Cause for concern
Two worries lurked in my mind as we moved forward. The first was that as we climbed, my kids might get altitude sickness (altitude generally doesn’t affect me much, and I was the only one of the three of us taking Diamox, a pill which helps one acclimatize). On day four, we had lunch at 14,000 feet, and Dash, who had been steadily losing his appetite as we got higher — not an uncommon reaction to altitude — felt nauseous and headachy.
After Dash began to lose his appetite — a common reaction to high altitudes — a lunch of fajitas at 14,000 feet brought it back. TW photo by Arnie Weissmann
After Dash began to lose his appetite — a common reaction to high altitudes — a lunch of fajitas at 14,000 feet brought it back. TW photo by Arnie Weissmann
It may have been the Tylenol the guide recommended as soon as we stopped, but I don’t discount the possibility it was the cook, Gaston Kessy, who restored his appetite and good humor by presenting us with a high-altitude lunch of fajitas and guacamole, as good as any I’d eaten when I lived in Austin, Texas. By meal’s end, Dash was his old self again.
My other worry was Barranco Wall. This is an 800-foot cliff that must be scaled on Day 5 if you want to get to the summit. (There is a route that goes around it, but it has even more challenges). My reflexes — the type that help you regain balance quickly after shifting your weight — were compromised by an illness about 20 years ago, so instead of making these adjustments automatically, I have to make a lot of subtle shifts in balance “manually” (and quickly) when I’m on precarious footing.
The escarpment known as the Barranco Wall must be scaled to get to Uhuru Peak, the highest summit on Mount Kilimanjaro. TW photo by Arnie Weissmann
The escarpment known as the Barranco Wall must be scaled to get to Uhuru Peak, the highest summit on Mount Kilimanjaro. TW photo by Arnie Weissmann
And my footing on steep or uneven grades is further challenged by my two big feet. When you think about it, who has perfect-size feet for climbing mountains? Mountain goats. Animals whose entire foot is about the size of an infant’s heel.
My shoe size is 15 — same as Lebron, two sizes larger than Steph — but I’m without their height, grace or talent.
So, the thought of a long scramble up a rock face made me very nervous.
An optical illusion that was alternately encouraging and discouraging as I climbed the wall was that I kept thinking I could see the top — the end — relatively near. But in reality, the cliff inclined away from my field of vision and frequently gave me false hope. Eventually, I accepted that I couldn’t see my goal, nor could I see through fog to the ground below. I felt particularly untethered, which had the effect of keeping me very much in the moment.
In the end, scaling Barranco was like being on a rock-climbing wall, with switchbacks, for 90 minutes; no belay ropes, but the rocky face offered an ample number of handholds and — though they were sometimes narrower than my boots — footholds. There were three points at which I needed to stretch and shift weight around either gaps in the trail or rocks that jutted out from the cliff, but the guides seemed to know exactly where I would feel most insecure, and they were always there with an arm extended.
With the wall now behind us, we entered the near-moonscape of alpine desert. Our next big challenge, the summit itself, was still two days away.
The day before the summit, Dash had hiked four hours uphill to camp without complaint. But soon after arrival, he began to feel very sick.
Eliakim Mshanga, the lead guide, had led 280 ascents and received “Best Mountain Guide of the Year” honors from his peers (2018) and from the national park service (2019). He wasn’t entirely convinced Dash had altitude sickness; he thought perhaps he had picked up a bacterium. He administered oxygen and an antibiotic shortly after we arrived in camp, and after Dash fell asleep, suggested we wait until after he woke up to decide the next steps.
At 4 a.m. the next morning, Eliakim came to my tent. “Let me control the game,” he said, referring to evaluating Dash’s condition. I assented, though I added that as Dash’s father, I might want to take back control at some point.
Eliakim went into Dash’s tent. I could hear him encouraging him — “You can do this!” — and he began dressing Dash as one might dress a 2-year-old. Dash got up and joined us for breakfast, looking weak but with more color in his face than the night before.
We started out in the dark, wearing head lamps. The first part included an almost vertical scramble over boulders. Dash kept moving.