Although it has been less than three months since my American adventure, it seems very distant now when viewed from 13,000 feet above sea level at the Barranco Camp, beneath the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. But the desire I feel is the same as I felt in the United States: I want to challenge myself, give the best of myself, and try to discover what my thresholds are, to know myself better. In Tanzania, the thresholds I will test don’t relate to heat and distance; here it is about how my body will react to altitude and speed in a more technical terrain.
I’ve never liked to restrict myself to a single pursuit; I think that limits the ways you can get to know yourself. I don’t mean to imply that I like to do a little bit of everything but do nothing well; quite the opposite, I like to prepare the best way I can for whatever I do and to be as competitive as possible. But variety of activity allows us to explore every corner of our body and mind. I like the taste of blood in my mouth when I’m competing in a relay race or skiing in a vertical race, just as I like to feel the loneliness of the long-distance runner. Each activity reveals something new about myself, and not simply about my body. It’s obvious, if you’ve been running for 40 hours and then collapse, that 40 hours is your threshold. But what use is such knowledge to me? No use at all. However, the things that my body has learned during those hours and, more importantly, how my mind has been able to motivate me to concentrate during that time, even in moments I thought it was impossible, will forever be of use to me.
Knowing I can run 3,000 feet straight uphill in 30 minutes isn’t of much practical use in a world in which technology can transport us at unimaginable speeds, but it does help me to know that my muscles are able to function when they lack oxygen, to know that I have an ability to concentrate 100 percent, to know that I can successfully fight to achieve what I set out to do. The goal may be a vertical mile, or an ultra-trail, or a marathon, but it can also be about playing a piece of music, finishing a painting, solving a theory, or carrying out research. The result isn’t what’s important, but rather the path you must take to get there.
The path is very obvious here in Tanzania, where the air surrounding us feels completely different from the air in the rest of the world. It seems we have returned to our origins, where nature imposes its laws and humans are the ones who must adapt to go forward. Here, I will ascend and descend the magnificent Kilimanjaro in what I hope is a record time. We will see what nature allows.
We have been sleeping in tents for a week to get used to being at this elevation and are now fully into the routines of tent life. Day-to-day life is straightforward and is about doing only what is necessary. We get up in the morning when the warm sun starts penetrating the canvas of our tents, and after a short medical check to measure the oxygen in our blood, our breathing, and our pulse rates to confirm that we are adapting well and to discount any likelihood of altitude sickness, we go eat breakfast in the meal tent. Tea and hot ginger help keep us warm in the cold that comes down from the glaciers and are fine accompaniments to the toast or pancakes with honey and jam that give us energy to begin the day.
We fill our backpacks and help the porters fill the sacks with the gear necessary for camping, and we gradually start to move on to the next camp. It is remarkable to see the porters walk so skillfully up between blocks of volcanic rock and huge tree roots, balancing sacks of more than 40 pounds on their heads. They move forward slowly but surely, stopping for short breaks to give their necks and shoulders a rest from the weight they are carrying.
Once we reach the camp, we erect the tents and kitchen in a few minutes before preparing lunch, and we wash in a bucket of cold water under a warm sun. In the afternoon, everyone is free to do what they want and what their bodies require: some rest in their tent; others walk around the camp and take advantage of the magnificent light and views to take photographs or simply sit on a rock and watch the colors in the sky change as the sun sets. Simon, the expedition guide and record holder for the ascent and descent of Kilimanjaro, and I use the time to run to higher altitudes to acclimate my body to making that effort with much less oxygen.
I have adapted well from the start. I have had no headaches and have been able to run easily uphill between 13,000 and 19,000 feet. My body seems to be reacting well to the lack of oxygen, though the truth is that with views like these, it is difficult to listen to your body when your mind is so filled with contemplating the wonders. Earlier, on an afternoon training run from Barranco Camp, I was surprised and utterly charmed by the sight of the sun projecting the shadow of Kilimanjaro onto the savannah extending before me, 13,000 feet below. The shadow drew a perfect triangle, darkening the cape of bright gold that swathes the whole mountain. In that moment, I really began to feel that I am on the ceiling of Africa.
