The Longest Way Home

by Andrew McCarthy

  At one point I hear a porter up ahead shout. He’s listening to a radio and for an instant I fear he’s heard news of a tragedy coming over the airwaves. Images of a disaster like September 11 flash into my mind. The first moment of real relaxation I experience on the hike has left me open for panic to come flooding in. It turns out the porter was simply shouting to his friend farther down on the trail. Perhaps D is right when she says that I’m just not comfortable when things are too good.

  Farther on, Hank blows his nose and blood begins to rush out. At the high altitude and with the blood-thinning Diamox that he’s taking to prevent altitude sickness, the flow is not easy to quell. We stop and sit beside mounds of shirred rock next to a dozen porters on a break, all smoking.

  “Do many porters smoke?” Timmy-pedia asks.

  “I’d say about seventy-five percent,” Zadock answers.

  Once the Ironman’s nose stops bleeding and he reties his Merrell boots, the porters squish their cigarette butts under their flip-flops and we all march on.

  Roberto drops back and I slow to walk with him. His head is hanging low, his eyes on his shoes.

  “You okay, Roberto?”

  “I’m tired, Andy,” he says.

  “We’re almost there, just up on that ridge ahead.”

  Roberto lifts his head, registers the distance to where the tents are visible, then drops his chin again.

  “Whose idea was it to do this, yours or Bob’s?” I ask, hoping to distract him.

  “His.” Roberto lifts his head toward his son before dropping it again.

  We say very little, and once our movement stops each day, there is an awkwardness to our silence, yet I enjoy his company—my affection for him is an unexpected pleasure.

  When we arrive at camp, the tents are up, crowded along an uneven, rocky ledge. The last four-thousand-foot push to the summit will begin here before dawn. The clouds below clear and Mount Meru, Kilimanjaro’s “sister” mountain, is visible; farther off is Mount Longido and the flat top of Kitumbeine. To the west, the active volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai rises from the Great Rift Valley. I can see far into Kenya to the north.

  Timmy-pedia finds me. “You have an e-mail.”

  I take his satellite device. D has replied to my e-mail of the other day. “I can feel you from here, big style.”

  I have a friend who climbed Kilimanjaro once and described it as “several pleasant days of walking uphill, followed by one day of hell.” Other than the looming question of whether the summit will be achieved, the hike to this point has been a fine amble in an exotic locale—altitude sickness and my wobbly knee being the only question marks. My knee is holding up, although with every step I take I am careful not to twist in midstride but keep it pivoting forward and back in a straight and clean arc. If someone calls me or I want to look off toward a far peak to my left, I stop and turn my entire body. It is a level of vigilance that wears on my mind and creates constant low-level stress—whatever Eila might say. As for altitude sickness, it seems that apart from taking Diamox, there is nothing else to do but take the time to acclimatize on the way up. Physical condition appears to have little or no relationship to how altitude affects you, and apart from my panic at Lava Tower, I have been largely spared.

  But everything up to now has been merely getting to the starting line.

  A light shines through my tent at three A.M. “It’s time,” Zadock says.

  He didn’t need to wake me. I’ve been staring at my watch every twenty minutes since twelve thirty, when I went out to look up at the summit under the bright moon, one day on the wane and reflecting light off the glaciers above.

  I’m happy to get out of my summer-weight sleeping bag. At 15,091 feet, I slept cold during the little sleep I did get. We straggle into the mess tent and are presented with yet another bowl of runny porridge. I choke down a piece of stale white bread with peanut butter and go put on another layer of clothing. At four fifteen we organize at the trailhead. I can see a thin, speckled trail of the headlamps of hikers who left before us, dotting a curving line, like glowing gnats.

  “The first hour is the most difficult,” Zadock explains. “There is a lot of tight, steep scrambling over jagged rock. Eila, you’re behind me, Roberto, you’re next. Let’s go.”

