius had said. You just had to believe Julius.
* * *
DAY TWO began with hot porridge, followed by eggs, beef, cucumber and tomatoes. What to wear may be the most significant question on Kilimanjaro, but food - and, would you believe, water - also become obsessively important. Was there anything else to life? It was hard to remember.
The day began with a marvellous downhill march to a languid pool which nestled among rocks in dappled sunlight. This idyllic stage of the journey lasted all of five minutes. Then we each loaded two litres of liquid onto our backs - pouring powdered Game into the waterbottles to disguise the taste - and set off up The Ridge, a 2000-foot, seemingly verticle, climb.
The sun beat down, reminding us we were climbing towards it, on the equator. After deep discussions in camp, we agreed we had dressed adequately for the occasion. The best-dressed wore shorts, cotton shirts, and sunburn cream that crept into one's eyes and blinded one to all mountain terrors. I produced the perfect headgear - something never mentioned by Dr Hans Meyer in his treatise, but referred to constantly and tiresomely by my companions. It was a head-fitted sunshade, standing on stilts. I had carefully selected the little head-sunshade's colour scheme to match the mountain's vegetation: red, white, blue and green.
Red for the wild gladioli, blooming as delicately as disas, at 11 000 feet. White for the "everlasting" flowers that followed us right up through the alpine desert to the Kibo cone. Blue for the bracts of the famous Kilimanjaro Lobelia, which builds its floral towers below the caves at 13 000 feet. Green for the tiny leaves of the giant heather, still with us on "The Ridge".
Dr Hans remembers the "rich array of blossom" in another way: "Here and there a ray of sunlight strayed downwards through the leafy canopy overhead, and fell athwart the deep blue flowers among the undergrowth, high above which rose the tall dracaenas, with their glossy leaves and fair white blooms, and the sumach trees with their clusters of brownish red."
We climbed silently and steadily over mossy rocks and lichen-covered logs, everyone practising their altitude`breathing. I could hear them gasping and panting all down the ridge.
The ridge grew thinner, as did the vegetation. And steeper. We looked down, far down, at the mist-draped forest on either side. Beside us loomed the first of the Senecio Johnstoni, a bushy-headed figure rather like the "Old Man" tree of the Namib Desert.
After three hours of heavy breathing (just practising) we clambered up one more pitch of lava, of varying colour and constant hardness, and stopped for lunch on a small, barren plateau. After the staple fare of egg, banana and bread, we swigged our loads of water, and gulped at the always-welcome hot tea. The sun had vanished. The mist was closing in. On Kilimanjaro, temperatures can change by more than 20 deg C in a few hours. As Dr Hans Meyer keeps reminding us "Kilimanjaro is a mountain on which every conceivable climate is to be met with" - from tropics to perma-frost - "producing forest and desert, and varying wildly in degree the higher one goes."
It was varying now from cool to chilly, and from chilly to cold, to damp-cold. My shorts and head-fitted sunshade were now as appropriate as wearing only a jockstrap in church. But my warm clothes had gone ahead with a porter.
"Dad," said Barry gently, "after all those years of lecturing me on mountains about never climbing without a jersey!"
"I'm totally prepared," I said, hurriedly pulling out a '100-percent-guaranteed' waterproof. "Look, it's even got a hood."
Everyone else pulled on their waterproofs - over their jerseys - and we set off again, a troupe of little blue riding hoods. Julius encouraged us: "The next ridge is quite interesting," he said, "and then its just a level walk to camp."
As we clambered upwards, the landscape changed again. It transformed into a wilderness of black tree-stems, with no apparent growth except the parasitic old-man's beard, fluttering in tan and grey straggles in the wind. Volcanic rock of all shapes and sizes tumbled about us as we crossed several tiny ravines and walked past a pool beneath an overhanging rock. I refilled my bottle from a curtain of water which fell from the roof of the pool. The dripping veil was close to ice.
Soon we were on the "level walk to camp" - relatively level, as we traversed westwards below the face of Kibo - but wildly tumultuous on either side, in the mist. Our party had stretched out into ones and twos on the 3 800m contour, and walking alone, I tried to think of any landscape I'd ever seen that compared with it. A moonscape, perhaps? Or the Koue Bokkeveld on the edge of the Cedarberg range in the Cape, where the strangely shaped, twisted pillars of rock leer at you through the mist? Or something from Macbeth? That was it. Out of the mist loomed a large cave, and at its wide, dark mouth, wisps of dank air twisted among swirls of smoke - mingling with the steam that rose from damp bodies, busily concocting a witch's brew.