To the right of the shadow from Kilimanjaro, a single obstacle halted the spread of the savannah: Mount Meru imposed itself as if it were fighting against Mount Kilimanjaro for domination over the plains of Africa. I looked at the ground, trying to leave the dreamlike vistas awakening in the distance, but the incredible gilded light that illuminated Barranco and the looming protrusion of volcanic rock known as Lava Tower wouldn’t allow me to turn my gaze away.
Perhaps the most surprising feature of this trek, though, isn’t the play of light on incredible landscapes or the whimsical shapes of the lava, but rather the constant cheer displayed by the porters. As the days have passed, the trust and convivial feelings between the Franco-German and Catalan team and the Tanzanian porters and guides has grown. On the first days our exchanges were few and brief—“Jambo, how are you?” “Good, thanks”—but as time has passed, the conversations in broken English and the universal language of signs have taken on more depth. We are no longer the porters on one side and the Europeans on the other: We have melded into a single team.
From the start, we have been surprised that the porters always have a smile for us. When loading up the heavy sacks between the rocks, when cooking dinner in the dusty camp, when getting up at 6 in the morning in 5°F temperatures after spending the night in a tent without a sleeping bag … they are always smiling and happy. The landscape deserves such an attitude, though I imagine that after you have looked at it day after day, it ceases to be exceptional and simply becomes the backdrop to everyday life. The work is very hard, but they seem to take pleasure in it and in the fact that they can participate in the dreams of climbers who perhaps help them realize some of their own.
The conditions are difficult: wearing battered rope sandals and clothes salvaged from what other climbers have given them at the end of a descent from the top, sleeping in a tent in all the clothes they own because they didn’t have warm sleeping bags, and always being away from their family, week after week, expedition after expedition. But after talking to them, I realized that despite all of this, they do appreciate the beauty of these landscapes, and they enjoy seeing them through the eyes and words of foreign visitors experiencing them for the first time. They enjoy telling visitors about how, years ago, the glaciers reached 3,000 feet farther down, as far as Barranco, and that before the cities became so enormous, you could still see lions running wild across the savannah.
I learned that they dream of being able to travel, of finding better work so that they can install electricity in their homes or buy shoes for their children. Iddikenja, a porter who was just 30 but looked a good 10 years older, wanted to earn enough money in two years to be able to go to the capital and study to be a guide and then lead groups up the mountains. Or China, who was a great fan of snowboarding, although he had only seen snow on the glaciers of Kilimanjaro, he followed the sport enthusiastically by looking at photographs in magazines. His eyes were full of dreams when he saw pictures of the snow-capped Pyrenees and Alps and videos of mountain ski races.
We have just come down from the peak for the first time and are tired but content as we arrive back in Barranco. Today we went up with the whole team to scout the last section of the route, and everyone had specific tasks: the camera te
am—Olivier, Raphael, and Marlène—to find the best spots for filming; Stephan, to take the best images; Sònia, to acclimatize herself, as she would be the one who would have to help me in case of an accident or if I got altitude sickness; Thierry, to find places from which he could see the route and give live coverage; and my father, who, after taking clients on a climb to the top the previous week, had joined the group in order to participate in and add his experience to the adventure. Three porters and Simon completed the team that would lead the way and carry medical supplies, scout the final stretch to the top and the descent, and complete a last training session before the real attempt. However, as we approached the top, we began to lose any sense of what we were supposed to be doing and became absorbed by the astonishing scenery and by the fact that we were flying high above the continent of Africa. Whichever way we looked, at eye level there was only sky. It is a difficult feeling to describe—a bit like the experience of victory, when you know you have succeeded, you are ecstatic, can feel your hair standing on end and your pulse racing. We could all feel that tingling sensation as we touched the top of Uhuru, more than 19,000 feet above sea level.
