By Brian Johnson
Special to the American Press
Photos Special to the American Press
On Oct. 23, 2015, our charity fundraising team successfully summited Mount Kilimanjaro
Africa’s highest mountain — in our quest to raise funds for Save the Elephants, a Kenyabased elephant research and conservation organization. The idea to climb Kilimanjaro began when my wife, Kitty, and I visited Save the Elephant’s research center in 2014 and saw firsthand their innovative work to protect elephants and mitigate humanelephant conflict. We consider ourselves conservationists, travel to East Africa frequently and volunteer our time and money for wildlife and animal welfare causes.
Our social media pages are testaments to our love for East Africa, its people and its wildlife. But we wanted to do more, and climbing Kilimanjaro seemed a great way to tell the elephant’s story and raise funds for an organization working every day to ensure these magnificent animals will be around for generations to come. We spent months planning the expedition, developing outreach strategies and telling our story to the media while I physically prepared for the climb. Behind the scenes, my wife worked tirelessly to promote the climb, arranging interviews and updating our social media sites. It was a bit difficult to coordinate while she was in Lake Charles and I in Saudi Arabia, but we managed it and soon word spread of the event. In the spring, a friend of mine, Dave Gilbert and his wife Kris decided to climb the mountain with me. Soon, the three of us were clocking countless hours road marching around our small compound in Riyadh in a seemingly futile attempt to get our middle-aged bodies into shape. Kilimanjaro stands at 19,340 feet high and had to be taken seriously. According to the World Wildlife Fund’s travel blog, about 25,000 people attempt to summit the mountain annually. Of these, about a third fails to make it to the top mainly due to altitude sickness. Although confident in our physical ability to succeed, this sometimes deadly mountain affliction concerned us. We live at sea level in Saudi Arabia with no mountains nearby to do high altitude training or acclimatization, but we decided to carry on and take our chances.
FULFILLING A PROMISE
The day arrived for our light to Tanzania and the
mountain. The time for posting updates about our expedition to social media was over; it was
execute time. We all wanted to summit the mountain, but the climb weighed a bit heavier on my shoulders because I was the team leader. I had asked people for donations, and my name was on the line for the team’s success. I also made a promise to some friends to make it to the summit with a special photograph of their child. My credibility was on the line, and getting to the top was the only outcome I would accept. I’ll not bore the reader with a daily account of our journey up the mountain because days were pretty repetitive, but the first day on the mountain bears mentioning.
THE CLIMB
We began our climb at Macheme Gate in the Mount Kilimanjaro National Park. We signed in with our passports at the park warden’s office (they are intensely interested in knowing who is on the mountain), conducted final checks of our equipment, and had our personal gear weighed by our porters. The porters — locals
from the surrounding area — carried most of our personal gear, tents, food and water up the mountain on their backs. These guys ranged in age from teenagers to men in their 60s and are incredibly fit without an ounce of fat on their tall, lean bodies. As with most adventures, we set off with confidence, a lot of talking and non-stop joking. However, as time and distance passed on that first day, each of us retreated into our own thoughts, mentally preparing for the long, tough days ahead. Days ran into one another and we lost track of time, measuring our progress by the number of days on the mountain and elevation gained. At lower elevations, the terrain was distinctly Alpine and reminded me of the time I had spent in the mountains of Germany. But as we climbed higher, the lush forest and Alpine appearance gave way to the desolate and barren high altitude desert where it seemed life did not exist.
At these elevations, rapid changes in the temperature and weather were common and forced us to constantly change our clothing to adjust, especially above the cloud line. Besides the changes in terrain, I also began to experience the first effects of altitude. It began to get a bit more difficult to catch my breath and I began to experience some nausea. Even after several tough days of climbing burning thousands of calories, I lost my appetite and ate very little. At these higher elevations, we could never really warm up. We were constantly damp and sleep was fitful.
Although tired, we were doing well as we approached summit day. We arrived at Barafu, our base camp at 15,500 feet where we would launch our final push for the summit. It was a barren and desolate place shrouded in fog. But like mountain weather anywhere, the fog would quickly lift and offer spectacular views of far-off Mount Meru, an active volcano about 45 miles away from Kilimanjaro. Minutes later, the fog and clouds would again envelop the mountain and the temperature would rapidly drop. The day was spent preparing our gear, eating and resting. Before bed, we held a strategy session and decided to begin the final push at 5 a.m. the following morning. We turned in for the night, but I could not sleep because of the cold, difficulty breathing and mentally strategizing about the final push to the summit.
