Barafu Camp to Summit to Barafu Camp to Millennium Camp
Hiking distance: 4 miles to summit, 4 miles back to Barafu, another 3 miles to Millennium Camp
Starting elevation: 15,300’
Highest elevation: 19,341’
Ending elevation: 12,560’
The palatyi is no longer scratching at the door. It’s sitting on my chest, heavy and warm, enticing me to stay put. A seductive proposal. I search my mind for face-saving excuses to stay behind. How could I spin it for my friends or my blog readers? More to the point, how could I spin it for me? Is there a way to quit now that could still make failure seem like a form of victory?
The palatyi kneads my chest like a cat settling in for a nap. “Fail again,” it purrs soothingly, quoting Beckett, “Fail better.” I have an absurdly well-educated palatyi. The worst kind.
For a long while I lay still, paralyzed by indecision and tortured logic, listening to the camp’s muffled bustle and to Mo’s steady breathing in the darkness. She’s my way out, of course. She’ll start coughing the moment I wake her, so why wake her? Poor girl’s exhausted. Why not man up and make the decision for her? Why not let her sleep in and get the rest she so desperately needs? And then, naturally, I would stay behind to care for her.
But I can’t bring myself to do it. It’s not my call to make.
I shove the palatyi aside and lean over Mo’s face, close enough to feel her warmth against my chilled cheek. “What do you think, Mo’ski?” I whisper in her ear, nudging her through swishy layers of down and nylon. “We doin’ this thing?”
There’s a long silence as she ponders her predicament. We had discussed it thoroughly after dinner just a few hours ago but hadn’t arrived at a conclusion. On the one hand, due to her head cold she’s not only unlikely to reach the summit, the exertion of the attempt could cost her the 5-day safari that’s coming later. On the other hand, she’s afraid that she’ll never forgive herself for coming this far and then failing to summit for lack of fortitude.
While she ruminates I begin rooting around in the dark for my headlamp. I don’t want to go without her, but I will if I have to. I’ve got a troll to kill and a bridge to cross. Several minutes pass in silence, so I start getting dressed, hoping she’ll follow my lead. More minutes pass. Still no movement from Mo’. Soon I’ve got on everything but my outer layers and I’m starting to feel very sad. I zip up my fleece loudly, pointedly. No response. She’s not coming, I realize, and I’m crestfallen. But then, just as my heart is about to sink, she suddenly sits up and kisses me on the cheek. “Let’s go, Whitmer,” she says valiantly. “This mountain’s not going to climb itself.”
Then she convulses in a fit of coughing.
A few minutes later we’re standing with the group in a pool of headlamp beams next to the dining tent. Like the captain of a sandlot football team, Johnny is assigning each of his summit porters to a pair of trekkers. He assigns me and Mo’ to Barak, whom we’ve seen a few times serving meals. The man speaks no English, so I don’t bother trying to break the ice with any jokes about him sharing a name with POTUS. Instead I step forward and shake his hand, saying simply, “Jambo, Barak.” He nods and smiles shyly, saying nothing. Frankie, one of our guides, taps me on the shoulder and politely corrects me: “Not Barak,” he says, helpfully, “Baraka.” Monica overhears this, so when she introduces herself, she says, “Hi, Baraka. My name is Monica.” A different guide sidles up to her: “Not Baraka,” he says discreetly. “Barak.” Mo’ and I exchange confused looks. I can’t tell if they’re playing with us or if I’m starting to hallucinate already.
Barak(a) takes Mo’s pack and steps into line with the others, indicating with hand motions that we should line up behind him. We had been told that he was going to take both of our packs, but for some reason he doesn’t take mine, and for some reason I don’t say anything about it. Mo’ gives me a reproachful look and shakes her head. My pack is very light, though, and it seems silly –unmanly, even – to ask someone to carry it for me. This, of course, will turn out to be a big mistake.
