A Dirt and Rock Stair Climb to the Rooftop of Africa

Was climbing to the summit of Kilimanjaro difficult? Yes. But thousands do it each year, so it is a great goal for the average hiker of most any age.

It is not for someone who rarely gets on the trail. But it is for those of us who hike on a regular basis, with at least a few ventures above 12000 feet.

Here was my experience - beginning six days into the climb and on the eve of summit:

Dinner was served before our last big climb night around 5 pm. A few hours of restless sleep later, we rose, dressed warmly and prepared for the ultimate push to Kilimanjaro's summit. We would be awake, mostly walking, for the next 17 hours.

The journey out of our highest camp on that evening began under a halogen full moon at midnight and 15000 feet above sea level. For 6 hours and just 3 steep miles, it is a dirt and rock stair climb - slow at first, then very slow - to the top at just over 19,300 feet.

The peak of Kilimanjaro is known as Uhuru. On the morning we summited, it was 10 degrees above zero F with winds gusting to 50 mph. It was a spectacular daybreak on the top, and bitterly cold. A sunrise like I had never seen - prismed beams of dawn off the nearby Rebman glacier and a local peak capped by that white and yellow light.

Even with the harsh conditions, reaching the summit is both joyous and a relief. No one in our group wanted to fail. And no one did. 4 men. 4 women. Ages 22 to 54. From 3 different countries.

There are hugs, handshakes, and high-fives. The guides celebrate with you, and deserve to. These are the professors who just saw their students earn A's for the week. Their joy is as real as yours.

Pictures were taken as quickly as possible. My friend Steve Brown - a very experienced mountaineer - has reached the summit first. He has extra photos to take and wants to explore the summit area for much longer than the average Kili tourist like me. He'll pay for that later with a case of mild frostbite that has somehow made him proud and a little happier.  

So again, yes. It is a difficult thing, climbing Kili. There is wind and cold and hypoxia.  But it is not technical - that is, no ropes, axes, or specialized equipment or training are necessary. There are no ice walls, crevasses, ladders, cables, anchor points or the danger of avalanches. It's not Everest. No where near.

It is, simply, a brutally tough climb in thin air that can include cold and wind for many hours. And when the celebrating is over at the peak, a lot more work still remains.

The thin air above 19000 feet is perilous. We're encouraged to get down at a brisk pace. Not just to the level of the camp that we woke up in. But further - another 4000 feet below that.

11000 feet is considered safe from hypoxia's life-threats. It is 6-7 hours downhill walking from the peak. Though conservative, a break for sleeping is not allowed until the 11000 foot camp. Because, as our guide James puts it: "Sleep above, you may not wake up."

So walk downhill we did. First through a trail of soft volcanic dirtpowder scree that reminds you of fresh-snow skiing. Then through a variety of hard and slick dirt trails, smooth river rocks and combinations of all. Everyone fell at least once on the descent that day. But no one was injured.

By 3 pm we arrived at the safe elevation. Two of our fellow trekkers with step recording watches reported the numbers 37,000 and 41,000 over the previous 17 hours.

Summit day is only one of the 6-8 day adventure that is a Kilimanjaro trek. The various guide/outfitter websites (such as climbkili.com) provide a wealth of information on the other hiking days.

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Equipment Notes

A list of equipment items to bring is provided by each outfitter. You should start getting this stuff together around six months before the journey. Top priority goes to footwear. Boots or trail shoes, comfortable and well-broken-in are critical.

I used Merrell Moab Ventilator low risetrail shoes. Most people use a higher top for ankle protection, but I used what I have hiked in for the last few years- the same style Merrells- with no problem at all.

I also use Spenco green insoles (2 layers) over a custom made carbon orthotic arch-supporting insert. Again, what I have used for many months before Africa. No blisters or any other difficulties with the feet. It can't be overemphasized enough that (nodding to Steve Martin) your feet stay "happy."

Camp pads and sleeping on the ground: Wake up in the morning after tent camping and you can feel like you've been in a car wreck. I choose not to with a high performance camp pad made by Exped - the SynMat 7 that uses a very cool hand inflatable system.

Training/Conditioning

Kili requires good cardio conditioning. You are going to walk approximately 31 miles over a week. Half will be grueling uphill. The other half will hammer your knees downhill.

I had three solid treks to higher elevations on my very brief mountaineering resume:

Mt. Humphrey's Peak - Arizona - at 12000+ feet

Salkantay Pass - Peru- at 15000+ feet

Mt. Elbert - Colorado - at 14000+ feet

I hiked my local 1300 foot mountain (Camelback Phoenix) at least once a week in the months leading up to Kili. Then twice a week as I neared the departure date.