THE FINAL ASCENT
After a sleepless night, we set off in the pre-dawn darkness, unaware that the final leg of our journey to the summit would be the toughest and most challenging time on the mountain. The terrain was brutal, very steep and we climbed seemingly endless switchback trails for hours. Our guide, an experienced Maasai who had climbed the mountain numerous times, kept our pace glacially slow to allow our bodies to acclimatize to the extreme altitude. Our thighs and calves burned, we had developed a nagging mountain cough and struggled for oxygen, but we kept going.
Late in the morning, we arrived at Stella’s Point at 18,880 feet where we caught our breath and prepared for the final leg to the summit. Psychologically, something odd occurred here. When we arrived and saw others beginning their descent off the mountain after successfully reaching the summit, we knew we would make it.
We set off on the final leg to Uhuru Point and traversed the most surreal terrain I have ever seen in my life. Giant ice fields and glaciers loomed to our left while a giant crater, remnants of an ancient volcano, scarred the earth around the summit. The terrain was primeval and we looked like ghosts floating through the fog as we trudged to the top. It struck me of what a post-apocalyptic world might look like.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Finally after six long days, the faint outline of a sign marking Uhuru Point showed itself through the fog. At 11:45 a.m., we stepped foot on the summit and accomplished what we had set out to do. We had climbed Africa’s highest mountain.
There was big talk on the summit about what we would do when we got back to our hotel — lots of celebratory drinks, big dinner and so forth. The sad truth is that when we got back to our hotel, I sat in a hot shower for 30 minutes, nibbled at dinner, iced down my knee and slept the sleep of the dead.
Although proud of our success, this climb was about the elephants, and I take every opportunity to tell their story.
VOICE OF THE ELEPHANTS
The threats to elephants are numerous and complex, but the primary driver of poaching is an insatiable demand for ivory, primarily in Asia. In a landmark study published in 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, approximately 100,000 elephants were killed by poachers across Africa from 2010-2012. Annually, conservationists estimate about 25-35,000 elephants are killed to meet the demand of the global ivory market. The number of elephants remaining in Africa is uncertain, but conservationists estimate a likely figure of 500,000. But there is good news. In September, the US and Chinese presidents agreed to a near total ban on the commercial sale of ivory, a critically important step by the leaders of the two countries who are the leading consumers of ivory in the world. Just as important, public opinion campaigns are changing hearts and minds in ivory consuming countries. Conservation organizations have enlisted prominent Chinese celebrities such as former NBA superstar Yao Ming and megastar actress Lin Bingbing to spread the word about the elephant’s plight in China and it seems to be working. In a March 2015 survey by Wild Aid, the African Wildlife Foundation and Save the Elephants, 95 percent of Chinese respondents indicated governments should impose a ban on the ivory trade and that awareness of poaching had increased by 50 percent since 2012.
All over Africa, conservation organizations are testing innovative ways to mitigate human-elephant conflict. Save the Elephants in collaboration with Oxford University and Disney’s Animal Kingdom is currently conducting an innovative study to reduce crop damage caused by elephants using their instinctive avoidance of African honey bees. So much is being done by so many dedicated people to ensure that elephants remain for future generations to enjoy. But there is much to be done and you can help.
HOW CAN YOU HELP
You can help by not buying ivory or ivory products because when the buying stops, the killing will, too. Support elephant conservation organizations such as Save the Elephants and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. I have visited both organizations in Kenya, and they are performing magnificent work to ensure a future for elephants.
I’ve wandered the globe for most of my adult life, and my wife and I have lived abroad for so many years. But Africa is special and when I have been away for too long, it begins to pull me back. Someone a lot more talented than I captured this very sentiment so eloquently.
When you have acquired a taste for the dust and the scent for our first rain, you’re hooked for life on Africa and you’ll not be right again. Until you can watch the setting moon and hear the jackal’s bark, and know they are around you waiting in the dark. When you long to see the elephants or hear the coucal’s song, when the moonrise sets your soul on fire, then you’ve been away too long. It is time to cut the traces loose, and let your heart go free, beyond that far horizon where your spirit longs to be. Africa is waiting — come! Since you have touched the open sky and learned to love the rustling grass and the wild fish eagle’s cry. You’ll always hunger for the bush; for the lion’s rasping roar, to camp at last beneath the stars and to be at peace once more.
–Author Unknown
To everyone who donated to our cause, offered an encouraging word or supported our effort in some way, I offer you my sincerest thanks. With a little time and distance between me and the mountain, I’m already thinking about our next adventure in Africa to support the animals. Until then, live big.
This article was published in American Press Life Sunday, March 27, 2016.
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