Investigation revealed some porters, huddled together and trying to light a fire among their feet. I hurried on to catch up with Barry. But the "just a level walk" continued, kilometre after kilometre through half-seen, scattered rock. There were also ridges of it, advancing like waves from the mist. Mounting one of the largest, we found ourselves on a tiny ash-and-mud plateau, tucked between two low rockwalls. Shira camp.
A tent was being erected for us, and Barry and I watched with detached patience - until a sharp shower struck, and we dived for the tent's half-ready shelter. We managed to untangle ourselves when the rain stopped pelting down, so that I was able to step into the mud to count the boots protruding from the other huddled tents. Apart from the motionless occupants of the boots, there seemed to be no other life in camp - until some friendly little birds arrived, moving among us and pushing us out of the way as if they owned the place. I suppose they did. They were here a hundred years ago when Dr Hans remarked, "A species of stonechat makes its home in these inhospitable wastes; and so little do these tiny creatures know of the shyness born of the fear of man, that they came to the tent-door and picked up the food we put down for them from among our very feet."
Meanwhile, "the icy helmet of Kibo gleamed and glittered, apparently close at hand."
My proposal that we should take "just a short walk" before supper was accepted with the enthusiasm of a message from the Receiver of Revenue. It was resented especially because, "Walk high, sleep low," was the correct procedure all of us knew meant "climb another 500 metres higher before bed to avoid AMS". Nothing could have been so irritating.
I wasn't fighting AMS, however, it was not part of the plan. I merely wished to get slightly dry. Only Barry and Harold thought an extra walk was a good idea. We strolled slowly up the lava-strewn plateau to another wave of rock about two kilometres above the camp. Kibo was not there again, thank goodness. Clearly there was no need to make preparations to climb the non-existing challenge. But Mount Meru to the west, rose spectacularly in the setting sun. The volcano, an almost perfect cone, soared 15 000 feet above the African plain.
That night we rationed out our whisky once more, and huddled round the campfire - built of wood carried up the last section of mountain by porters. We were served the usual feast, hot soup again being the most memorable dish.
And then the die was cast. Julius, at the urging of Little John, decided it would be possible to do the Arrow Glacier route to the summit. The original plan had been to spend next day, "the longest day", traversing the entire face of Kilimanjaro, eastwards to the Barranco Hut in order to make our assault on the peak - a straight slog up the scree.
Instead we decided to go for the alpine route - up the rocks, over the ice, and into the crater, then attack Kibo's Uhuru peak from within; its steepest face.
It meant that if snow fell we might be prevented even from making an attempt. We had no crampons, no rope, and not enough ice axes. We would simply have to turn back. It was a risk I was more than willing to take. In any case, I reasoned, I wasn't here to climb into craters. I'd come to climb a mountain. The new route made staying behind all the more logical. My planned failure was falling into place. I was almost disappointed with the inevitability and ease of it.
* * *
DAY THREE saw the whole party climbing where three of us had climbed the evening before. We stayed in Indian file for about five kilometres, reaching 4,300 metres before stopping at a bleak outcrop of lava where the only interesting feature was. . . well, not to mince matters. . .old shit. Here we were, at nearly 15 000 feet, standing on a pad of cattle dung!
"Buffalo", explained Julius. "They come sometimes up the corridor from the west, the Kenyan side, to lick salt." Oh, good. For a moment I thought we were about to encounter llamas on yaks, or vice versa.
"And this?" I ask pointing a delicate boot at more old excrement.
"Wild dog. Lots of them about. They hunt up here."
"And look at this," I pointed at a splotch of tiny bones.
"Lammergeyer droppings. They hunt the mice in the rock desert.
Having digested enough of Nature's digested rejects, we turned back to camp - but not soon enough to miss a storm that swept up the mountain towards us. Small flakes of snow turned to sleet, and then to heavy rain as we descended into a black cloud. We slithered down the wet ash and mud, and dived into our tents. Water dripped through the roof, and pools formed among our bedding and rucksacks. My sleeping bag showed dark wet patches. Our tent sagged, and a river began to form, running down the campsite to our spot on the edge - where the wind blew in the opposite direction. Water seeped under the fly-sheet. It began to look serious for Barry and me.
