Seven days in Africa

(by Jim)

It was early afternoon as we drove into the town of Naro Moru, having slept for much of the drive from Nairobi, tired after the long journey from Bristol and the obligatory beers pre and post departure. On our left was the ‘Mount Kenya View’ bar; aptly named perhaps, though it could have been any building in the town- they are all on the same side of the road and all face Mount Kenya. On this particular day, however, there was no view as the mountain was enshrouded in cloud. As the sky grew dark and the air grew thick with moisture we began to think that the rains had come early.

The last time I had been on the mountain was during the summer season two years earlier. Travelling alone I had taken a porter and a guide and attempted the north face route approached via the Sirimon Track. Heavy snow on the ridge had prevented success and we had retreated at the Firmin Tower. On that occasion I had attempted the mountain at the start of a three month trip to Africa and with time not being a factor I had meandered slowly up the mountain taking detours to aid with acclimatisation. This time was different. Work had brought with it the financial freedom to return, but the added constraint of time and now, with my friend, climbing partner and work colleague, Tom, we had just a week to climb the mountain. We had intended to approach again via the Sirimon track, reaching the Austrian Hut via Lenana (the mountain’s third summit) so as to attain maximal acclimatisation before attempting the normal route up Nelion, but things soon changed. We were working on a tight schedule and had to get straight on the mountain, so with no room for manoeuvre were forced to take what transport we could get to the start of the trek. It was a Sunday and the only way to the mountain we could find was heading to the Naro Moru, one of the shortest and potentially, therefore, most dangerous ways of reaching the higher peaks, not to mention the infamous vertical bog. Worse still, the Landrover we had found was driving straight to the meteorological station at 3100m, instead of stopping at the significantly lower park gate. We could have got out there and walked, we should have got out there and walked, but we were tired and it was so comfortable in the Landrover and… anyway, we didn’t. As doctors we should have known better. In fact having spent most of our training more interested in wilderness medicine and the problems of high altitude than the course itself, we did know better but had conveniently chosen to overlook this. We did at least know what to expect. But altitude sickness takes time to develop, so we had made ourselves players in a waiting game. So, we waited and played, and put up the tent and cooked some food and defended our camp from the monkeys and, the battle won, crawled into out sleeping bags and drifted off, sleep ushered in by the soothing crescendo of the rainforest at night. The next morning it was warm and sunny and to our surprise and delight we both felt fine. We had taken a gamble and, so far, had won. The only downside was that we had no excuse to lie around in the sun, well not for long anyway, and two hours later we were ready to go.

Climbing a big mountain, up a technical route is fraught with mixed emotions and the initial excitement of planning the trip and travelling to the destination can easily give way to fear, doubt and sometimes regret as one moves higher up the mountain. That said, the first day of the trek is often one of the more exciting; happy to get the project under way, to immerse oneself in a new environment and settle into the hypnotic rhythm of strenuous physical exercise. And this of course is all true provided you can pick up your rucksack. The desire to be entirely self sufficient, to go without porters or guides and carry all food, fuel, clothing and climbing equipment for the week was all very well at home, but when the only way to shoulder your pack is to crawl onto all fours and then stagger, with the aid of a walking pole into an upright position, you do begin to wonder. There was a brief initial period of denial, when for a few seconds each of us lumbered smugly around the meadow, grinning and saying things like ‘fine’, ‘no problem’ and ‘yeah’ whilst jumping around on the spot to assess whether we had actually convinced ourselves, but it soon became apparent the no, it was not fine, yes there was a problem and that no, this was not going to be a pleasant experience. Each step forwards offered nothing but a searing pain though each muscle and joint and each upwards step felt like being hit on both shoulders with a giant mallet as if in some strange fairground knighthood ceremony (‘Arise Sir Pack-a-lot’). On the hard ground the net movement was zero and in the soft nightmare of the vertical bog it was negative or at least that’s how it felt. All in all the six and a half hour trek from the met station to Mackinder’s Camp at 4,300m offered no pleasure at all, but for the fact that it eventually ended and that when it did we knew, or at least hoped, that any progress further up the mountain would not require such a monumental effort. Above Mackinder’s the jagged peaks of Batian and Nelion rose sharply up, their main body largely obscured by clouds, though their noses occasionally poked mischievously above them. They were cast in the warm colours of evening, but looked distant and unwelcoming nonetheless, as if the brush of a skilled artist had placed a cold filter of whites and blues over a base of orange and red. It was hard to imagine standing up there looking down at where we now sat. At the head of the valley was a series of caves, supposedly home to leopards, though we didn’t see any.