I have never before worn so many layers of clothing, yet I’m getting cold from all this standing around. I’m wearing fleece pants and a fleece sweater over a base layer (top and bottom) of polypropylene long underwear. Over that I’m wearing rain pants, mostly for wind protection, and I’ve got a pair of ankle gaiters sandwiched between the fleece pants and the rain pants. Those are to keep pebbles and scree out of my boots. On my top half I’m wearing a down parka over a fleece sweater, and I’ve got CamelBak water bladder, in a suspension harness, wedged between my base layer and my fleece sweater, making me look like Quasimodo. Normally a CamelBak is carried outside one’s clothing, like a backpack, but we have to wear ours under our insulation layers to keep them from freezing.
Fear not; there’s more. I’m also sporting a thick wool watch cap over a fleece balaclava and under the hood of my down parka. I’m wearing polypro glove liners under fleece mittens, and I’m carrying a pair of windproof overmits in my pack in case I need them later. I’m wearing polypro sock liners under thick wool hiking socks, and I have positioned one pair of chemical warmers over my toes and another pair across my knuckles. The interior pockets of my sweater are stuffed with extra headlamp and camera batteries which will drain rapidly if not kept warm against my torso. The outer pockets of my parka are bulging with lip balm and unwrapped snacks, already hardening in the cold, brittle air. I look like the world’s most obvious shoplifter.
In my pack I’m carrying a rain jacket (for wind protection at higher elevations), a first-aid kit, a handful of extra snacks, a pair of micro-spikes (like tire chains for hiking boots, in case we encounter ice) and a water bottle, pointlessly insulated in a wool hiking sock. And finally, there’s a wide-brimmed hat for sun protection on the way back down.
Did I mention that it’s not quite midnight and we're all wearing sunscreen? Sunrise is about eight hours away, but when it comes it’s going to epic. Epic and unremitting. And carcinogenic. We probably won't be able to reapply sunscreen on the summit because it will freeze by then. Also, we might simply forget to do so. We were therefore instructed to slather some on while gearing up, and I’ve got more stashed my pack – where it’s probably already solidifying.
Johnny paces our line and reminds us that the first hour of climbing is the steepest. He urges us to remove at least one outer layer of clothing now so that we don’t overheat and start sweating. If sweat dampens our clothes, he warns, we could get dangerously cold at higher elevations. This scares me into action, but as I start to remove my jacket I realize that I won’t be able to do so without also removing my gloves – at least two layers of them. That will take time, and no one else is de-layering. I don’t want to hold up the group, so I leave everything in place and say nothing when Johnny asks if everyone’s ready. Instead, I unzip every zipper I can work with my lobster claws and hope that will be enough to ventilate me.
On Johnny’s command, our line lurches forward and begins chugging through camp like a funeral procession. Illuminated only by our headlamps, we look like a low-budget Chinese parade dragon that’s gotten lost on an unlit side street. I see another dragon winding through the darkness a few dozen yards ahead of us, and another one in front of that. Father still is another line of headlamps dancing in the sky above us. The lights twinkle like stars that are somehow visible through Kibo’s massive, star-blocking silhouette.
Johnny wasn’t kidding: the first section is very steep. There’s no visible trail, either, so it’s kind of scary, too. We’re scrambling up sharp angles of bare rock, and we’re moving in a nearly straight line instead of cutting switchbacks from side to side. Although I’m quickly huffing and puffing, I find it exhilarating. It’s also beating back the chill I had acquired standing around in camp. Mo’, unfortunately, is hacking and coughing already, and I know she’s hating every minute of this. She’s no doubt struggling with her fear of exposure, so it’s actually good that we’re doing this at night when all she can see is the stone slab immediately in front of her. If she could see the yawning abyss behind us she might succumb to the feeling that she cannot help but fall into it.