I crawled out and "dug" a trench with my boot in an effort to deviate the flow, swearing at the absent porters for not having erected the tent properly. Dr Hans would have dealt with this in better fashion. He dubbed some of his porters "ugly, lazy, insolent, cowardly, weak, dishonest, untruthful - typical . . " He described one Arab slave (whom he happened to be using, 50 years after the official abolition of slavery) "the biggest tattler, mischief-maker, toad-eater and toper going", though he grudgingly paid tribute to the physical performance of his porters as "something wonderful; would do credit to any respectable beast of burden, to which indeed, in many respects they bear a striking resemblance."
Dr Hans, however, felt that as a liberal sort of African explorer, he perhaps did not allow his Askaris sufficient latitude with the whip. Only a few porters would be lashed each night, as the good doctor felt it better to "go easy at first, then gradually pull in the reins.
I was wondering how to pull in the reins, when two excellent chaps appeared from nowhere; re-rigged the tent; then arrived with hot tea - and hot popcorn! There are few porters on this Earth who will volunteer to make you hot popcorn on an outcrop at 3 500 metres in the pouring rain. I toasted the popcorn-makers with whisky, which seemed to help dry out the tent a bit.
The rising stream outside our tent was a worry, but all I could think of to deal with it was to hum periodically the nearest I could get to the tune of "River stay way from my door." It worked! Next morning, when I peered out, the stream had frozen into solid ice - right at our tent-flap, where normally we would have left our boots.
Boots were a constant trouble. Either they were wet and cold, or they were so hot from being placed too close to the campfire that one burnt one's fingers on them. At night, boots were in danger of being frozen. So you took your boots to your bosom - while they were so caked with mud that they deposited it inside your sleeping bag, in your food, and even in your eye.
The donning and shedding of boots at an altitude above 13 000 feet becomes the most arduous exercise known to man. Lying on one's back with one's feet touching the tent roof, trying to tie or untie knots, is not a natural thing to do at the best of times. At altitude it leaves one prostrate, gasping and practising deep breathing for the next half hour. The only endeavour to rival it is climbing in or out of a sleeping bag in a constricted space at the same altitude. This contortion leaves you short of breath for hours.
"Short of breath! My God. Are my lips blue? Are my lungs burbling? Am I dying?" Those questions leap up in the middle of the night after you have struggled out of your bag, climbed into your boots, and crawled to the cliff edge for a pee.
It took us three nights to work out a scheme to deal with such unavoidable emergencies. "Why not stay in bed and pee in the boot?" was a proposition considered, but reluctantly dismissed. It led us to the opposite solution: an open pair of sandals. We shared these through the night. One would rise, step barefoot into the waiting sandals, and crawl out onto the moonlit ice.
The ice patterns on the barren slopes above Shira are fascinating - even in the dark. But they are revealed in all their glory at dawn - strange, glinting formations of thin ice, thick ice, square ice. Strangest of all are the tiny towers off ice - no more than 3cms high - which rise in the night in minature forests - each crystal stem bearing on its head a single drop of ash or a grain of lava.
Dr Hans goes on forever about the "composition of equatorial snows" from soft and flaky to dry and granular; and about the varieties of ice. My contribution -fairy forests of ice - must fully justify this modern expedition, and do away with any need to climb the actual peaks.
* * *
DAY FOUR brought alarming implications.
Steve, the fittest among us, is ill. He spends most of the time in his sleeping bag, and Dr Harold cannot help him much. Steve is whiter than the snows of Kilimanjaro, but he is adamant about continuing. Big John is experiencing headaches and disorientation. But he has no thought of giving up. And I? I have constant thoughts of giving up, but to my horror I have never felt fitter. The big test of fitness - constantly discussed by every member of the party - is urination. "You must urinate clearly, and copiously," Little John kept reminding us. His urgings made me so nervous I began to fear for the erosion of the mountainside.
