Woman on Top (29 page)

So I rode in the taxi struggling to make clear my intention and it appeared to be very simple: getting to the summit of the mountain and back. I had never backed down from any challenge before, so climbing to the summit of Kilimanjaro was next. All the rest of what might happen would be revealed on the journey, whether my intention or not.

•  •  •

On the plane from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro my terror surfaced. A dark moonless sky covered Africa so we saw nothing of the continent below. About thirty of the men and women on the plane wore hats and t-shirts from various trekking companies. And of all of the climbers I could see, it appeared I might be the only one traveling alone. Alone. I tried to settle into my small coach seat on the long ride, comforted by the knowledge I’d be heading home in two weeks no matter what happened.

Or at least I assumed I’d be going home. Around ten people die each year attempting to scale the mountain. They die from pulmonary edema, cerebral edema, heart attacks, acute mountain sickness, falls and the rare avalanche. Those ten are among the 40,000 people who attempt to climb Kili each year. A thousand people are evacuated from the mountain. Roughly 15,000 climbers actually make it to Uhuru, the summit.

When we finally landed at the tiny Kilimanjaro airport packed with climbers, the group of two women and five men who would be trekking with me introduced themselves as we gathered our luggage. They appeared in the age range from thirty to sixty. As we stood there, the power in the terminal went off. The unexpected and unpredictable, something we craved on this journey, had just begun.

Just as we arrived at the small rustic lodge where we’d stay before our climb began, another group of climbers checked in ahead of us. Standing at the end of the line, a man caught my eye. A tall handsome guy wearing a black t-shirt and khaki shorts, he had an athletic, muscular build with well-defined arms and legs. If getting up this mountain required a body like his, then the joke had to be on me.

We had a long, leisurely dinner that evening as we chatted and tried to gauge the chemistry of our group. By the end of the meal, the moment came when we looked around at one another seated at the large wooden table. For the next week our lives would be intertwined in potentially dangerous and difficult conditions. Each one of us appeared pleased, apparently relieved, that the group at first glance might be a very lucky role of the dice.

•  •  •

The next day we remained in neutral. A day to acclimate. As we took our time eating lunch on the porch of a small wooden structure built for viewing the scenery and giraffes, elephants and zebras wandering in the distance, climbers from the other group sat down at our table, including the athletic looking man from the lodge. He introduced himself as Drew. Across from Drew sat a husky, serious looking guy who kept eyeing him.

“Can’t wait to get this show on the road. Enough of this hanging around. I came to climb,” Husky said.

He directed his comments at Drew. Only a certain type of man could utter those words and the streets of New York had its fair share of them. A man who let competition and impatience drive his every move.

Drew lifted his head, as he had been concentrating on the food, and just looked at Husky. Drew’s body shouted to anyone listening that he’d known his fair share of battles in sports. But he didn’t respond.

Husky left the table, frustrated with Drew’s restraint.

Finally, the next morning it was game on. The journey began in the forest zone where the lush, dense rainforest sounded filled with birds and the occasional colobus monkey. We hiked for four hours including some big uphill climbs and reached 9,500 feet.

But the real test began after our dinner. Turning on my headlamp and heading for the tent, dread of the cold, the dark and being alone hit me. My training should have included sleeping at night in a quiet tent without city sirens and horns and lights from blocks of office buildings coming through my open blinds.

No sleep would mean exhaustion and lessen any chances of success. Since enduring the nighttime was a pivotal part of the package of climbing the mountain, soothing myself “one night at a time, I can do this” ran over and over again in my head. Conquering the mountain included the darkness.

Our tents were set up just a few feet apart and it wasn’t long before the sound of snoring in the next tent became nature’s version of background music. Although not a city sound, it helped. I crawled into my sleeping bag, turned on the flashlight and fell asleep exhausted.

•  •  •

Samuel, the Tanzanian head guide, and I trekked in the middle of the line our group formed along the trail on the second day of our ascent. He told us our objective of reaching 12,200 feet in about five or six hours.

The scenery had changed. No longer encased in the forest, our view looked wide open now on large heathers and unusual looking shrubs. Small boulders filled the trail and my eyes focused down on them.

“There’s Kibo, the top!” Samuel said.

I looked up at the summit of the iconic mountain for the first time. And at that moment my foot tripped on a rock and I fell flat on my face. Lying there for a second, panic set in. Not in Africa, I couldn’t have broken something, again. All that training. I had to climb Kili. Please.

I waited for the pain to surface. But nothing happened. Nothing hurting meant nothing could be broken.

Standing up, I started giggling and Samuel seemed to relax.

“I need to keep my eye on you,” he said.

•  •  •

Drew and Husky were sitting on some large rocks, far apart from each other, the next afternoon when we arrived at our campsite

“What’d you take the long way? We’ve been here for hours,” Husky said.

They weren’t in our group, and Samuel wasn’t responsible for their health and safety but that didn’t stop him. He knew the risks of going up the mountain too fast.

“Does your guide know what you guys are doing?”

“I’m not in your group pussyfooting my way to the top,” Husky said.

He waited for Samuel to take the bait and when he didn’t, Husky stormed off to his tent.

I sat down on the rock next to Drew.

“It’s such a beautiful mountain. Why would you climb it with him?” I asked.

“I love competition.”

“But why are you here?”

“To beat him to the top.” Drew said.

Drew spoke in a gentle voice as if his strong physique and dark handsome features drew enough attention.

“Seriously.”

“I’ve dreamed of doing this for so many years. After hiking out west over and over again, it was finally time. What about you?”