After an energetic flurry of welcome from the porters who had stayed back at our camp, and after checking that we have all returned in a good state, I begin to get the equipment ready that I will need the day after tomorrow when I start my attempt on the record from the Umbwe Gate. There is very little to get ready, and in an hour I have my backpack filled with all the equipment I must take down with me, a canteen of water, and a couple of energy gels for Greg and Stephan to give me when I pass by Barranco. I will also give them a jacket and gloves in case the temperature drops on the final stage, since it was only about 5°F at the top this morning.
For Sònia and Thierry, who will wait for me at the top, I leave only another canteen and some cookies, since the descent from there will soon return me to warmer temperatures where I’ll not need my outer layers.
The last backpack includes the kit I will wear and carry from the start: shorts, a short-sleeve T-shirt, an energy gel, sunglasses, socks, shoes, and my iPod. I also pack what I’ll need to spend the night at the entrance to the national park: a sleeping bag, a toiletry bag, a thick jacket, and long pants. I shut myself in my tent nice and early for my last rest above 13,000 feet and fall asleep immediately.
Since I prepared everything yesterday, we take advantage of the morning to rest and look at the views from the campsite: the floor of the Barranco valley, the vast plain, and life at the campsite. We watch the porters take down the tents and move off into the distance in single file along the rocky walls, then reappear in midmorning to quickly erect the tents before the tourists arrive.
After lunch, Simon and I retrace our steps along the path we’d traveled days ago in order to return to the entrance to the national park. Simon sets a slow, steady pace so that we can run down without tiring ourselves. I met him for the first time several months ago, at the Western States 100, where he had greatly impressed me. I was walking in Squaw Valley on the afternoon before the race and encountered him sitting at a table on the terrace. He was clearly very strong, with muscular arms and what I figured to be abdominal muscles made of steel. His hair was jet black and trimmed close to his head. He stood up to say hello, and I had to look up to look him in the eye, not only because I’m quite short, but because the man before me was over six and a half feet tall. Professional habit made me look closely at his legs, and I noticed that every muscle, vein, and sinew stood out under his skin. I felt as if I were in the presence of a 100-meter sprinter, and it amazed me how someone with his physique could run long distances so well and how agile he was on difficult terrain.
His large eyes bulged out of a round, youthful face, and if he hadn’t been smiling, he’d have certainly scared me. However, Simon always smiled, always talked about cheerful subjects, and always had a joke or a dance ready to try out on us. It was a piece of good fortune when he agreed to be our guide on my record attempt, because he was able to show me all the paths and surprises, dangers and shortcuts the mountain held in store, as well as how to acclimate. He also let me share in his way of seeing the mountain, of drawing on the energy radiating from the trees and roots, rocks and wind. He knows Kilimanjaro is a very important source of income for his country and his people because it attracts large numbers of tourists who want to climb the African continent’s highest peak and provides a lot of work for the region’s porters, guides, and traders. However, it is also a source of life, through the water it supplies to its inhabitants to drink and through the trees that oxygenate the air they breathe, and he is aware that they are the most difficult gifts to preserve but the most important to sustain.
As I contemplate the landscape and listen to the stories he tells me about each place we run through, we reach the entrance to the national park and erect our tents for the night. As it is late, we immediately prepare bowls of cream of carrot soup and huge plates of pasta, which I have a hard time finishing. No doubt about it—Simon’s six-foot-five frame and my five-foot-six frame need quite different amounts. We slip into our sleeping bags with full stomachs, and I drift off to sleep wondering what tomorrow will bring.
We wake up at dawn and breakfast on pancakes washed down by cups of tea. We have set our camp a few feet from the Umbwe Gate, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, surrounded by ancient trees that rise like skyscrapers into the clouds. The earth is damp, and the low vegetation, comprising ferns and other kinds of bushes with large leaves, spreads densely over the mud. It is impossible to wander off the path.