Mist swirled about us as we climbed slowly through the stone desert, where "greyish-yellow mud and ashes prevail" and the plateau is "strewn with enormous boulders as if it had been a playground of the Cyclops". The scale of it makes for a long and uninteresting walk, and for the sake of variety I began to climb easy rock faces. The cold crept more tightly around us the higher we went. Suddenly, in as barren a spot as it is possible to find, we stopped among the mud and boulders for lunch.
"Why here?"
"It gets colder further up," said Mike, our second guide patiently. A new meaning to cold comfort I thought, biting on the boiled egg, bun and banana as rapidly as possible. I ought to be suffering from lack of appetite about now. No such luck.
The mist turns into fine snow, granulated blobs of it tapping on our Ventex hoods and falling off. On a dramatically steep slope, tight little snowdrops hit the ground and bounce down towards us, crossing our path before disappearing down the mountain. Visibility is low, and everyone seems to have disappeared. I decide to step it out a bit, humming to myself and practising those damn deep breaths. It is a stimulating experience, feeling alone among shadowy peaks and bottomless valleys. I'm still humming when I bump into three startled porters. They move off at speed, but not before I've discovered they are the advance party - and that the rest are somewhere in the mists behind.
We come together at Lava Tower, a vast block of black rock looming out of a dark grey sky. Steve arrives last, the colour of ash and snow. He is determined not to turn back, and sets off in front while the rest of us take a break, enjoying chocolate and great draughts of water (to shed clearly and copiously). We march through ice-crusted water and mud, then turn upwards to cross a frozen, icicle-adorned stream. We struggle up one of those long, really serious inclines in the snow - where the sun breaks through to reveal momentarily a jagged profile, high above, of white and black orange-tipped peaks. Clearly we are lost. That cannot be our mountain up there. It belongs to the Himalayas or the Andes.
Up and up. Down into sharp gullies, then up and up again. At last we have to overtake Steve, stooped over a rock on the foot-wide path. He wants no help, but follows the party courageously. Through more snow, and mist, until we come over a spur and stumble upon our fog-shrouded tents, already pitched. All of us burrow into them - and stay there, until somebody peeps out - and shouts.
We scramble out, to find clear sunshine and an extraordinary scene. A gigantic amphitheatre has reared up all around us. Behind is the ridge we stumbled over in the fog. To our left and right, two arms of the mountain enfold us. We are in a bowl of scree. But ahead - right before our eyes - is a towering red wall which shrugs off rivers of ice and and waterfalls of frozen snow. The mist licks at its flank. We are staring at the Great Breach Wall, soaring a thousand metres - a single cliff, as high as Table Mountain from its seashore - straight up into the blue. On top is a great bare dome of rock.
"Is that Uhuru Peak?" someone breathes.
"No. Uhuru Peak is two kilometres further on."
Forget the facts. And forget the ridiculous proposal to climb it. We are standing at the foot of one of Nature's most powerful creations, a mighty edifice thrown up by molten lava and capped with millions of tons of ice. A gigantic temple of rock, contorted with pressure and coloured with fire, then shaped into saw-toothed edges and jagged ledges by millions of years of heat and cold and elemental battering. If it were to fall down it could crush, and bury at once, all the seven wonders of the world.
The excitement, simply of being there in that awesome amphitheatre, is intense.
"Let's get closer!" I called, and Barry and Harold and I set off, over the rising scree towards the glacier at the foot of the wall. We climbed until our tents down in the bowl became mere pink pimples among the stones, then scrambled back in time for hot soup at dusk.
"What the hell were you doing?" asked our intrepid leader.
"Walking high; sleeping low".
There is no answer to that.
I would have been quite happy if the expedition had ended at this point - except for one thing. We hadn't tried on our special mountaineering clothes yet. The main topic around the campfire - again - was what we would wear for the assault. Little John set the pace as usual by repeating, "I'll wear everything I've got." I started, methodically for the third time, taking them through the engrossing list of the items I would don. Before reaching the fourth layer some of them were dozing, others were moving towards their tents. It was only 7pm. It must have been the altitude.
Huddled in my sleeping bag, I opened all my plastic-wrapped "Christmas presents". A new thermal vest. And thermal longjohns. That vastly expensive, special, double-pile sweatshirt. A dry shirt to put over the sweat shirt. And to put over the shirt, a bulky down jacket, until now squeezed into a bag smaller than a pawpaw. Over the down jacket went my woollen parka. Also to be unwrapped and donned were new scarlet stockings, plus two pairs of less colourful socks to guard against frozen feet. Woollen gloves, and a pair of mittens for the hands. Fully dressed, I wrapped into my down bag and prepared for sleep.
