I awake to the opaque shadows on the canvas above my head, and despite the divine warmth of my sleeping bag, I crawl into the still darkness to see Kibo glowing wraithlike in the pale moonlight. The Milky Way stretches around me in a massive twinkling wave, carving the towering silhouette of the Western Breach from the shadows of the Barranco Valley. I retreat to my tented haven for some rest before the morning light alters this perfection.

When the sun rises on Kilimanjaro, the surrounding East African plains hold their breath and stare. On this particular morning, as we emerge from our tents at 6:30am, we know we're on sacred ground. Our group is 24 hours from standing on the 19,344 foot pinnacle...the roof of Africa. As usual, we're off by 8:30am, scampering up the small rock ledges of the Barranco Wall, zigzagging our way to a 14,000 foot ridge.

Two-thirds of the way up, our guide Freddy casually points out the ant-like figures of our porters, who are beginning to vacate the distant campsite below. He continues matter-of-factly that they will pass us before we ascend to the top of the ridge... a notion we immediately ridicule. With a group-wide nod of concurrence, we push on fervently, sure of dissuading our leader from such ridiculous propositions. Not twenty minutes pass when casting hopeful glances over our shoulders, we concede with dismay the dreaded prediction. Freddy is right. The porters effortlessly pass us, humbling our meager day packs with overstuffed Santa Claus sacks, heaved upon their heads and shoulders in tandem with odd shaped boxes, crates, poles and buckets.

Smelling of smoked gourds and of the earth itself, they amble by in single file, dressed in patchwork hand-me-downs and old sneakers, negotiating with perfect accuracy each footstep, as we look on with wide-eyed wonder. Much to our added amazement, they casually puff away on cigarettes as if it were an obvious healthful and recuperative measure. Now, befuddled, I begin to re-assess the scientific notion that the composition of the cloud veil which often girdles the forest belt is in fact real water vapor at all.

Karanga Valley

We finally reach the ridge and begin our traverse crunching through the volcanic scree around the southern high desert of Kilimanjaro's crown, Kibo (The tallest and grandest of Kili's 3 volcanic peaks). The stark and misty landscape is interrupted by dramatic oases of giant groundsels and by the friendly banter of our group, who have bonded like soldiers over the past four days.

There's nothing quite like a few days on Kili to transform absolute strangers into close family, reveling in each others quirky habits and detailed accounts of bodily functions. In the Karanga Valley we eat our last hot meal and collect the last water available before our big test later tonight. We huddle around the table, cowering in the stiff breeze which envelops us in a chill as daunting as our intentions for the next 20 hours. We continue up the valley from the lunch stop, entertained by a lively and comical quibble over which porters will carry the water to the next camp. Inevitably, our heavily laden crew once again breeze past with graceful aplomb, 10 gallon water jugs adorning the crowns of their heads.

In the late afternoon we arrive at Barafu (meaning "ice" in Swahili) Camp at 15,100 feet, and true to its nature, we are greeted by a freezing horizontal sleet as we begin to unzip our tents. Within minutes our tents resemble igloos, and it seems as if the wind will sweep us all from our lofty perch into the depths of the valley below. I begin to feel a strange weightlessness in my head, and kneel down in the middle of my tent, fully prepared to become an insignificant piece of flying debris.

Immediately I delve into distraction, organizing my heaps of dirty clothes into piles I've delineated by smell and by appearance. Meanwhile, into my head enters the distinct notion that my free will is actually intact, and suddenly it's clear that I should do what any red-blooded sane person would ... sensibly admit I would be no less a man should I continue not another step up this bloody mountain. In the unfathomable depths of my cerebral subconscious I know what many before me had suffered, and what many more will endure after me...that at over 15,000 feet, sensibility is as fleeting a notion as the belief you can see a porter sweat. Then without warning, my stomach lurches from anonymity into the limelight, summoning me from my quiet contemplations to dramatically inform me of its intention to join the "high altitude club".

Until this moment, copious amounts of translucent soup, skyscrapers of toast, piles of roasted potatoes, crates of hard-boiled eggs, and the daily jumbalaya of stewed veggies over rice or pasta had been relatively well received by us all. Now, kneeling amidst my dirty clothes in my icy canvas dwelling on a barren alpine ridge, the thought of chewing anything takes on a new face... a rather unpleasant, queasy scowl. I drift heavily into the mess tent and slump down, looking around to find everyone floating over the same rough sea. The transition from jubilance to nauseated dismay has spanned a mere hour, and now we all sit silent, save for an intermittent moan of anguish. The hot tea, which has been a delight for days, is now an acrid conspirator with the rich, hot smell of kerosene, and swirls our volatile stomachs like a cocktail swizzle stick.

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