Realistically, if you can do at least one of the easier 14's in Colorado, you can probably do Kili.

More Gear Notes

A few considerations:

Trekking poles- Most people recommend using. Some swear by them. I didn't use them on the Kili trek. Never have.

An excellent framed backpack - Some in the group used very lightweight school-bag type daypacks. I preferred my own slightly larger internal framed backpack - the  Gregory Z40. In recent years I've realized (way too late) that the weight of the pack resting through the belt on the hipbones is the best way to trek. For those doubters, go to REI (or similar) and have them custom fit a lightweight pack that "floats" in balance over the shoulders and see how you like it.

Recharging system - mini solar panels, supplemental power packs - are great for keeping your phone going. Believe it or not there was some phone service all the way up Kili and I was able to use my Sprint free international roaming data plan a few times.

An unsmartphone camera - My old Nikon Coolpix that uses AA batteries - pretty good pictures, always reliable.

Nasal saline solution for the dry often dusty mountain air can make your sinuses more comfortable.

Medications

Didn't use Diamox. Didn't need it.

Yes to Ibuprofen. 1500 to 3000 mg a day for the minor (inevitable) altitude headaches.

Getting There

Fly into JRO airport via KLM Airlines from AMS. Or Qatar Airlines from DOH, or a few other airlines including Ethiopian.

"Mobile Passport" App for your phone. Got it for travel back to the states. Used it and loved it.

Photos:

Lower Camp - early in the trek

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The invaluable porters and our gear they carried

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Another low camp - a cool and rainy wakeup

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Day 2 - around 11000 feet

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Day 3 - Hiking in the Clouds

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Over half way to the summit - Above the timberline

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Uhuru Peak - finally making an appearance

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Summit Day 6 am

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The descent - just above the highest camp

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Petra, Jordan - Notes

Notes on visiting Petra, Jordan:

A good, basic information source: www.wikitravel.org/en/petra

Fly into Amman, Jordan. My direct flight was from JFK on Royal Jordanian. That airline codeshares with AA and uses their gates - so mine was an easy transfer within the same terminal. Paid ticket was 800 USD one way from Phoenix.

Currency is Jordanian dollar. Locals will say 'geedee' (JD) when bargaining.

ATM at the airport will dispense JDs. I used my Navy Federal ATM card (Plus Network) no problem.

Cab ride about 20 JD to central Amman. Speaking of cabs, agree on a price before riding anywhere. Type it on your phone to be sure of the number. 2-5 JD for many rides in town.

I used Airbnb for a week stay in Amman. $55 USD per night for a decent house. Plenty of brand name upscale hotels around Jordan. Didn't price them.

Did the usual tourist stuff in Amman on either side of the Petra visit. All very worthwhile. Use www.wikitravel.org/en/Amman for more info.

Petra Info:

I rode the Jett Bus to Petra and back. www.jett.com.jo  20 JDs round trip. Very reasonable. Average comfortable big box tour bus. Left their company terminal in Amman at 0630. 3 hours to Petra with a 30 minute stop at a fine little restaurant/souvenir place on the way.

After arrival, had a quick lunch, hotel check-in and entered the Petra Site around 11 am. Walked the Siq, saw the Treasury, a few other fascinating structures then a strenuous walk to the Monastery. Enjoyed the views and walked back to the entrance. This took about 5 hours total.

I walked at a moderate pace with no real resting except to enjoy the sites and views from above the Monastery. If I had gone a little faster, I could have skipped a hotel that night and caught the 4 pm Jett Bus back to Amman. That would have been a long, exhausting day!

But I planned to stay the night in Petra and did that. 2 star hotel was adequate. Had to ask for a space heater, but they politely obliged. If I had wanted a shower in my private bath (which I didn't because the room was so cold!) I would have had to ask for soap and towels. No problem and never surprising in places like this.

With the bus travel and mostly 2-3 star accommodations Petra on your own is classic 'rough travel.' Not unclean or uncomfortable or unsafe - though your wife's standards may vary from my own. Most everything is not like a Crowne Plaza. Which there happens to be at the entrance gate to Petra. I never saw the rates.

Dinner was at a local friendly kebab joint and I was in bed with exhausted legs and plenty of blankets by 7 pm.

Next day up a 6. Breakfast at the hotel, then back at the site by 7. I spent 6 hours visiting more ruins and the museum. Lunch, relax time at a local coffee shop with free wifi, then I caught the Jett bus back to Amman.