Our next objective was the Austrian Hut at 4,600m, which though high, made for a relatively un-daunting task, largely because of the decision to ferry loads from Mackinder’s over two days. In this way we would take all the climbing gear up, drop back down to sleep and then return to the hut the following day. These two short jaunts with reasonably light packs would give us ample time to rest whilst also providing the best chance for acclimatisation. The route was steep scree, but with half loads we made quick work of it completing the round trip in an hour and a half. At the hut we studied the route up Nelion, took some photos to study later and, in a moment of weakness, booked two beds for the following day. Returning to camp we spent the afternoon in and out of the tent reading, drinking tea, taking photographs, drinking tea, an ongoing cycle punctuated always by tea. In the morning we ascended quickly to our previous high point arriving just as the weather closed in and a heavy, angled rain swept across the exposed col. We were glad we had opted for the hut and settled in to the familiar routine of drinking tea whilst waiting for the weather to clear. By about three o’clock it did and we took the opportunity to stretch our legs with a quick ascent of Lenana, moving quickly up the scree covered ridge then scrambling up the rocks to summit. There was very little to see when we got there and after a brief pause for photos and the obligatory summit fudge bar we headed back down for some more tea.

The alarm went off at four the following morning so we pretended not to have heard it. Only when we could ignore it no more did we struggle out of our sleeping bags into the unwelcoming cold of the night. Tom had drawn the short straw and headed off into the darkness to fetch some water from the inconveniently located lake at the foot of the glacier while I got the stove on and boiled what little water we had left. We drank the tea in silence, forced down some porridge and set off some time afterwards. In spite of the cold it was a clear moonlit night and by the time that we set foot on the glacier there was no longer any need for head torches. The glacier was dry with no obvious crevasses so we opted to move unroped, the crossing straightforward, but unnerving, frozen occasionally in our tracks by the loud cracking noises from the ice beneath our feet. Once on the other side we scrambled up the moraine and scree reaching the foot of the climb as the rising sun cast its warm light on the wall above our heads.

The first pitch was straightforward, a scramble on good rock, warm to the touch and welcoming with its soft Mediterranean glow and were it not for the foreboding wall above us, the large mountain boots, full rucksack and thin air it could almost have been one of the crags in Corsica that I had climbed on last summer. As I belayed Tom, my body subconsciously reacting to the task, my mind was beginning to wander, at once excited to be finally on the wall, but at the same time, already pondering the wisdom of the whole undertaking. I pushed the thoughts into the unneeded, empty canyons of my mind where the smell of the sea, the soft jazz notes and the hot smoky air were free to roam with all the other unnecessary units of knowledge and belief and withdrew again into narrow tunnel of existence that was now required. Later, as a storm gathered, as we sat perched on a thin blade of rock surrounded on all sides by an abyss, as the sun dropped below the horizon and as snowflakes began to cloud our view I would have the same distracting thoughts and though on one level there were more distracting they were at the same time easier to quash, for by then a narrow focus would be all but essential. For now though we had matters in hand. A zigzagging traverse which presented little difficulty drew us imperceptibly onto the route proper, the climbing becoming a touch more technical, but all the more enjoyable for it, the tricky moves almost always followed by easier ones and any unease coming only from the increasing drop beneath our feet. On the comfortable terrace just below the Rabbit Hole, one of the route’s landmark features, we paused for some water, a bite to eat and a quick glance at the topo. It explicitly stated that we should climb up the rib, passing the Rabbit Hole on the right, but for some reason, which may well have been the rather obvious looking route up to the left, I chose to ignore this information and proceed as I felt I should. Of course the topo said ‘right’ for a reason and as I began to struggle with the overhang on a route that we knew to have none I had to concede to what Tom had been telling me all along and after a wasted half hour sacrificed a piece of gear and lowered back down to the ledge. I swore for a while then I set off to the right, gingerly teetering up the slab before pulling strenuously over the top of the pitch to the foot of one o’clock gully. We followed the gully as the topo said we should, until where it steepened we mounted the left wall to traverse back right. Now on the open expanse of the face, we followed the simple and obvious traverse to Ballie’s Bivi, a ramshackle, but nonetheless, welcoming tin shelter perched just below Mackinder’s gendarme, the halfway point on the route. We stopped for lunch, a sachet of tuna with lime and black pepper which had become a staple of every climbing trip since Barry Roberts had suggested we take them on the Greenland trip last summer, and then stepped from our humble shelter back onto the face. We were half way up the route and roughly half way through the day. Our calculations reckoned that we would get to the top in daylight as long as we moved at the same pace on the second section. Our calculation, though, did not reckon for getting lost and that was exactly what we did next.

