The Roof of Africa
The Summit
By Tom Dunkel
Our wayward trio of triumphant ice climbers materializes in time for dinner. Nobody but Scott has an appetite. At 18,500 feet, food has all the mouth-watering appeal of broken glass. It's about ten degrees. Our heads thump like kettledrums. We swill tea, ingest our preferred pills and potions, and crawl into our tents just after dark. David rouses Scott in the middle of the night. His body temperature is in free fall, plunging toward hypothermia. Scott has no choice but to slip into David's sleeping bag and hug him until he warms up.
The author poses at the summit with
Kilimanjaro guide Scott Fischer.
Come morning, David has rebounded to the point where he is only as bad off as the rest of us. "There's nobody I'm concerned about," says Scott, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and busy wolfing down the eggs, toast, and porridge the rest of us can't face. "You're just feelin' a little acute mountain sickness."
We sling our packs on by 8 A.M. Onward and upward we go, tracing Remmy's footprints for two hours in calf-deep snow. It is a technically easy but exhausting last push.
No sense of epiphany washes over me when I hear Scott yell, "So, how does the top of Africa feel?"
Kilimanjaro feels lonely and beautiful and disorientingly high. This is what Africa would look like if you went wing walking on a 747. Pirouetting in place, my eyes never leave the crenelated tops of more modest mountains. A shag rug of cloud levitates in the air yards off Uhuru Peak. It looks thick enough and soft enough to bellyflop on. View and effort commingle, entwining like the wisps of cloud snake-dancing around Uhuru Peak.
Starting the descent of Uhuru Peak.
A crude metal signpost officially marks the highest point in Africa. Alongside sits a wooden box with a battered ledger inside. It contains the impressions of hundreds of awestruck Americans, Norwegians, Israelis, Scots and even a few giddy Frenchmen. "C'est superbe." "Next year, Everest." "Rough, but worth it." I forget to write, "Piece o' granite."
We each celebrate in our own peculiar fashion. Scott, Seattle Tom, and I fling a football around. David has his picture taken holding his company flag. Pam refuses to give North Dakota Tom a we-made-it-to-the-summit smooch. Lloyd strikes a classic mountaineering pose for a photo, his red parka bright against the blue sky, his ski gloves back on his hands where they belong.
We split a small bottle of champagne, then we're gone. Seven days of escalating discomfort for one hour of glory. Our descent is rapid and anticlimactic. We take the Marangu express trail, stopping to camp overnight at one of the bustling hut-cities. An odd reintroduction to society. The trail has about it the air of people on pilgrimage. We pass a cairn commemorating the spot where a French climber was struck dead by lightning and come upon two Canadian women who have turned back because one of them has cerebral endema. Simply put, her brain is swelling like a baking biscuit.
Dozens of climbers stream by in an uphill direction. The haggard and the hopeful. I cannot resist handicapping their prospects for success. A stout German fellow in bikini briefs washing up outside his hut (probable). The young boy stride for stride on the heels of his father (slim chance, kid). A middle-age Japanese woman leaning on a walking stick (get the stretcher ready).
The snow cover disappears. Trees and wildflowers return. We shed layers of clothing and are back in shorts before we reach the visitor's center at Marangu Gate. A small souvenir shop has I MADE IT TO GILLMAN'S POINT T-shirts for sale. Lloyd and I get a chuckle out of that. I can think of a few appropriate mottos to stick on the back of those shirts. AIN'T TOO PROUD TO PUKE. Or LINE FORMS HERE FOR THE KILI TRAM.
We hobble over to a picnic table where the Mountain Madness ground crew is waiting with drinks and a cake decorated with a chocolate-icing silhouette of Kilimanjaro. Lloyd finally has a reason to unsheathe his beloved titanium Buck knife. He cuts the cake into manageable squares. We gather round and eat with our fingers.
That which is easily obtained is lightly esteemed. I take a swig of beer and chew my cake, pole pole, savoring the moment, savoring the mountain.
Little did I know how bittersweet that moment would be. In May Scott Fischer died leading a commercial expedition up Mount Everest; one of eight climbers from several international teams who perished in a horrific blizzard. I spoke with Scott by phone shortly before that fateful trip. "Everest is the most beautiful place in the world," he said.
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