I Poached the White Elephant (Cont.)

You Are Here:

Home >> I Poached the White Elephant (Cont.)

Today's Question
What should you do if you run into a cougar in the backcountry? answer

What is the number one backcountry skill people should learn? answer

Today's Question
What are the five best environmental movies of all time? answer

What are the greenest colleges? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine November 2002

Page:

I Poached the White Elephant (Cont.)

AND THE VOICE CONTINUED. That very night, just before 1 a.m., Eric and Sir Edmund set off for the summit. Eric was wearing long johns, leather boots, ski pants, a vest, a fleece hat, gloves, and a down jacket. Sir Edmund wore much the same. In Eric's pack were the skiboards, hidden by two full water bottles, one Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar, a headlamp, a handful of mango hard candies, and a pair of sunglasses. Sir Edmund brought a small white daypack, a first-aid kit, a thermos of tea, and a pack of Sportsmen cigarettes.

"Stop!" Huh? Eric stopped being Eric and I became me again. I slashed out a hockey stop. Sir Edmund was running toward me. "Cliff. Here, it is cliff."

The sky was clear. The air was still. The men's noses ran. The full moon was so bright that they put away their headlamps. The trail was steep, covered in scree and boulders. Eric took three quick steps, felt the vein between his eyes throb, and slowed down to about two steps per second.

Sir Edmund and Eric hoped to reach the summit at 7 a.m., before the rest of the tourists. They would stop at Indian Point (a quarter of the way up), Hans Meyer's Cave (roughly halfway), Gillman's Point on the crater rim, and finally Uhuru Peak. Most other groups would stop twice as often.

At Indian Point, Sir Edmund and Eric greeted a group of tourists with a cordial jambo! and passed them. Time flew. The trail was a seemingly endless series of switchbacks. The cold night air had frozen the loose gravel into a manicured walking path. Each step made an audible crunch.

Around Hans Meyer's Cave, an overhanging slab of rock named after the German who first summited Kilimanjaro in 1889, Sir Edmund and Eric passed the second of three groups, and then sang a full verse of what had become the expedition's anthem, "Vera, nakupenda, Vera,"—roughly translated, "So-and-so, I love you, So-and-so," this time dedicated to Sir Edmund's wife, Vera. Twenty minutes later they were at Jamaica Point, threading their way through avalanche runout on a steep, uneven path. They were now breathing air that held approximately 50 percent less oxygen than their brains were used to.

"Whaddya think?" Eric asked. "Is this the hardest section?"

"Yeahhh," replied Sir Edmund. Then, "No! No. It's easy here. Be happy, be happy, Eric." Eric let out a wheezy laugh and immediately felt nauseous.

They reached Gillman's Point at 5:15 a.m., drank some tea, and pressed on. The true summit was still a half-mile ahead. Eric stumbled every dozen or so steps and teetered from left to right. The nearly flat trail was bordered on one side by precipitous slopes, where penumbral snowfields fell into the crater 100 feet below.

The two men followed a long arc for half an hour. At the top of the last little bump, they could see the shoulder-high summit sign illuminated by the first light of day. The sun was rising and Mount Kilimanjaro cast a pyramid-shaped shadow for miles on the neighboring plains. Emerald fields. Dark triangular shadow. Cerulean sky. Round white moon. The twosome hooted and laughed—until someone hooted back.

Just beyond the sign, two hazy figures crested the summit.

"They must be from Shira Route," Sir Edmund said. "They will pass, then you can ski a little bit there." He pointed to the only glacier that tapered smoothly into the crater rim, a football field of flat ice just below the sign.

The figures turned out to be a snap-happy British gentleman and his guide. Let's try it from this angle. Now how about a quickie over here. They took six shots and then asked Sir Edmund to take one, too. The Brit had killed two whole minutes explaining the wonders of his digital camera when the tiny screen froze. "Bugger all," he said, his guide shivering nearby. After the LCD blipped back on, Sir Edmund was solicited for two more pictures. Finally, he just sat down and lit a Sportsmen. Fifteen minutes had passed. "What the hell?" thought Eric. Eric was becoming a bit of a jerk.

Finally the two left, and Eric and Sir Edmund shuffled out onto the glacier, producing the skiboards only at the last possible moment. Eric wondered who else might pop up on some other hidden trail to rat them out.

The slope rolled away before him. All Eric could see was ice and a patchwork of farms 16,000 feet below. The glacier's surface was pocked with thousands of depressions the size of saucers. Eric showed Sir Edmund where he was going and gave him the camera. Then he tightened the laces on his hiking boots, latched himself onto the Big Feet, and shoved off, elated to finally be skiboarding.

The first turn threw him, causing his arms to windmill, but Eric regained his balance and fell into another knock-kneed arc. He headed toward the moon and stood upright, eyes focused ten feet in front of his toes, always looking where he wanted to go. He began to pick up speed—three miles per hour, six miles per hour, ten. Eric's legs felt strong and breathing came easily. He let the skiboards go, swooping first one way and then the other. Eric felt free. He was in the zone, in the flow of the moment. It was as if skiboarders all over the world were channeling their energy through him. Eric had been to the mountaintop, and he could hear the Guinness Book of World Records calling.

"Stop!"

Huh? Eric stopped being Eric and I became me again. I slashed out a hockey stop. Sir Edmund was running toward me.

"Did you get the pictures?" I asked.

"Yes, but no more!" he said. He pointed toward the horizon. "Cliff. Here, it is cliff."

He pulled out a map and showed me where we were, and how the contour lines mushed together into one striped band. Sure enough, I was on the Hein Glacier, just above an ice cliff at the top of the Umbwe Route. God had made his will known. I had accidentally skiboarded Stephen Koch's line, but from the tippy-top—not only a first skiboard descent, but a first skiboard descent on a new route!

Unfortunately, Sir Edmund did not share my elation. "Please, Eric," he said, "remove your Big Feet immediately."

Page: