If there’s anything to be said about Hans Meyer it’s that he was one tenacious German. A geographer by training but an adventurer by disposition, Professor Meyer earned the distinction in 1889 of being the first man to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. He's also the posthumous recipient of the coveted Indian Jones Award (The Indy), which I bestow on classroom educators who go out into the field and get their hands dirty, or conversely, to those who bring their real-world adventures into the classroom.*
To say the least, Meyer got around. Before climbing K-man, he traveled to India, North America, South America, and South Africa – all in a time before airplanes and automobiles. Got to admire that.
He took his first shot at Kilimanjaro in 1887 but fell short of the summit due to lack of proper mountaineering equipment. At 18,000’ he and his team encountered not only thick snow but also walls of ice 100 feet high, and that turned him back. It should be noted that Meyer’s task back then was much more difficult than any summit attempt today. Nowadays, all routes to the top are ice-free almost all the way up, whereas Meyer had to content with snow and ice that extended more than a thousand feet down from the summit. Imagine three football fields laid end-to-end (end zones included). Now tilt them into a steep incline of as much as 35 degrees and cover them with fractured ice and loose boulders. Now cut your oxygen in half. Going up, anyone?
He took his first shot at Kilimanjaro in 1887 but fell short of the summit due to lack of proper mountaineering equipment. At 18,000’ he and his team encountered not only thick snow but also walls of ice 100 feet high, and that turned him back. It should be noted that Meyer’s task back then was much more difficult than any summit attempt today. Nowadays, all routes to the top are ice-free almost all the way up, whereas Meyer had to content with snow and ice that extended more than a thousand feet down from the summit. Imagine three football fields laid end-to-end (end zones included). Now tilt them into a steep incline of as much as 35 degrees and cover them with fractured ice and loose boulders. Now cut your oxygen in half. Going up, anyone?
In 1888, Meyer returned to the mountain for a second attempt, but he never even got a chance to assemble a climbing team. He arrived during the Abushiri Revolt, a brief rebellion against Germany’s control of East Africa, and was taken prisoner almost immediately by leaders of the insurrection. Not easily dissuaded, he escaped (Just like Indy!) and returned yet again in 1889. He reached the top that year by having porters shuttle food up to various camps located below the summit. These camps allowed his team to make multiple summit attempts using different routes over the course of several days without having to go all the way back down for supplies after each one. Those camps also afforded his team time to chop steps into the ice. By laboriously cutting a few new steps each day, the men ultimately worked their way to the highest point.
Meyer went up again nine years later but didn't quite reach the summit. He was astonished to discover how much the glaciers had receded in his absence. He reported that the ice he'd encountered on his previous climb had retreated over 300 feet and had lost half its thickness. The beginning of the end.
Meyer went up again nine years later but didn't quite reach the summit. He was astonished to discover how much the glaciers had receded in his absence. He reported that the ice he'd encountered on his previous climb had retreated over 300 feet and had lost half its thickness. The beginning of the end.
Interestingly, 20 years passed before anyone else reached the summit of Kilimanjaro. The next man to get there was a German surveyor known as M. Lange, whose first name is apparently lost to history. Or perhaps he was an Ian Fleming character. Whatever the M stood for, we can be sure that Mr. Lange was an intrepid adventurer. It is my fervent hope that he was also an educator.
* Of all Indy recipients, Prof. Meyer is second only to Hiram Bingham, the real-life educator/adventurer on whom Indiana Jones is probably based.