  There is no sound except our breathing and boots hitting, scuffing, scraping the rocks as we climb. My headlamp shines down on Hank’s heels in front of me. I need to use my hands on the cold stone to pull myself up in a few steep sections. In some places footholds have been worn into the stone. We need to squeeze into the face of a rock wall as we inch past a man on his way back down from his aborted attempt, doubled over and vomiting, the altitude having gotten the best of him.

  Eila’s pace is even slower than the one that Zadock has set. Behind her, every few steps we stop, wait, and then start again. I begin to get angry at this herky-jerky progress. Then I’m nauseous. For a second time on the trip, panic rises. My anger swells. My fear-induced rage won’t help me, and I let Hank get several strides in front of me and slow my already crawling pace further so I can keep a consistent speed.

  I begin to count my strides again, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. My anger begins to soften and my nausea abates. I gather myself and keep climbing.

  We reach a level plateau where the trail opens out and then the incline begins again over loose rock that slides underfoot. We pass several more people being led back down in the dark—the altitude or the steep grade too much for them.

  For another hour we climb in silence. Again I feel nausea coming on but quickly breathe through it. Then off to our right the horizon begins to soften, first to violet, then pink, and then a thin blue. And the sun is up and we’re taking photos, laughing, swilling water. Zadock hands out chocolate. I take a seat on a large volcanic rock and eat a Three Musketeers bar. I’m reminded of a camping trip I took my son on to the Catskills. For breakfast he ate sardines and M&M’s—he still describes it as his favorite meal.

  I peel off a layer of clothing and we continue up. We break single-file formation and fan out. Our long shadows spread across the rocky terrain, bathed in a golden early light. Soon Eila has fallen behind; two porters flank her. Zadock looks back every few strides. When I turn, Eila is sitting on a rock far below us, staring off into the distance, her hands on her knees.

  Zadock whispers over the walkie-talkie to the porters with her. He nods at something he hears in return. “Okay,” he says.

  Eila will climb no farther. For days we had all doubted whether she would make it, but no one mentioned it aloud, not wanting to jinx their own attempts.

  There’s greater confidence in the group now, and we climb on. I peel off another layer of clothing. There is playfully boasting conversation, then talk of the receding glaciers we walk beside, and then suddenly Roberto is struggling; his movements are heavy. He leans hard into his walking poles with each step. His son whispers encouragement, and Roberto nods. After another hour we can feel we’re close. Just above, the sky becomes vast. We reach Stella Point, on the rim of the crater, nineteen thousand feet above sea level. It’s as if the mountaintop has been waiting for us all this time, wondering where we were. The air here is cold and hard under a cloudless sky. A natural bench is carved into the side of the rim, and several porters are sitting, smoking, laughing. Roberto falls onto the bench as porters make room. The receding glaciers are scattered on the caldera floor before us.

  Bob is digging for something in his pack when his father tries to get up. I’m closer so I lean down and grab Roberto’s arm to pull him to his feet. “Push me, Andy,” he murmurs, “help me get there.” He says this with such unguarded vulnerability that tears burn into my eyes.

  “We’ll make it, Roberto,” I say. “We’re there now.”

  We set out and the trail from here is a gentle amble, sweeping around and up another forty minutes toward the top. The Decken and Kersten glaciers are off to our left. Ahead, a wooden sign is silhouetted again t
he sun—Uhuru Peak, the top of one of the world’s Seven Summits.

  Before Zadock implemented a different set order, Bob, Roberto’s son, was always in first position behind Zadock since we first set out six days earlier. He’s there again now. I slide up next to him from my usual position in the back.

  “Bob,” I whisper, “why don’t you let your dad be the first to get to the top?”

  Bob turns to me. He seems confused for an instant, then nods and calls out.

  “Pop,” he says, turning back toward his father. “Come on, lead us to the top.”

  Roberto lifts his eyes from his shoelaces and the beginning of a smile passes over his exhausted face. He gives it all he has left and marches to the front of the group. Zadock hangs back and Roberto strides the last fifty yards to the top, and he may as well be the first man ever to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro. He leans his weight against the post holding the sign welcoming us to the highest point in Africa, pumps his fist, and falls into his son’s embrace.

  Watching them, I miss my own father—and realize that I always have.

