Kissing Kilimanjaro by Daniel Dorr

Author:Daniel Dorr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mountaineers Books
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

I would love to report that the excitement of alpinism and the adventure of mountaineering culminated in an apex for our final summit bid. I would like to wax eloquent about the immense difficulty we surmounted and the incredible impediments put in our path by the mountain. But I was slowly realizing a little secret the mountaineer-writer Jon Krakauer never mentions: mountain climbing is actually pretty boring. At its core it’s just hours and days of walking uphill. Of course, there are exciting moments and beautiful vistas, but those are just drops in the placid lake of mind-numbing slogging over dirt and snow.

After the first hour, following Mohamed up the final trail, I was already bored by the tedium of it all. Watching grass grow would have been more thrilling. Without any distractions, my mind wandered to anything concrete it could find and finally settled on analyzing my own body. I listened to my labored breath, felt the dry air inside my throat, observed my lungs struggling to pull in the much-needed oxygen, and watched my legs slumping along over the dirt. I was getting completely lost in my own physical experience when Lisa interrupted.

“I think I’m going to go back,” she said, panting. I was startled out of my reverie.

“What?” I stopped and turned toward her.

“I think I should turn back,” she said again between breaths. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to the summit (pant pant). If I’m not going to make it, then (pant pant), I’d rather save my energy for the fourteen-mile hike to the next camp (pant pant) this afternoon.”

Her mind was working faster than mine was. For more than an hour she had been thinking about how hard this summit climb was—and how much harder the day ahead was going to be. We had four miles and 4,000 feet of climbing to reach the summit before turning around and hiking another fourteen miles back down and to the next camp. Lisa had decided it was better to save her energy and enjoy the hike down than to be exhausted and miserable and perhaps fail to reach the summit anyway.

Mohamed turned around and looked at her for a moment. “Okay,” he said plainly, and walked back to Patrice. He never said another word to Lisa, never tried to convince her to continue. Later Lisa told me she thought Mohamed had never believed she’d make it.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “For me, it’s more about the climb than the summit. I’m okay. Don’t worry. You go on,” she said, encouraging me with a weak smile. As we spoke, Mohamed gave Patrice instructions for taking Lisa back to camp. I don’t speak Swahili, but I know I heard polepole (slowly) repeatedly. Patrice nodded his understanding, and after a few minutes Mohamed let them go.

“Okay,” Mohamed said. “Polepole,” he told Lisa one last time.

“Good luck,” Lisa said, turning back to me. And then they descended.

As Lisa started down the hill, I looked at my altimeter watch.

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