Things to know when climbing a mountain:

                              The 2^nd tallest mountain in Africa is not going to be easy to climb

                             Even if the mountain sits on the equator, it will be frost-bite inducing, can’t feel your face, unbearably freezing that the top

                            Therefore, you should probably plan this trip in advance and pack accordingly
                    You WILL need a guide, a cook and a porter, unless you are a fool or an outdoor stud, you WILL need them

                            If you push through all of it, the feeling when you reach the top as the sun rises over Kenya, WILL be worth it.

With that being said I ignored my own advice (obviously … except for the guide part) and decided a few days in advance that I wanted to climb a mountain. Although I was totally unprepared for what climbing a mountain entailed, it was one of the more exhilarating (and exhausting) experiences of my life. Strangely enough, I didn’t bring all that many pieces of winter clothing with me to Africa. Luckily, my friend Jack climbed the mountain a few weeks earlier and lent me all of his clothing, which would come in handy in the following days.

                It wasn’t until we reached the mountain after a half day of traveling across the diverse terrain of central Kenya that I realized that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park (bad joke, it’s called Mt. Kenya National Park, so in reality it was a walk in the park… pity laugh? Thanks). Horrible jokes aside, we entered the park and began our first hike. We hiked on a path through thick forest and wilderness that ran a small ridge overlooking a giant valley. Our guide, Isaac, porter- Boniface, and cook Harrison explained the bird life and plant life as we walked upwards and onwards. We passed the equator, marked by a shoe-sized rock with a line drawn across it and the word “ecuater” scratched in it. Some would say that it was anti-climactic, me, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. We crossed elephant and buffalo tracks, both of which we were assured were down in the valley by now as the sun was too hot on the path. Then we crossed hyena and leopard droppings, which Isaac told us was very old… looked pretty fresh to me, but then again, I’m not an animal dropping expert. We reached our destination for the night called “Old Moses Lodge” and settled in.  Old Moses was a tiny little camp that was perfect for what we were looking for. Some would call it rustic, others would say it was disgusting, we thought it was perfect. If we were older and not living on peanuts for months at a time in Africa, sure, there were some improvements that could have been made, but at the rate that we were paying the guides and fees and expenses, we were happy that we weren’t eating the bark off trees and sleeping in a field. As soon as the sun dropped out of sight, the temperature did as well. It was quickly -5 degrees and WINDY. We tried to stomach the cold and look at the stars, but 15 minutes and 10 shooting stars later, it was too much to bear. We crawled into our sleeping backs and tried to get as much sleep as possible as we heard rats crawling through our room and who knows what type of animal howling outside.

                The next morning we woke up bright and early with the sun, scarfed breakfast and broke out for our longest hike of the trip. We were scheduled for an 8 and a half hour hike that would take us from “Old Moses” to “Shiptons Lodge” which sat at 14,000 feet, right below the base of the summit. This hike was incredible. We hiked up hills, through streams, over rocks, under rocks… everywhere you could imagine. We passed through fields, overlooked gorges and valleys, had lunch on a cliff overlooking a valley with a view of the peaks that I will never forget. 

As the elevation changed, so did the scenery. It was a constantly evolving world that produced plants and animals that don’t, and can’t, live anywhere else in the world. We saw trees that looked like they were dreamed up by a director of a science fiction movie and a huge valley, with a stream dissecting it that guided running water, screaming downhill as far as the eye could see, until the mountain blended in with the flat land and the towns that sat at the base. It was the type of view that would make an atheist believe in God. That something so perfect had been created could not have been a mistake. As we walked, we learned about the mountain, learned about Kenya and even picked up some Swahili along the way. As we got closer to Shipton’s, the views got better and better and better. The air got thinner and every step became more difficult. It also gets a little steeper, so every step makes your knees tremble and your lungs burn. When we were about 50 yards away from Shipton’s, we contemplated giving up and sleeping  where we stood. We toughed it out and arrived at the doors of the lodge at around 4:30 pm, layed down in the incredibly uncomfortable (felt like clouds at the time) beds and rested for a short period after the 9 hour hike. After cup of scalding hot tea (or 10) we sat outside and stared up at the summit. I must have said at least 32 times, “there is no way we are getting up there tomorrow. How in the HELL do you expect me to get up there?!” I still can’t see how it is possible, even AFTER I did it. We spent some time with our fellow travelers (a British couple who were living in Christchurch, New Zealand and had moved only a few short weeks before the earthquake there, and a couple of American guys, working in Nairobi who were taking a weekend away from the wife and kids) and had an early dinner. With the onset of altitude sickness and a 2:30 am wakeup call, followed by a 3 hour hike up to the summit for the sunrise and a 4-6 hour hike (depending on pace) back down the mountain, we decided to call it an early night. I use that as an excuse because Lord knows that I wouldn’t have made it up much later, even if you paid me. We were exhausted from the day and despite the -20 degree weather and howling wind, I passed out, wrapped in my friend Jack’s sleeping bag, winter hat on my head, 4 layers of shirts and coats, 3 layers of pants, 3 pairs of socks and a pair of gloves on. The equator is hot?