  “O! The Joy!” I scroll into Timmy-pedia’s satellite contraption and send the message to D. It’s a quote from Captain William Clark’s diary describing his feelings when he and his partner Meriwether Lewis and their Corps of Discovery laid eyes on the Pacific Ocean in 1805. I read it first years ago, and since, D and I have co-opted the phrase and made it our own, employing it more often than not in sarcasm—usually to capture the utter and constant joy of parenthood.

  “How are the kids doing?” I’ve often asked over the phone from a distant shore.

  “O! The Joy!” frequently comes as the weary reply, letting me know that the day has been long and selfless, filled with scattershot moments of resenting my absence, interspersed with a few laughs and ultimately enough good spirits to make it okay. But I send this message now with nothing but complete sincerity.

  My unqualified joy is short-lived. After the hugs, and the photos, and taking in the vista, we slide down a steep slope of scree, four hundred feet to the floor of the crater. Here we are scheduled to camp, at 18,832 feet.

  The crater is stark, desolate. After the thrill of the summit subsides, it is cold, even under the hanging sun.

  “Most people have had enough by now,” Zadock informs us, “and want to head back down.”

  My head has begun to feel the contraction and intense pressure again.

  “How cold does it get at night?” Timmy-pedia asks.

  “The second that sun drops, it is very, very cold,” Zadock warns him.

  “I got what I came for,” Hank says.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I agree.

  “Good.” Zadock nods.

  We go to rehoist our packs.

  “I want to stay,” Timmy-pedia announces.

  We all turn to him.

  “The itinerary says we get to camp in the crater,” he says insistently. “I want to stay.”

  We all look at Zadock. He shrugs. “It’s in the trip description, and if someone wants to stay, and no one is injured . . .”

  “Do people usually stay?” I ask.

  “Only once.”

  “Can whoever wants to go back down to the camp below?” I ask.

  “I’ll go down, too,” Hank says. “Bob? Roberto?”

  Bob shrugs; Roberto has fallen asleep by a rock.

  “There is no one to lead you down,” Zadock says. “The others are with Eila.”

  We stand, slack-jawed.

  “Lunch will be ready in a few minutes,” Zadock says.

  Inside the mess tent the air is stagnant; an artificial heat burns through the nylon. It is oppressive. Hank and I work on Timmy-pedia to try to change his mind. He sits, staring at his hands in his lap.

  “You have no idea how cold it’s going to get here, Tim. People die from exposure.”

  “That’s okay, I want to camp in the crater,” he retorts.

  “We have warm clothes, but the porters are in T-shirts,” Hank says.

  “They do it all the time,” Timmy-pedia says in protest.

  “No.” I correct him. “Everyone always goes back down. You heard Zadock.” Nearly every year there are accounts of porters dying from exposure on Kilimanjaro.

  “Well, I want to stay,” he says.

  My head is searing through with pain and anger. I step outside and walk off toward the glaciers that until a few years ago covered this land. The knifing in my skull abates only slightly in the fresh air. My fury grows.

  When the sun goes below the rim of the volcano, it is noticeably colder, and when darkness falls the temperature plummets. I can’t eat dinner for the pain in my head and my simmering anger. The joy of the morning is long gone.

  I put on literally every piece of clothing I have, seven layers on top and three below, and climb into my summer-weight sleeping bag. I’m screaming at Timmy-pedia in my mind. My anger consumes me. I’m aware, even in the midst of my fury, that I’m trying to regain some of the power that was plucked from me the instant Timmy-pedia stamped his foot and dictated our movements. After the satisfying feeling of strength I experienced upon reaching the summit, the sting of emasculation and disempowerment cuts deep.

  My anger is also a way of whistling in the dark, giving me a sense of control in a situation that is so completely beyond my ability to alter, namely, the caprice of nature.

  Years ago, I participated in an outdoor education course in the Absaroka Mountains in northwest Wyoming because I wanted to learn to take care of myself in the wilderness: to read a topographical map and find my way, to be comfortable building a fire in the outdoors, to know how and where to pitch a tent.