"Haven't you got anything more to wear?" asked Barry.
"I'll put my 100-percent-guaranteed-waterproof suit on in the morning," I assured him.
It was only 7.45pm. But we would have to rise at midnight. No turning back. There was no-one to turn back with. They had just informed me - too late - that once we began that climb, the only way down was - forward. "Unless you are very ill - dying - you have to go up to the crater before coming down the easier route.
My best laid plans. . . betrayed.
"Perhaps we should finish off the whisky now," I suggested. It was the first of my many mistakes. The whisky reached neither my cold limbs nor my brain, but lay like a bitter reproach on my chest - and it stayed there until the following afternoon. I awoke with it burning my lungs. My watch said 23.20. Less than an hour left for sleep. . . Fifteen minutes later I was rudely awakened. It was 25 minutes to 1 a.m. I'd forgotten my watch was still on South African time.
* * *
DAY FIVE began a little later than scheduled, but we set off in perfect weather.
Coming out of the shadows of the ridge above our camp we stepped into sparkling moonlight. Everyone switched off their headlamps in order to see more clearly. We followed a thin, winding rocky path straight up the crater breach. Arrow glacier gleamed on our right. The Great Breach Wall towered over us, a silent world of its own. Julius picked his way through small snowdrifts and patches of ice, leading us towards the rocky spine that led straight up to the crater wall.
After an hour or so, Steve, battling silently every step up the mountain, finally sank in exhaustion. A long conference was held around him, and he was finally persuaded to turn back. Julius assigned him one of the guides. Steve and his escort would return to camp; sleep till dawn; then follow the eastern route around the buttress and meet us at a lower camp that night.
We carried on. There was ice on the rocks where we reached the first pitch. At the top of this rockridge, we looked over its edge and saw the glacier, sliding away far below. Those of us who disliked heights wished the moon wasn't so bright.
The spine we were climbing narrowed, until it was no longer possible to avoid the snow and ice which straddled its thinnest sections. Julius gently traversed to the right again. It was my first experience of snow work, and I did what I've seen done on film: kick a step in the slippery crust with my boot; test it; kick another step. Julius, just ahead, seemed to approve. We worked our way slowly over; each climber ready to assist the next.The process was repeated several times. There was time to gaze down on the moonlit world below. Our camp was a cluster of half-hidden red spots in a dark little bowl. Lava Tower was a stark black pimple. And the folds of Kilimanjaro rolled endlessly downwards until they seemed to fall onto the lap of Mount Meru, perhaps 80 kms away.
Several of our party were struggling now. Big John had reached a rock-pitch he could not climb. A way around had to be found. Harold was clinging to a rock, not feeling too well. Except for Barry, the rest in the party did not appear to be enjoying themselves. Just my bad luck - but I was still feeling so strangely exhilarated and filled with wellbeing that there could be no excuse for giving up. I stood on the edge of the abyss on our right, ready almost to fly. Looking up, I could see a breathtaking icicle "waterfall" far above us. Its frozen stalactites hung perhaps 10 metres long, like Dracula's fangs. The moment was unforgettable. It deserved conscious appreciation, and sharing. Time for some good cheer.
"Hey! Isn't this a nice walk!"
I shouldn't have said "walk".
But it wasn't, strictly speaking, a climb. The rock-grade was no more than a 'C', with no aids and little technique required. Still, "walk" seemed to irritate them somewhat.
The full moon, having banished every vestige of cloud and mist, smiled benignly, and faded. At the same moment the sun sent long fingers of gold scurrying past the great buttress, stroking the folds of the mountain beneath us. The rays brushed the stark-standing side of the crater edge, against which we suddenly found ourselves, and we threaded our way between huge fallen rocks towards the top of the breach in the volcano's rim. Impatient to get on, I pushed against Julius, stubbornly moving pole pole around yet another buttress. Suddenly we were through the gap, over the rim, and into the caldera. I found myself walking on snow-covered flat ground. Julius turned; hugged me; and threw his arms in the air in a victory salute.