“I’ve dreamed about it for four months. This dormant volcano is supposed to surface something dormant in me.” I said.

“You seem to really enjoy this physical challenge.

“But my idea of a physical challenge and yours aren’t even in the same league.”

“They are now. Same mountain, same goal.”

As the climbers gathered for dinner, we noticed there were two less in another group.

“Remember there was a guy shouting at his wife the other day? He kept yelling at her that she was holding him back. Well, he was vomiting, had diarrhea. He couldn’t do it anymore and went back down. He seemed very disappointed,” Samuel announced to our group at dinner.

We all snuck in the tiniest smiles at one another. Not one of us would miss him for a minute.

“And his wife?” I asked.

“She went down too,” Samuel said.

“You’re kidding, right?” Drew asked.

“No, she escorted him down.”

“She should have made the summit just because he couldn’t,” I said.

•  •  •

Frost covered everything inside the tent the next morning. Shivering in my sleeping bag and with no other source of warmth, I piled on some layers of clothing and hurried to get out.

From six in the morning when the sun rose till sunset at six at night, the temperature on the mountain felt comfortable. But the minute the sun went down, the brutally cold air settled in and we could not escape it anywhere. Each day became more clearly defined as heavenly between sunrise and sunset and hellish from sunset to sunrise.

I woke up every morning freezing. But once I fled my tent, saw my fellow climbers and the sun, it all made sense. Our view of the mountain was spellbinding and it looked far more enormous in person. At the first sighting of Kili each day, it seemed daunting to imagine how we’d get to the top.

The morning also revealed how dirty my body became with my long hair tangled and filthy, my lips chapped so badly they hurt and my fingernails black with dirt. We couldn’t shower but simply washed off the parts of our body that we managed with a wet cloth.

I missed Chloe and Ben terribly and longed for contact with them. They hadn’t called the satellite phone so it seemed reasonable to assume they were doing okay.

“Today we reach 15,000 feet and that’s when the altitude might really affect you. I need to know how all of you are feeling,” Samuel said while we ate our breakfast.

He tested our pulse and oxygen levels and we waited for disastrous results that didn’t appear. No excuses. Keep climbing. And we did, all day.

But Drew, whom I hadn’t seen since the evening before, looked different late that afternoon as we headed into our campsite.

“I’ve got a bad headache,” he said.

“That’s probably altitude sickness. Maybe you need to let this go with Husky?”

Drew’s muscular body, now hidden under many layers of clothing, could surely handle this. But the interjection of Husky meant that ego, bravado and testosterone could be driving them higher and faster up this mountain than what their bodies needed to acclimate. Was there no stopping a man in this mindset?

The women in our group appeared at ease with each other. The lack of contention amongst us didn’t mean for a minute that we weren’t all working as hard as we could to get to the top. But from the moment Husky encountered Drew, it became a race to the summit for those two. I wondered if Husky wasn’t just plain jealous of Drew’s physique. Husky kept baiting the jock in Drew and Drew kept biting.

My tent felt no warmer that night than the outside frigid air and as I pushed myself into my sleeping bag with two layers of long thermal underwear, a down jacket, wool hat, gloves, and two pair of socks, I thought about Drew and Husky. Just as Husky became Drew’s foil to persevere up the mountain, Ted served as mine. And not just for himself, but as a surrogate for Len. But lucky me, I didn’t have to see my foil every day egging me on.

•  •  •

The Barranco Wall at 14,000 feet stood before us the next day. We’d be climbing up the steep 800 foot wall of rocks, equivalent to an eighty story building.

“Manhattan girl climbing the Barranco Wall?” Noah said.

Noah, a mediator and family law attorney from California, had lost his first wife to cancer six years before. We became friends the moment we met.

“This Manhattan girl is up for anything at this point.”

Matukuta, one of the guides, positioned himself so he could instruct each of us as we scaled the Wall.

One by one, our group headed up the wall. We occasionally looked up at how high the Barranco Wall reached and then at the long way down at where a misstep might land us. There was no way to go but up that wall. Finally, I began to climb.

“Ok, put your left foot on that rock,” Matukuta called.

I put my foot on the rock.

“Put your
other
left foot on that rock.”

“Whoops.”

I looked down at the jagged rocks far below and immediately did as he said. But this Manhattan girl started laughing at the wonder of finding herself scrambling up the Barranco Wall. It just didn’t get any more surreal or better than this.

•  •  •

The air in the dining tent the night we camped at 16,000 feet felt icy cold on our faces and we ate in down jackets and hats. Noah sat across the table. After finishing their dinner, all the others left to get some sleep. The next day we would head for the summit and Noah had waited years to do just that. He and his second wife, Amelia, attempted Kili three years before. Noah came back by himself for another try.

“I couldn’t possibly imagine doing this again, ever,” I said.

“I’ve never taken a trip like this by myself and it’s very empowering. I really want to be close to the spiritual ethers, so to speak, on the summit, make peace with some inner demons. A spiritual cleansing.”

“Wow, and I did this just to stop dating the wrong men.” Noah finally let out a laugh.

“I couldn’t figure you out right away. There was a sense of nervousness about you that first night and I wondered if your mood was more bravado than jocularity,” Noah said.

“It was definitely both. Some people back home didn’t think I could do this.”

I thought of Ted and also of Len, the men who underestimated me in life.

“So you’re like on a crusade. I do think your good cheer has been contagious, taking something arduous and making it fun. One more day and hopefully you’ll be able to say Kate did Kili,” he said as he stood up.