I had never heard of the Nabataeans in school. Fascinating people. We are lucky some of what they built has survived along with the Roman, Byzantine and Islamic ruins. The bonus is that it exists in amazing sandstone rock formations similar to our own Zion National Park.

This is a must see site if you love places like Machu Picchu, the Coliseum and the Parthenon. Spouses (or kids) who can only handle a limited amount of walking and who quickly lose patience with 'the old' and big crowds should consider this trip carefully.

Buy a Jordan Pass before leaving the US. It is a bargain if you see Petra for 2 days.

Dealing with the locals selling items, horse rides and camel rides is an issue. Plenty of info on websites like tripadvisor so you don't need my opinion.

Guide or no guide? You will be offered guide services at every tourist sight. Be ready to answer. I find guides to be hit or miss. Mostly miss. But keep in mind, on a do-it-yourself scale, I'm a 9.5

For every place in Jordan, I found a good free map of the area. I had downloaded The Rough Guide Jordan to my IPad before the trip and read through the basic info as well as info on the specific sites I chose to visit. I also use the wikitravel/en website.

Once at the entrance to Petra, I bought a small guidebook. My rule of thumb is - it has to fit comfortably in my back pocket. That's usually enough to read for the day.

You can walk around Petra and each major site has a standing metal tourist info board in languages including English. Good basic info. I thumbed through my guidebook. I sometimes drifted into tour groups to listen in. Nobody seemed to notice or mind. I really enjoy the freedom of breaking away from the herd at any point I wanted.

Believe me - in a place like Petra, you can't seem to enjoy enough the quieter times when no one else is around. Getting there early morning on the second day was something special.

That said, a good, clear English speaking and entertaining guide can be golden.

Closing thoughts on Jordan:

Use Google Translate for three basic phrases. It is a very cool tool with pronunciation through headphones/speaker. Look up 'Hello' 'Thank you' and 'Goodbye' and write them down phonetically. Example: SHOO-krahn is thank you. Tape these to the back of your phone. Now you speak some Arabic.

Safe? Yes. The big hotels in Amman have security like an embassy. The embassies have security like a supermax. Police are everywhere in the tourist areas. Extremists are a relatively small issue - nothing like Iraq, Syria, etc. They are dealt with harshly in this kingdom - our Gitmo would probably be a Crowne Plaza in comparison to what Jordan's police have to offer.

The people and leadership are very friendly toward the west - check out any interview with His Majesty King Abdulah II.

Early December weather was perfect- clear, cool, 65 degrees (YMMV).

This is the off  tourist season. Plus world events are dampening travel. I hardly ever waited in a line.

Paragliding in Chamonix

Les Ailes du Mont Blanc is a paragliding / parapente school in Chamonix, France. It's located right in town below the Brevent Gondola and offers a five day basic course in gliding.

Three days of instruction are spent on the difficult part - inflating the glide and lauching in a stable position down a hill. Days four and five are the actual flights. They are both thrilling and beautiful - into the valley towns of Chamonix and Les Houches in the French Alps.

I have been parachuting many times and that probably hindered me catching on with inflating and controlling the glide. Skydiving parachutes are smaller and have steeper glide paths - at least my old rig does. Parapente glides are meant to be controlled much more gently than I was used to. Fortunately the school attaches a radio on your harness for a ground instructor to provide steering instructions. With his help, I manged to find the center of the target field with an (almost) standup landing.

Compared to the U.S. - and many other places, activities like this are fairly unregulated. The school told me that once I was comfortable under the glide, I could get a rig, buy a lift ticket on the local gondola and fly all day long if I wanted to.

It is a much quieter experience than skydiving. There is, of course, no freefall experience, but there is also no aircraft noise. And in the case of the valley below the Mont Blanc Massif near Chamonix, the scenery is some of the most spectacular in the world.

Some more info:

The Les Ailes School Facebook Page

The paraglide school required me to visit a local doctor to certify that I am fit to launch, fly and land the glide. I was not allowed to substitute a recent Class 1 FAA medical certificate and an ATP pilot's license. So I saw the Chamonix flying doc. It took about 30 minutes on the first evening and now I have this cool letter in French saying I am good for parapente and other flying sports for 2 years.

Nine days of liability insurance are required - in case you damage someone's property on landing. This cost me about $30 and was easily bought on-line with the school's assistance.

Happy 82nd, Dad

Happy Birthday to my Dad!!!