"You've made it!" he shouted. I hugged him back, but was too astonished to reply. Over his right shoulder I was riveted by a sight inside the northern edge of the crater. It was a wall of ice, golden-tipped by sunlight, but cold green, blue and white down its immense cliff-face. It was in the wrong place. It belonged not on a mountain in equatorial Africa. It came from all the pictures I'd seen of Antarctica. Barry was right behind me, so we went into the hugging routine again. As each of our party and our guides came over the ridge, we hugged. At least it kept us all warm. The temperature seemed to drop 20 degrees as the sun rose. I wished, at that moment, for Dr Hans's recommended "snow veil." Our noses burnt with cold, and Goerts had an icicle on his beard. We wrapped scarves round each other's balaclavas until the only unwrapped piece of anyone's face was behind dark glasses. Then, gasping for water, we unwrapped again. Barry's "specially insulated" water bottle was frozen solid. I pulled mine from under my waterproof, my parka and my down jacket - only to hear the tinkling of ice in the two-litre can. . .but the liquid reached our lips and soothed the rasp in our throats.
After stuffing down chocolates and sultanas and all our personal goodies, the party set off, in habitual single file, across the open crater. We were in a white, frosted, misty, sunlit, empty world. We skirted the dome within the crater and set off towards an icefield to the east of us. Like the Northern Icefield which I had first seen over Julius's shoulder, the Furtwangler Glacier nearby rose straight from the snow-covered ash in the form of a cold green-blue wall, several storeys high. It was one of the smaller glaciers, we discovered later. Supposing it to be the only accessible one inside Kilimanjaro, Barry and I left the climbing party and struck off across the snow to examine it and take pictures. Unthinkingly, I threw off my mitten and my woollen glove in order to press the camera button. After about 30 seconds I looked down in astonishment at my bare hand. It felt as heavy, hard and brittle as a brick. Feeling came back only after I thrust it back into its glove and mitten. The pain and the cold were indescribable.
Barry and I "hurried" to catch up the caravan, slowly slogging its way across the crater and around the tip of the Furtwangler Glacier. As we turned the corner the mist vanished, the wind died, the sun shone. We were in yet another different world. By comparison with the Western side, this was almost sunbathing weather. It was possible to strip layers of clothing, and to change a camera spool with one's bare hands. We strolled alongside the ice-wall as if it were a city block in a Manhattan Spring. At the base of the inner-dome of the crater was a flat plain of snow-dusted ash which we traversed, leaving deeply marked trails. Julius was waiting for us at the foot of Uhuru Peak. We stared up, from within the crater, at the highest point of the volcano's wall. Yet another mountain to climb. We could see a faint path, zig-zagging up the near-cliff face, and disappearing into the rocks above. Everyone sighed. Practising deep breathing, I assumed."Now we go really, really pole pole" smiled Julius. He stepped onto the gradient, shuffling one boot just six inches ahead of the other; shuffling again, six inches forward. We followed, like the last goods train for the Rocky Mountains.
About an hour later, as we approached the top, I felt that same surge of excitement and energy again. People were complaining of splitting headaches, of nausea, of extreme lassitude. Harold, perhaps the fittest left among us, was leaning on his ski-pole in deep contemplation. He was contemplating puking. The dreaded AMS had finally mown down everybody. It had even touched Julius, it seemed. But, for no medically known reason, it had not affected Barry, or me - except that it had foiled my carefully laid plan for dignified failure. Instead, I felt again as if I could fly. I wanted to run up to the top.
"The thing is," I explained to Barry as we waited for our party below the crater edge, "you've got no blood in your veins. Therefore you don't need oxygen. Why didn't medical science work this out long ago?"
I started the Kilimanjaro shuffle again, six inches behind Julius, as he clambered to the final rim. We stepped over it, onto the broad, barren dome of gravel and rock that sloped gently away to the East. Julius and I hugged and embraced again. More congratulations and much jubilation. The chain of hugging went on for about 15 minutes as every member of the party came over the top, smiling broadly at last. We could see the peak about 50 metres away and about six metres higher than the surface we were standing on. We waited for Little John and Debbie to lead us there. Debbie, fighting back nausea, had produced South Africa's new flag, and off we marched, in serried ranks rather than single file. The hugging was about to begin all over again at the peak, when we realised, to Julius's amusement, that it wasn't the peak. The Peak - Uhuru - was another 100 metres along the path,and about two metres higher. We slogged on to the signpost and beacon - and then we really hugged. Seven of us and our guides, each twice-embraced. Then seven "team photos", and more congratulations all round.
