I Poached the White Elephant (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine November 2002

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I Poached the White Elephant (Cont.)

MOUNT KILIMANJARO SPRAWLS OVER 800 square miles in Tanzania, just south of the Kenya border. Towering 19,340 feet above sea level, it is one of the tallest freestanding mountains in the world, a place where nearly all of the earth's climate zones layer one on top of another.

The going would be arduous. Since it was March, our expedition would undertake a traverse from north to south, letting the mountain shield us from the monsoon rains blowing in from the Indian Ocean. We would start at 6,000 feet, outside the town of Rongai,

"A bit of vomiting on its own is not cerebral edema," Jim offered. "And the grand-mother of all headaches on its own is not cerebral edema. But together, you better get the hell down to where you last felt well."

and spend the first night six miles in at a campsite called First Cave. The second day we would briefly trek east eight miles, through heath and shrubs, to a flat spot known as Kikelewa: camp two. On day three we would ascend four miles of trail to Mawenzi Tarn, a shallow alpine lake. The fourth day we would cross a barren, rocky saddle to Kibo Hut, a ranger station and tourist lodge eight miles west. On day five we would make our bid for the summit, Uhuru Peak, and then begin our two-day, 17-mile hike out on the Marangu Route.

My preparations were impeccable. Judging from a postcard I picked up in Arusha, Tanzania, Kilimanjaro's best skiboard line was a finger of snow pointing down the east face. It looked long, steep, and quite picturesque. The afternoon before our climb began, I met with Jim Foster, a lanky British expat and the Park East organizer of my trek. He filled me in on what the postcard didn't show. First, there wasn't a helluva lot of snow. And, Jim said, I probably wouldn't see any other tourists until Kibo Hut. Day five he described as "bad to diabolical." The trail from Kibo Hut to Uhuru Peak was packed gravel all the way—but it gained 4,000 feet in just over two miles.

"A bit of vomiting on its own is not cerebral edema," Jim offered, sipping tea with milk. "And the grandmother of all headaches on its own is not cerebral edema. But together, you better get the hell down to where you last felt well." He paused. "Morten Frost couldn't make the crater rim, and he's the former Danish badminton world champion!"

If Jim only knew. Sipping a passion-fruit Fanta, I relished the training I had done to prepare for this. I was in the shape of my life. For the last month, I hadn't smoked more than a half-pack of cigarettes a day.

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