  We were twenty-six days into the month-long course when a student pressured a young girl on the course into doing something we had all advised them not to do. Instead of hiking a few hours to a safe crossing, this one student convinced the others to bend to his will and cross a raging river at the very spot we had warned against. The result was fatal, the young girl died. We spent several days and nights guarding her body from grizzly bears, until a helicopter could get in to take her out. Sitting beside the girl alongside the river, I remember thinking that the worst thing in the world that could have happened just happened, and yet everything went on: the water still raced past, the sky was still full of stars, everything was the same, even as it was now entirely different for us. A strange feeling of gratitude descended on me as I sat beside her body in the dark. I felt lucky to be there; I had never felt so distinctly alive. But I also knew that none of it was necessary. It should never have happened. Someone unfamiliar with the disinterested ways of nature had made an ill-informed, youthful decision. Timmy-pedia’s choice at the frigid summit feels the same.

  To soften my mind, I pick up my Hemingway book and read the title story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” In it, a man waits for a plane to rescue him as he lies dying from an infection in the African bush. He laments not using his talents to the fullest. As the end is near, he has a dream that the plane arrives and carries him up and over the snowcapped peak of Kilimanjaro to redemption. I feel no such redemption on the icy summit. I regret my anger and my inability, or unwillingness, to release it. I regret that I feel so strongly the need to be heard. Why is it that I need so much to be right? I regret my lack of compassion for someone I can identify with, namely Tim. I can understand his youthful desire to have this notch on his belt—yet my identification does nothing to diminish my fury.

  My anger is not something to which I’ve always had easy access. Perhaps because I was familiar with the effects of rage growing up with a father who had a “short fuse,” as my mother called it, I rarely lost my temper. A few years after I stopped drinking, all that changed, and my long-suppressed anger rose up and found voice. My temper has never ruled me the way my father’s presided over him, but when I get angry at my children and see that look of shock on their faces, I imagine my own youthful image looking back at me and both curse myself and understand
my father in equal measure.

  Sleep is difficult to come by, and I wake every half hour through the night, always covered in goose bumps. Then I begin to shiver in earnest. When dawn is near and I reach for my water bottle, it is frozen solid.

  At the mess tent, still shivering, I’m forcing down tepid porridge beside Hank, Bob, and Roberto when Timmy-pedia enters.

  “Boy, two pairs of socks weren’t enough last night, were they?” It takes all my strength not to turn the table over on him and pummel his face. Everyone gets up and exits the tent, leaving him alone.

  It’s the first morning the porters rush us to pack, and we’re out.

  “How cold was it last night?” Timmy-pedia asks as we walk, oblivious to everyone’s rage and misery.

  “Minus twenty-three degrees,” Zadock barks over his shoulder.

  “Fahrenheit or Celsius?” Timmy-pedia asks.

  Zadock stops, turns, and for an instant I think he may actually punch him. “Celsius.”

  Within a half hour we are at Stella Point again. Without ceremony or a glance back, we drop off the ridge and then we’re skidding, sliding, giant-stepping down the scree, peeling off layers of clothing as we go. Hank rockets far ahead. I struggle to stay close. Timmy-pedia tries to keep up and when he takes a tumble, no one goes to his aid. It takes us an hour to cover what took seven hours to climb and we’re back at the lower camp. Eila is waiting, sheepish.

  I slide up to Hank, who is untying his boots. “What do you say we get the hell off this rock?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve only got two or three more hours down to Mweka Camp, where we’re sleeping tonight. Then it’s only another three hours tomorrow and we’re out.”

  He looks at me. Suddenly there is an urgency to get clear off the mountain we fought so hard to get up.

  “Let’s get out of here today,” he says in agreement.

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  We bring the idea to Zadock and he tells us that everyone in the party has to agree. They quickly do. We retie our boots and continue down. Instead of the gradual traverse around the mountain and incremental elevation gain that took us six days, we head directly down, through the dense montane forest. Six hours and twelve thousand feet later, my thighs are seizing up, both my knees are aching, and my toenails are coming off.