It was the moment to produce the ultimate survival kit - something quite unknown to the good doctor Hans. Here, for the first time, was revealed the secret recipe belonging to the inner sanctum of the Cape Mountain Club. I pulled, from the inner layers of my clothing, a dark bottle containing a dark liquid."Try it, Julius"
"What is it?"
"It warms the cockles and carries you to mountain tops. It is an equal mixture of two parts – ‘Obs’ and spirits - sherry and brandy. Half a litre of especially cheap Old Brown Sherry - mixed with half a litre of any old brandy, Paarl Rock, or Courvoiseur Cognac. It's the Obs that does it."
“Babu, is this what gave you the steam?"
"The thought of it, Julius. Now we shall all taste."
There were many toasts, but the most deserved I thought was for absent Steve, the man who had fought this mountain the hardest. About 20 percent of people of all shapes and sizes and ages and habits are struck down by AMS and cannot climb to Uhuru Peak. Of the luckier ones, about 80 percent are affected to a noticable degree. Only the odd-balls feel nothing at all at that height, and I wasn't sure whether this was good luck, or bad luck. All I knew was that it was an exalting experience to be there.
* * *
From Heaven to Hell
In the midst of our merry little sherry party I saw a crowning sight. Wheeling above our heads, at nearly 20 000 feet, were two black ravens, but nearer to us, hunched on a rock and peering down the cliff face into the steaming crater, sat a Lammergeyer - the rare Bearded vulture. It's ominous silhouette remains at the centre of my mind's eye whenever I replay the scene at the topmost point of Africa: The omen of death – the vulture – stares into a crater smouldering with fumeroles and surrounded by ice cliffs. It’s a postcard of the entrance to Hell.
Very picturesque.
I see a vast ash-bowl, rimmed by a circular wall of crumbling rock. It encloses an inner dome - like a giant boil, with a hole at its centre where, as Dr Hans first observed, "in the depths of the yawning cauldron at our feet, light wreaths of vapour curled softly and ceaselessly".
But the most impressive sights within the crater are the ice-cliffs, flashing and glittering in the high equatorial sun. "How strange," says Dr Hans, "to think of the contrast between this icy stream and the former fiery incandesence of its bed -between this scene of sublime repose and solemn silence and the far-off time when the glowing rock issued red and molten from the womb of the mountain, shaken to its very centre by its mighty birthpangs. It is a spectacle of imposing majesty and unapproachable grandeur."
It is also a spectacle, a reminder, of the powerful forces still at play. Where lava once breached the volcano wall and flowed down to the plains, a vast sheet of ice forces its way through the rock and continues to carve, with its melting waters, a deep barranco into the side of "the world's highest stand-alone mountain". The glacier was first measured as 1500 feet thick, cascading from a height of 18 700 feet to below 13,100. And this is merely one section of the ancient Kibo ice-cap.
[The “ice-cap” has, in only ten years since this was written, virtually melted into history. In a decade or more there may be no trace of the grandiose spectacle that Kilimanjaro has
offered Africa for tens of thousands of years.]
What I see from the summit, looking East and North, are the sides of a dome, like St Peters of Rome, falling away into unseen forests below - and beyond the ancient, giant volcano stretch the flat, dusty plains of Africa. Mount Kenya, 200 kms away to the North, is sometimes seen above the haze. The coast, and Zanzibar, lie flatly out of sight in the Eastern haze. Mount Meru's volcanic cone - and the great, jagged broken parts of Mount Mawenzi - stand as pillars among the soaring cumulus clouds. et the first man to have stood on its topmost point describe Kilimanjaro in his excitement of discovery. "In the future, as in the past, the 'Ethopian Mount Olympus' will remain the wonder of all beholders; and until the time when it too shall dissolve and pass away, its majestic grandeur, its beauty and its solititude, shall quicken the fancy and excite the feelings of all who in the silent language of nature can trace the voice of an eternal Godhead."
* * *
The secret challenge
What Herr Doktor does not tell you - and no mountaineer ever seems to either, no matter where in the world he climbs - is how to get down.Barry had remarked on this earlier, and I had actually measured the timing of the proposed return route; decided it was impossible, but dismissed it as something I didn't intend to tackle anyway. Only after we had fooled around on the top of Africa for about an hour, did I take stock of the return journey.