In no time I begin to sweat. I search for more zippers to undo, but my jacket and sweater are already hanging open. All that’s left to unzip is my polypro base layer, so I open it as far as it will go, which happens to be from my chin down to my naval. Now I’m Tom Jones minus the bling, and I’m still sweating despite the near-freezing – if not already sub-freezing – temperature.
Due to the exertion and altitude, there’s almost no conversation among trekkers any longer. Speech is reserved for giving and acknowledging instructions and asking for help. Our guides, on the other hand, are singing, telling jokes, and trash-talking each other about the ongoing 2014 World Cup. This is by far the most jovial I’ve seen them since we arrived on the mountain a full week ago, and I conclude that they’re putting on a show, bolstering our spirits and calming our nerves. If not for their constant chatter it would be ominously quiet right now, and that would leave us with nothing to dwell on but our discomfort and anxiety.
It’s here that I notice for the first time that our guides don’t have headlamps. Seriously! Most of the porters do, but not the guides. Headlamps are among the most common gifts that trekkers give to their guides and porters. Unfortunately, as I will learn later, batteries are scarce and expensive in Tanzania, so most of those headlamps only get used until the batteries run down. I suspect, too, that – for the guides, at least – it’s a point of pride to know the trails so well as to not need a headlamp. Stephen, in particular, seems to be showing off. And I’ve never seen him do that before.
Stephen is the assistant guide who has been watching over Monica for the past several days. Tonight, though, he’s bounding around in the dark like a frisky mountain goat. I don't see him so much as I hear him. To see him I'd have to turn my head away from the uneven rocks underfoot, and I'm not inclined to do that. But he’s out there on my left, just outside the reach of my headlamp beam, prancing up and down our line like a drum major. What’s more, Stephen has been repeatedly crossing the unlit gulf between our main group and the smaller group of slower trekkers behind us. Cheery as a cruise director, he trots down the mountain to check on them, then he trots back up to check on us, then back to them, then up to us. And he does so without the aid of either a headlamp or an oxygen tank. His abilities are both inspiring and humiliating.
After about an hour we reach the top of the steep section and Johnny gives us our first break. It lasts all of three minutes. He advises us all to add a layer, so I close a few zippers and check in with Mo’. She’s dismayed about all the coughing, but she’s relieved that the steep and exposed section is behind us. I decide not to remind her that we’ll be coming back this way – in broad daylight – in eight or nine hours.
Fearing we’ll get cold and lethargic if we stand still any longer, Johnny rallies us to continue the ascent. The climb is still steep, but at least we’re on a trail now, bordered by boulders, that cuts switchbacks up the mountain. This is more like the backpacking Mo’ and I are familiar with, but only if you discount the fact that that we’ll be going uphill another 4,000 feet before coming back down. Or that we’re in the upper troposphere.
At some point, Johnny stops us for another break. Our group steps off the trail on both sides and spreads out over a couple of switchbacks. Even so, I feel like I can see everybody fairly clearly in the wash of headlamp beams. It’s a lot like standing under a cluster of street lights in a vacant parking lot. I make a conscious effort to commit details of the scene to memory, but not much sticks. The father-son team is bickering over a glove that no longer fits even though it fit yesterday. Seems like the kind of surreal argument that hypoxia victims might engage in, so it makes me wonder how high we are. As if reading my mind, Leslie aims her headlamp down at her wrist and fidgets with her altimeter. “Sixteen thousand feet!” she announces. A few half-hearted yays ripple through the group, but we lack the oxygen for a more enthusiastic response.
We are now higher than Mont Blanc, the tallest peak in the Alps. Try as I might, I cannot imagine myself ever standing on top of Mont Blanc.
My own reaction to Leslie’s announcement is relief. I’m grateful to be feeling as strong and as clear-headed as I do, especially considering what had happened to me at Lava Tower. I’m also feeling a little smug. Other members of our party are already short-tempered and squabbling, a sure sign of mild AMS. But I’m sanguine. No headache, no nausea, no hallucinations.
And then, just to spite me, the Magic Show begins.