His family and friends probably already know this, but my father loves a good blonde joke. Here goes:

Ted Baze once walked into an Austin Texas drinking establishment. He spotted a blonde sitting at the bar and started a conversation: "Hey, do you want to hear the best blonde joke ever?" he said.

The girl looked at him and replied, "Well, ok. But first you need to know that because I am sitting down you can't tell how tall I am. I am 6 feet 2 inches and was the kickboxing champion at my police academy class."

She then pointed to her right and said: "Do you see this blonde next to me? She is a good friend, is 6 feet 4 and is the body-building champion of North America." Pointing again she continued: "And do you see this blonde to her right? She is 6 foot 6 and is the mixed martial arts champion of the world."

My dad looked straight ahead as she continued: "So today the three of us are celebrating our graduation from the University of Texas here in Austin. We were on full-ride hair-diversity scholarships and graduated with degrees in recovering-blonde studies. Top three in our class."

The bar suddenly seemed quieter as the woman finished with this: "Now, mister. Do you still want to tell us your little blonde joke?"

My dad replied: "Nah. I don't want to have to explain it three times."

Happy 82nd, Dad.

Prison Bureaucracy

For those of us seeing more evidence each day that the world is wobbling a little further off it's axis, I give you the Prison Rape Elimination Act Compliance form courtesy of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

My wife travels for business very often. She provides sales support for a medical device company and was recently asked to visit a Pennsylvania Prison. Signing and returning this form was a condition for her to visit. It was required by Pennsylvania DOC.

That our penal system needs medical equipment should come as no surprise. We are a humane society and I see a great value in treating inmate-patients that will move outside the gates one day to reformed and better lives. If they need an exam requiring modern equipment, count me in support.

As for prison rape, I don't have much opinion on that subject except that it adds to the list of reasons why I stay on the law abiding side of society.

Think about the irony, though, of my wife signing a form and consenting to a background check that is supposed to prevent prison rape. Not a violation of her, but rather the prisoners she may be around.

If it makes the citizenry of Pennsylvania sleep more soundly at night knowing my wife will not rape anyone in prison, then please enjoy that more peaceful rest.

As for those of us in the south and west, we mostly have a different viewpoint on that issue.

Meanwhile another business deals with another nonsensical bureaucratic requirement. And our economy continues stuck in first gear.

5 Cents a Mile

On a recent trip to Asia with my son, we traveled 19000 miles on Singapore Airlines. The airfare for each round-trip ticket was $1000 total. An incredible bargain for that distance traveled.

The math will tell you that riding in an Airbus A-380 and a Boeing 777 for 6 flights totaling all those miles in economy class worked out to slightly more than 5 cents per mile.

If I traveled in some fashion from where I am sitting in Phoenix to Los Angeles on a budget of 5 cents per mile, it would cost me about $15 total. I'm not sure how I could possibly do that other than riding a bicycle non-stop, finding water along the way, barely eating, and skipping any sort of lodging - even Airbnb.

No other form of transportation comes close to the efficiency and safety of modern air travel. Maybe the price of my ticket was subsidized by a government such as Singapore. I don't know. But I sat for a total of 42 hours in a reasonably comfortable seat, reading, watching movies, eating a decent meal every few hours and consuming a dozen or so adult beverages. I was safer riding in the plane than wading in an ocean, hiking a mountain trail, riding in an automobile or stepping through my bathroom.

The 'good old days' don't even come close to providing this level of comfort or safety for long distance travel.

5 cents a mile. Astounding.

Us

8 July - The Dallas Shootings

Thoughts on this difficult day - especially for those of us from Texas.

I am lucky to work in a job that brings me in close contact with many people on any given day. I woke up this morning in Fort Lauderdale and from the time I left my room to the time I sat down in the cockpit, I interacted with dozens, maybe a hundred people. From tipping a van driver, to buying a coffee to thanking our passengers for their business, I tried to make a lot of eye contact today.

I am not going to go all rainbow touchy-feely on this social media. I encountered a diverse crowd. Hell, we are all diverse in so many different ways - skin color being one of the most obvious.

Something I can take away from that eye and spoken contact today is that people are good. There are monsters out there, but nearly everyone is good and (though it can be a little hard to see) we usually treat each other very well.

I once saw a woman fall down in an airport terminal. Another woman, a stranger nearby - roughly the same age, very different skin color - came right to her aid. This is what any of us would expect to happen and exactly what did.

I wish our leaders would emphasize less the groups we supposedly belong to or the methods we can readily use to harm one another. Us versus them won't work. It's only Us.