At around 7 a.m. we go over to the Umbwe Gate, where part of the team and some park guards are waiting to film and time the run and be present as I attempt to break the record.
The sky looks clear behind a thin layer of clouds, and from Barranco the team confirms that there is a great sea of clouds beneath their feet but that the temperature is good, that it’s not very cold at the higher levels. This is great news, since aiming for a record in excellent conditions and dry terrain is easier than if it is raining and the surface is slippery; it’s dangerous to run at an altitude of 16,000 feet when you are sopping wet. My legs feel fresh and ready to start uphill.
Lotta begins the countdown, and after she says, “1,” I launch off at top speed with Simon, who will accompany me for the part of the course that will take me through the jungle and up to the ceiling of Africa. I feel good and take long, efficient strides, making sure I don’t slip on the mud and pushing hard so that I hardly need to lift up my legs. I feel my breathing, strides, and heartbeats synchronizing, and I run through the trees with ease. Simon begins to drop behind. I feel really good and decide I should make the most of every moment to reach 13,000 feet, since later on, even though I am well acclimated, I cannot be sure how my body will respond.
The trail narrows into a path that gradually climbs up through ancient trees, between roots and rocky boulders. The humidity is very high in this stretch. It reminds me of the Mount Kinabalu race in Malaysia, where the humidity is also heavy. Sweat streams down my face, but I feel too good to reduce my pace. I speed on, and in a little over an hour I’m at the first camp on the ascent, at Umbwe Cave, at nearly 10,000 feet. From here on, there is a spectacular change in vegetation; we leave behind tall, leafy woods and start out on a ridge surrounded by 7-foot-high branches from which hang long yellow beards. It feels like running through a landscape from The Lord of the Rings, and I wouldn’t be completely surprised to see an elf jump out of these bushes.
When a gap opens up between two of the long beards, we glimpse the magnificent ravines under the ridge that go down to a plain full of healthy vegetation and lofty trees. I imagine that no one has ever set foot in these places that seem inaccessible to humans. And for one or two moments, on the occasional bend in the path, you can see the peak of Kilimanjaro very far off and very high up. When I look at it for the first time, it seems scary. I look at my watch and realize it will be impossible to climb that far in four
hours. It’s too far and too high. But I am making good—very good—time, am well under the record, and my legs let me drive easily on up the steep slopes.
I return my focus to the miles just ahead of me and accelerate to Barranco. The bearded bushes start to give way to a more barren landscape that’s rocky and full of thick volcanic sand, where only a few lobelias and large ragwort manage to live. I’ve got my music on loud so as not to be too distracted by the landscape or the sounds of nature. It’s so fantastic all around me that it would be very easy to be bewitched by nature. So REM, Manel, Blondie, the Black Eyed Peas, and others help me cut myself off a bit from the attractions of nature and to concentrate only on my body and the trail unfolding immediately in front of me. That is why I turn past a tower of lava and don’t hear the shouts from Greg, who is waiting with a small camera to immortalize these scenes. He starts to accompany me, running behind me, but I keep accelerating, absorbed in concentration, and I am soon alone again. I have not stopped to think about it, but I am now near 13,000 feet and have yet to note any shortage of oxygen; in fact, I’m running as if I were at 6,500 feet, which means all the acclimating we did the week before has paid off.
Pleased about this, I run at top speed along the rocky path that will bring me to the Barranco Camp plateau that has been my home for the last week. The imposing wall of the summit of Kilimanjaro looms above: 6,500 feet of vertical rock draped by a few remaining glaciers. I again conclude that it will be impossible to reach the top in just over three hours.
My route leads me off the most direct route, to the left, around those walls that can’t be crossed and on toward more gentle, northerly slopes. When I reach the camp, Stephan is waiting for me with a canteen of water that I down in one gulp. I set out 2 hours and 15 minutes ago and have drunk nothing since, although I have taken an energy gel every hour.
Run or Die Page 14