From our perch on the southeast ridge we down climbed in a westerly direction heading towards what remained of the Diamond Glacier, a bare scattering of ice that clings desperately to the rock.  The Diamond Couloir, the once classic ice route that sits below the glacier is now just a threadbare gully, a natural funnel for falling rocks and as such a route reserved for those with suicidal intent. In stark contrast to the photographs of the mountain in the seventies -great gullies thick with snow, ice like rivers oozing from the rock- that adorn the walls of the bar at the Naro Moru River Lodge it served as a reminder of the earth’s changing climate. We found ourselves in a labyrinth of broken rock which threw our sense of place and lost in the maze we pursued numerous false passages becoming increasingly keen to escape this dark, sheltered corner of the mountain. Then, when we had wasted too much time looking we happened upon the way. The way happened to be the most difficult pitch on the route; a tough off width crack followed by some testing moves up a face that was lacking in holds. At sea level, in climbing shoes it may well have been a pleasure, but at five thousands metres, with time running out it sapped me of everything I had. My boots held momentarily on tiny edges then slipped, my rucksack too tightly wedged to let me fall and too tightly wedged to let me move once I had re-found my footing. Eventually we forced our way up and rested at the top, bewildered and suddenly aware for the first time in hours of the passage of time. There followed some easy moves which lead us back to a perch on the southeast ridge. Visible once again was the Austrian Hut, the glacier we had crossed in the half light of the early morning and there on the ridge with the eye of faith tracing a line through Mackinder’s gendarme was the shelter where we had stopped for lunch. The route from here seemed clear, but there were still seven pitches to the top and as we sat reflecting on the journey so far the weather took a turn and threw new questions into the air. A fierce wind spiralled all around us whipping the now snow filled air up into some turbulent, chaotic mist occasionally refined with some perfect tornado like funnel of snow flakes, clean and white against the darkening sky. We pondered the question of descent and my mind drifted back to Corsica, the villa, the pool, the warm evening glow and the crisp, cool comfort of a gin and tonic as the sun dropped into the shimmering evening sea. My mind flitted in and out of the two landscapes, opposites united only by the setting sun, and it soon became apparent that a decision had to be made. If the snow continued, and it would be dark soon, the rock would get wet and hard to climb, we may slip or loose our way and then… But descent would mean to abseil in the dark. We were far right of the proper, bolted abseil descent and would not find it now. To go down we risked getting lost in the dark, rushing, choosing inappropriate anchors, slipping and then… Besides which we had long since run out of water. We knew there would be ice on the summit, where the remnants of the Diamond Glacier met with Nelion’s rocky crown. And there was a hut. We could melt endless pans of water, rehydrate, eat a hot meal, sleep in the warmth and descend with clear heads the following morning. The decision was made and we pushed on.

It was at this point that I remember becoming like a man possessed, acutely aware of the need to climb the last few technical pitches in the remaining light and while I felt strangely in control I was aware too that any error with such scant protection could have fatal consequences. The rock was loose in places and occasional shards of loose slate like rock showered down towards Tom. For those few pitches we ran at the rock, a frantic relay, performed in calm precision, during which time we neither thought nor spoke of anything, but the task in hand. Some time later, above the difficulties, sitting at the base of a short chimney, the last technical move before a two pitch scramble to the summit, we stopped for a brief pause and realised that it was pitch black. We took out our head torches and clambered up the chimney. From here the going was simple, but now that the tension had eased, we were weak and desperately thirsty; it had been hours since we last had a drink. We followed a gully to the point at which there was no further to go and turned to our right climbing the final few feet to the summit. We had reached the top, but stopped short of actually standing on it, distracted by the hut, a small metal box that glinted in the beam of our headlamps. It was comfortable inside with a soft padded floor that we had not expected. Above it, where the mountain gave way suddenly to the precipitous face of the Diamond Glacier which fell sharply into the darkness, we found a patch of ice. It was unnerving to collect it, chipping away to break off large chunks that we would store outside the hut, occasional pieces sliding down the upper reaches of the glacier before fading quietly into void. Just looking over the edge was enough to make you feel sick and when we had what we needed we retreated to the hut. For several hours we boiled water, for soup and tea, and when we had sufficiently rehydrated we drifted off, warm and comfortable in our sleeping bags, safe for the moment, but still a long way up with a long way down to go.

