Welcome to our Adventure

I think the word "adventure" is the right one for this trip.

While Kilimanjaro, at about 19,700 feet, doesn’t approach the daunting scale of Mount Everest, nor is it technically demanding from the climbing standpoint, we are expecting it to provide an excellent challenge for two pretty regular, laid back guys like us. It’s got respectable altitude (considered extreme), rugged alpine terrain, an approach that takes several days, and status as one of the “Seven Summits”.  And it has intrigue.

I mean, look at the thing. Here it is, a classic volcanic cone rising from the surrounding plains of steaming equatorial Africa, looking like the result of some misplaced and massive geological hiccup. And it’s all crowned with snow. Snow? On the equator? When Kilimanjaro was first reported in Europe back in the mid 1800’s, the scientific community of the day didn’t even believe the accounts.  (Incidentally, if you can find it, the book called Snow on the Equator by H.W. Tilman is a fantastic account of early ascents of mountains in this region, choc full of adventures during the 1920’s and 30’s. Warning: it’ll make you want to go there.)

On the other hand, this is, I think, a realistic adventure for people who are pretty much untested and untrained as far as big mountains are concerned. The Summit is achievable by most anyone with basic physical fitness, the right attitude and a consenting physiology … one that will hold together as the oxygen, air pressure and knee cartilage get scarce.  Besides, I get a couple of weeks off work.

I don’t like to head into anything like this without some idea of goals and I’ve thought them out like this:

-Goal number one is to get us both back down safely. After all, this is my son I’m climbing with and neither of us would want to come home alone.

-Goal number two is to make it to the Summit, both of us, allowing of course for goal number one.

-Goal number three is to learn what I can from the mountain and the experience … the people, the history, the ecology … and why the hell Ernest Hemingway called that story ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’. I still don’t really get it. (To me, the title is way better than the story.)

If I get an epiphany about Hemingway, I’ll share it. But I don't expect to.