We were to go down the way we had originally intended to come up - not the Marangu/Hans Meyer/ "tourist" route, but a less used, steeper one. We were to go "just straight down the mountain for about three hours" over a distance it took three days to climb. Still filled with the elation of the team's achievement, we set off in twos and threes in great spirits. The wall of the main ice massif reared up on our right, creating giant gothic towers and oriental minarets at its edges. The path on the crater lip was broad and flat, undulating downwards towards the lowest point in the crater’s rim. We did not deign to go there, to Gillman's Point - the place seen by many climbers as edge of the rim, and therefore a "victory" point in climbing Kilimanjaro. Instead, at Stella Point on the 19 000-foot contour, we turned our backs on the crater and headed straight down the side of the mountain. I found myself bounding down the scree, leaping first to left, then to the right, with the loose stones sliding under each impact and carrying me even faster down the peak. The exhilarating descent petered out after less than 200 metres. The exertion, at that altitude, robbed me of air, and battered me with the first signsof AMS. . . well, irretrievable loss of breath. The rest of the descent was a nightmare which I must pass over as quickly as possible. It did not take us three hours to reach the forest edge. It took us seven. Barry had given most of his water to a guide who was feeling the altitude - and by midday we were parched with thirst. By 3pm, after steep and unmitigated descent, my knees began to lock. Occasionally the only thing that saved me from being struck immobile and keeling over, was my ski-pole. At about 4pm, I was clinging onto the branches of the vegetation that finally appeared, and sliding down the mud. A branch broke and I toppled forward to disaster, my head coming to rest against a boulder.As I lay there, Barry leapt from the ledge, right over me, and shouted from below, "Dad, are you alright?"
I opened my eyes too soon.
The tragedy was that if I hadn't been too tired to think, I could have lain there, eyes closed in peace, until a rescue team carried me the rest of the way down the mountain.
Worse, the second tragedy was that my backpack had not only broken my fall, it had broken my priceless "lightweight guaranteed unbreakable" bottle for carrying obs.
We hobbled into camp shortly after 5pm - having climbed up - and decidedly down - for nearly 17 hours. We had covered only 30 kilometres. What on earth had possessed me to break from my original plan? How, in my ignorance of his alternative route, I had envied Steve, during the painful descent.
Steve, a near-walking ghost, appeared at camp an hour later. Despite his illness, he had made a journey longer than ours, traversing right round the mountain -a journey which included a thousand-foot descent in order to make a thousand-foot climb out of the great barranco. Then he'd come down the mountain the same way as we had hobbled it.
Next morning it was difficult to order one's legs to move. But by nine o'clock I was too enchanted by the forest to notice rebellious limbs. We glimpsed the Kilimanjaro loerie, scampering through the tree-tops. We watched a family of blue monkeys rattling around the foliage 60 feet above us. Proteas and palms gave way to orchids and ferns - and a final grassy stretch of double path which seemed like some English country lane. And then we were out of the National Park.The expedition ended the way it had begun - in champagne.
Before I could stop him, Harold was attempting to decapitate a bottle in Hungerian cavalry fashion. He should at least have used a panga. He used a breadknife. Unfortunately he missed his thumb. The neck of the bottle flew, sharp as the edge of Kibo crater, straight into the swimming pool.What were we celebrating? That Kibo "was there"? "That we had "conquered it"? The champagne, as I saw it, was to celebrate failure.I had failed to carry out my planned failure - a noble plan, redolent with maturity and wisdom and some humility. Instead I had turned back into a compulsive peak-bagger - the lowest of all high climbers. Sheer luck, in avoiding all that pulmonary cerebral stuff, had carried me to the top. But at what terrible cost? What had I achieved? I had come to know what "Babu" means. I was being congratulated on being the Babu of the moment."Julius," somebody asked the entire assembled company, "is he the oldest man you have gone to the top with?""No," said Julius graciously. But he added: "But I tell you he is the oldest I have heard of on the Arrow Glacier route". For many more than 60 years, aging has never bothered me. Now, the records of Kili tell me, I am old. I call it Kilimanjaro's revenge.
|
