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Nov. 18, 2011
Mountain’s majesty revealed
Ascent Team acclimatizes on the climb up to Kilimanjaro’s summit.
DAN LEVITT
In September 2011, 10 Vancouverites began their journey to raise awareness of the impact of Alzheimer disease by hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, considered to be the highest freestanding mountain in the world and the highest mountain in Africa. To date, the group has raised more than $125,000 and, since the Ascent Team program began in 1998, more than $2 million has been donated. This is the second diary instalment in a three-part series from one of the trekkers.
It’s the morning of our first day of hiking. Ascent Team gathers in the central courtyard of the Marangu Hotel as all 33 porters and guides assemble and are introduced. We each find the porter who will be carrying our bag for the trip and introduce ourselves. The porters then grab their loads, balancing them on their heads, and we follow them to the transport vehicles. The 60-kilometre journey to the mountain is slow, as we drive dirt roads with large potholes, passing through numerous small villages. The roads are full of people walking, most are women carrying something on their heads: water, bananas, even lumber. The kids along the roadside all wave to us as we pass by in our Jeeps, yelling “Jambo!” (hello in Swahili).
Hours later, we arrive at the Rongai Route gate on the northeastern side of Mt. Kilimanjaro along the border between Tanzania and Kenya. After all the anticipation, we start our ascent up the trail. Starting at 6,000 feet above sea level, we maintain a very, very slow pace, to decrease the impact of the high altitude. Our first night on the mountain will be spent in Simba Camp at 8,500 feet.
Rongai Route offers a sense of unspoiled wilderness. Slowly, we ascend the mountain the vegetation changes from a managed forest to a tropical jungle. As the trail meanders through the jungle, we stop, as something appears to be moving high above us in the trees. Quietly, we watch in amazement as big, black-and-white monkeys soar through the tree canopy, high above our trail. The mainly arboreal Colobus monkeys use branches as trampolines, jumping up and down on them to get liftoff for leaps from branch to branch. They playfully leap up and then drop downward, falling with outstretched arms and legs to grab the next branch. They appear to glide through the air as their fur and tails appear to act as parachutes during their long leaps.
The sun sets as we reach Simba Camp. We meet in the dining tent for our first meal together on the mountain. Fred and John introduce themselves; they will be our servers during the trek. Sue tells us to get a good night’s rest as we have a long day of hiking ahead.
I awake at the crack of dawn and, with my camera in hand, I find a clearing in the full campground and take a picture of the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro with the sun shining brightly in the cloudless sky. Below, in the valley, I see the jungle and forest and villages and a mountain range on the horizon.
After breakfast, we pack up our gear and set off for a full day of hiking. Clouds have rolled up from the valley and we put on a layer of Gortex raingear, anticipating a soggy day ahead. The dusty trail quickly turns muddy from the rain, and we are behind schedule as we reach our lunch destination. Our servers meet us in a cave, where they present us with hot beverages and where we take shelter from the rain. After lunch, we plod along until the late-afternoon winds give way to breaks of blue sky and the rain appears to be a distant memory. The sun begins to set ahead of us on the trail and we are still one hour away from Kikelewa Camp at 12,000 feet. Sue tells us to add a layer of warm clothing from our daypacks and to strap on our headlamps as we begin to hike in the early evening darkness toward the camp. Upon arrival, we head directly for the dining tent and are greeted once again by the smiling faces of Fred and John. We take off our clothes, which are damp from the long hike, dry off and settle into to our warm sleeping bags. We quickly fall asleep.
At breakfast, we debrief the previous day and talk about the importance of preparedness, and we are reminded that there is “no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear.” As we head out on our hike toward our next campsite, Mawenzi Tarn at 14,100 feet, I begin to feel nausea set in. I stop drinking water and snacking, which only accentuates the early stages of altitude sickness. Luckily, we have a short hike and arrive at Mawenzi in time for lunch. In the dining tent, I am quiet and try not to draw attention to the fact that I cannot manage to eat or even drink. I close my eyes and pray it’s not serious. I make it through the meal without incident and garner enough common sense to arrange a short acclimatization hike up several hundred feet. Joseph, one of the African guides, offers to accompany the four of us who have chosen this optional hike. On the hike, I start to drink copious amounts of water and quickly run through my two-litre Platypus water system and refill it from a reserve in my backpack. As we descend back toward the camp, I begin to feel better and lay down for a nap before dinner. We will spend two nights at this elevation to acclimatize and rest for our big summit day. The second night at Mawenzi there is a violent thunderstorm that keeps most of us awake. In the morning, the mountain is painted white from a fresh coat of snow.
We are all in high spirits as the summit day has arrived. Or rather, summit day, night and day, since we are about to embark on a 36-hour marathon. The plan is for us to walk across what’s called the Saddle and make our way to Kibo Hut at 15,400 feet. After a few hours of rest, we will start the climb to the summit just before midnight. Uhuru Summit is at 19,340 feet, and that’s the goal we all have in mind.
At breakfast, Sue remarks that we are doing very well with handling the altitude. She talks about the fact that we are going up as a team and we are going to stick together. There is a strong bond among team members, as everyone has rallied around the idea of reaching our goal together.
The highlight of the day is crossing the barren moonscape that is the Saddle, an unearthly experience. We are hiking in the middle of two weather systems, one hugging Mawenzi, now behind us, and the other, in front of us, hiding Kibo. The moving clouds envelop us and then disappear, leaving bright sun behind. At the same time, I am reminded that Alzheimer disease is like being in a fog; those afflicted come in and out of it. It is a great visual reminder of why we are climbing the mountain. The hike across the Saddle is truly a test of our patience. It is flat and it would be easy to want to walk briskly across it. However, we are reminded to maintain our slow, shuffling pace.
After lunch, we reach the base of Kibo and start climbing upwards toward our high camp. During one of our breaks, Sue uses her walking pole as a pointer to show us the trail starting from Kibo Hut to Gillman’s Point, the top of the crater rim, where we will hike through the night. We continue slowly trekking up toward our campsite while keeping an eye on the top of the mountain that appears to come into clearer focus with each step.
By mid-afternoon, we reach Kibo Hut. Sue explains that we have several hours to get our gear organized for the final ascent and to nap before dinner. With the aid of earplugs, I manage to sleep for an hour before dinner. Surprisingly, the altitude has not affected me very much – and the spaghetti Bolognese tastes almost as good as it does in Bologna! Sue encourages us to eat so that we have energy for our climb later in the evening. We review our timeline, with our peak experience now just under 12 hours away. After a few reminders of what to wear on the sub-zero and wind-chilled night climb, how to pack our water systems and to have energy bars easily accessible in bite size pieces, we head to our tents.
It’s 6:30 p.m. Just as I am getting ready for my evening nap, Sue pops by our tents to tell us that we are waking up a half hour early, in three and a half hours. Crawling into my down winter sleeping bag, I lay my toque-covered head on my makeshift pillow and try not to think that the time we’ve been training for and dreaming about is just a couple of hours away.
Dan Levitt is executive director of Tabor Village, a seniors care community located in Abbotsford, and a member of the 2011 Alzheimer Ascent Team.
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