                It is pitch black and my phone alarmclock is going off. 2:30 am on the dot. I almost fall out of the top bunk of my bed (heat rises, says Isaac, try to sleep on a top bunk… pshh, what heat is there at -20?) and stumble towards the door. Breakfast is crackers and popcorn, but there is tea and coffee, which at this point is all that really matters. Breakfast is a blur and getting ready is non-existent. There is no shower and I am already wearing all of my clothes. I grab my camera, water bottle and other essentials and we start our vertical trek. I don’t have a flashlight and I think to use my cellphone light… its all I have. In retrospect, I see why Isaac was laughing, we were crawling up rocks, using your hands, in the darkness, where was I going to hold it, my mouth? The guide scrambles through the other crews and comes up with a headlamp that probably saved my life. We set out in the darkness, 5 feet ahead of us is all that we can see. It was probably better that way, because if I had been able to see where I was going, I probably wouldn’t have gone. Our pace is slow, but that is natural as amateur climbers are scaling the 2^nd highest mountain in Africa, at 3 am. The gravel beneath our feet is ice cold and every once in a while, a microscopic avalanche begins under the weight of our shoes as the gravel loosens, nearly sending someone on their butt and sending the tiny rocks into the abyss from which we came. It begins to get lighter and our guide tells us that we are getting close. I wrap my face in an extra shirt, but the air is so thin that I decide the freezing cold wind is better than making the intake of oxygen any more difficult. We reach a point where the path ends, and boulders and rock face stand in our way,only a few hundred yards away from the top. The sun is beginning to come out and we have a little ways to go. We are going to have to hurry to make the sunrise. We climb up the rocks, scattering across icey faces and moving rocks as we get near the top. We hear the voices of our fellow travelers. There are clouds whipping around below us (yes, below us) and it blocks the sun, giving us a precious few more minutes to summit. There is an 8 foot rock standing between me and the flat surface of the top of a mountain. I take one step up into a hole, give a little leap and do a pull-up, getting my chest, then leg, then body up over the wall. As soon as Isaac and Nikki follow, the sun peaks out from behind a cloud and…. The sunrise from a top of a mountain. 

The adrenaline rush from standing on top of a mountain is INDESCRIBABLE. You look over where you came and you have a feeling of a commander of a conquering army, a king overlooking his subjects. You realize that every step you took in your $5 Target boots that felt like you were walking barefoot (okay, that part is my fault, but seriously…. Mountain climbing in Africa… didn’t really see it coming), every time your knees felt like they were going to buckle and you couldn’t catch your breath from walking up a tiny little hill, was worth it. We were joined at the top by our two fellow groups as well as a group of British soldiers, huffing and puffing as they came up to the top from a different route. The wind whipped around, increasing the fear of falling off a mountain and the weather was colder than I’ve ever felt in my life…. Including my Freshman year at Madison. We took pictures with the Kenyan flag on top, the sunrise, the other peaks, the clouds from above, and ourselves, but none of them do the scenery justice. It was the feeling. The smile. The adrenaline that made you forget it was 6:30 am and it felt like you had been hiking for as long as you could remember. It was that feeling that powered you down the mountain, knees on the verge of giving out, wanting to sleep, wanting to shower, wanting to eat, wanting to sit down for 5 straight days. But that feeling. You could run back to Nairobi. You could swim back to the United States. You could run into the valley at the bottom of the mountain and find an elephant and take it down with your bare hands, carry it back and eat it (okay that last one was a little too much, but you get the point. I’ll leave it at that.) It was an incredible weekend, one that I will treasure forever. And once I’m an old man, looking back on the things I’ve done (23 is old, but not retrospective old… I’m still invinvible…)  the memories of the scenery and of the mountain itself will probably fade away.  When the time comes that I find myself relying on the pictures I have taken to recall the places and things that I saw, I will never forget the feeling of standing on top of a mountain as the sun greets the African plains.