Traveling in Uganda and the Congo

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Outside Magazine January 2005

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The Hard Way
Making It Real (Cont.)

ONCE YOU'VE SPENT the time, money, and emotional energy to get yourself to that place you've fantasized about for decades, there's no sense in not having a good look around. So when the MCU climbers descend the next day, Steve and I stay on at the Elena hut. We have a detour in mind.

During the Mountain Club of Uganda's peak years, its most dedicated member was H. A. Osmaston, who wrote Guide to the Ruwenzori: The Mountains of the Moon in 1972. I'd obtained a photocopy, read it carefully, and made e-mail contact with Osmaston, now 84 and living in Cumbria, in northern England. In my note I suggested that there appeared to be ample room for a new route on the west face of Mount Stanley.

He responded: "I think all you say is correct. The rock should be clean of moss as it is so steep. But it is entirely in the Congo. A bullet-proof jacket would be an important addition to your kit. I don't advise it."

According to Osmaston, the last documented ascent of the west face of Margherita was in 1956. No one really knew whether Congolese guerrillas were still using the western slope of the range as a hideout, but after talking to our porters—many of whom live in the high villages of the Rwenzori—I reasoned that if they were, they probably wouldn't bother climbing to 16,000 feet.

"I say we go have a look," I propose.

"I say we might get ourselves killed," replies Steve, which doesn't mean he doesn't want to go.

From Osmaston's guide, it appeared that no one had made a complete traverse of the Stanley Plateau. There was once a cabin, the Moraine hut, down on the Congo side, but Osmaston didn't know if it still existed. We figure we'll shoot for this hut, get a peek of the west face if we're lucky, and go from there.

An alpine start is requisite, but it is snowing hard the next morning. We scootch down in our bags and dream on. By nine it is snowing only lightly.

"If we're gonna go," says Steve, heaving on his pack, "let's go."

We retrace our steps up the Stanley Plateau, then veer left toward the pass. By chance, a hole opens in the clouds and we spot what we think is a tiny hut, then the gap closes. We cross the invisible border and descend the western Stanley Glacier until it disappears, forcing us to rappel down rock ravines. We're in the Congo now.

As the mist momentarily clears, we again spy the hut on the ridgeline—and two people standing beside it. Uh-oh. I stare through the wisps of white with all my might, trying to determine whether they are armed.

"Are they moving?" Steve's voice is a wee bit higher than normal.

"No. They're not moving."

The mist rolls in, the guerrillas disappear, and we keep on for a closer look. We are approaching like cats now, silent, shoulders tensed, creeping low to the ground through the boulders. The mist blows off again.

"They haven't moved," I whisper.

Steve bursts out laughing so loud I jump. "Nope. They sure haven't. Might be because one's a cairn and the other one's a giant groundsel."

No reason now not to go for it.

When we reach it, the hut is empty but still in solid condition. We eat lunch inside with the door open for the little we can make out of the west face of Mount Stanley. The peak, 2,500 feet above, is engulfed in dark-bellied clouds. The glaciers, the icefalls, the three summits—we can see none of it. So what's new?

Steve strikes out up the face first, and I follow, both of us scrambling along steep, verglased granite. Gaining what we presume is the Alexandra Glacier, we rope up and simul-climb for the next three hours, occasionally sinking an ice screw. The ice is 50 or 60 degrees, and we can never see more than 100 feet above us, so we don't know where we're going, other than straight up. It sounds more daring than it is. When you're climbing properly, you're in the moment, working only with the world right at the end of your hands and feet—like a potter or a sculptor or a gymnast.

The last two pitches are a gothic castle of ice—turrets, moats, curtained walls, tenuous drawbridges. We are utterly, thankfully, alone. Everything above us and everything below us is lost in nubilated white gauze, as if this castle were suspended in the sky.

Standing beside the summit signpost, we have no view whatsoever. No hazy sea of green down in the Congo. No surrounding ridges or arêtes. No falling valleys. But that is fine. We can imagine it without even trying.

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