We awoke in time to see the sun rise over Africa feeling small and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe before turning our minds to the less existential thoughts of food and drink and getting safely off the mountain. A breakfast of warm dirty water and left over scraps held no appeal, but we ate it quickly and purposefully, before packing our sacs and slowly reversing the steps we had made the previous evening. We made a minor detour up to the summit of Nelion and glanced across to Bation, the true summit of Mount Kenya, higher by a matter of metres, but separated by a frightening looking passage of shattered rocks. It held no desire. At the base of the gully we took a right, veering for the first time away from the ascent route and sitting at the most exposed point on the mountain, glinting in the glare of the warm morning sun made harsh and unfriendly by the fierce erratic wind found the bolt from which we would descend. We inspected it, tied the ropes together, thread them through and tossed them into the wind. I clipped them through my belay plate, took a slug of rancid water, unclipped the safety line and dropped nervously into the void. It was a 50 metre abseil down rotten, overhanging rock that I had no interest in grappling with should the rope become stuck and as the strands slipped through my fingers I quietly hoped that the last sound I heard wouldn’t be the sound of metal giving way under tension, that gentle ping, like a golf ball perfectly struck from the tee. I have never really enjoyed abseiling.

Tom followed and gradually we made our way down the mountain. After the first few abseils the terrain became less precipitous and we settled into a rhythm. Using half ropes though had doubled the work load, interrupting the smooth flow of the descent and while they had been of use in ascending I would opt for a single rope in future. We moved, but slowly, and any plans of getting off the mountain in one day soon evaporated. At about three o’clock in the afternoon, after six hours of constant abseiling, broken only by the pulling, coiling, untangling and tossing of rope, occasional climbing to reverse the wrong decision and scrambling between bolts, we finally set foot on the moraine at the foot of the route. We slid down the scree to find the crampons and axes we had stashed in the half light of the early morning the previous day and then struggled over the broken rocks, drawn by the sound of running water and then quenched our thirst with ice cold glacial melt water. The trek down to Mackinder’s Camp was painful and when we finally collapsed at the tent we both felt incapable of moving another step. Tomorrow we knew would be worse as we would again be heavily laden, but for now it was far enough away to ignore. Less easy to ignore was the fact that I couldn’t find my camera, fleece or soft shell, all of which had been tied to my rucksack since we had drunk from the glacial stream. I was so staggered with disbelief at this discovery that I didn’t even allow myself the time to consider not going back. The fleece and soft shell I would have left, but not the camera, not, at least, the photos and so, having collapsed only moments earlier on the soft grass not far from the tent, I stood up, grabbed a head torch and set off at a half jog up the path I had just come down. Almost entirely unimpressed with my new predicament I scampered up the path, scanning for the missing items and leopards as I went, the whole time being more concerned with idea that if my camera was actually as far up as the glacial stream then my scamp would very soon become a walk and a very long one at that. My luck, though, was in and after about 20 minutes I found my camera, fleece and soft shell by the side of the path. There were no leopards and I was soon back in camp sitting in the very same position I had been just before.

In the morning we made our way off the mountain, our packs only marginally lighter than on the way up, but no less painful to carry. Spurred on by the thought of a night at the Naro Moru River Lodge with its hot running water and cold beer we pushed on through the pain, stumbling down the irritating tussock grass of the vertical bog, conjuring as we went the meal that awaited us. We had phoned ahead to the lodge to arrange transport from the trailhead and all being well we reckoned on getting there for a late lunch. It was a very late lunch as it turned out- the Landrover broke down -but once we finally arrived nothing really seemed to matter. We ate club sandwiches and took tea in the garden in the shadows of the mountain we had just climbed, but could no longer see through the storm filled clouds that had settled around it. Then, feeling an obligation to fulfil the plans we had made for our well earned day of leisure we played tennis, swam and had a sauna, before showering for the second time that day, the second time that week. After a beer or two in the bar we moved to the restaurant for dinner then finally collapsed exhausted into bed shortly after ten.

The lie in we desired wasn’t to be and we were up at 6am to catch a bus to Nairobi, but as the rising sun silhouetted the mountain against the purple, red and then pale orange of the dawn sky the early start seemed perhaps justified. Turning left at the Peacock Bar and then right onto the main road we passed the Peahen Filling station on our left as we drove out of town. We slumbered for much of the journey waking only as the bus drove through central Nairobi. It was early still and the roads were quiet. Maribou storks sheltered in the trees and the rafters of the football stadium. We wanted to stay, but had to leave. Some ten hours later we were back in England. The following morning, after seven days in Africa, we went back to work.