Last night we left our campsite near Lake Natron, in far northern Tanzania, at 11:30PM with the mission to climb the volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai aka ‘The Mountain of God’ in Kimaasai. The volcano is active and its last eruption began in September 2007 and continued with intermittent activity for over 11 months. It is not very far from our campsite… the trailhead is ~18Km away. Everyone in the group wanted to make an attempt to summit it. Before leaving I slept for maybe an hour so that I could fortify my strength for the climb. At output I felt pretty tired still, but ready to make the attempt. The summit lies at 9,777 ft (2,980 m) and our guides were expecting us to reach it at sometime between 5:00-6:00AM. The grade of the mountain was steep with a rocky/dirt surface (the rock was mostly solidified volcanic ash), much easier to climb than the scree-ridden surface of Spread Eagle Peak in Colorado, which I climbed on the 4th of July. I thought I was ready to take on Ol Doinyo Lengai!
As it turns out, most of us were not. Our 3 Maasai guides informed us of all the supplies we would need for the trek when we got to the trailhead and most of us fell short on the amount of water needed, virtually none of us had any food and a couple of us had no headlamp to light the way. Nervous glances were had at the dark pyramidal shape of the volcano against the starry sky as we realized just how ill prepared we were. Finally the guides finished taking stock of us, said a quick “God Bless us on the Mountain” and we were off into the dark night.
The way up was, for the most part, dark and full of adrenaline blindness. My only desire was to sate my appetite for the peak, and I would sometimes shoot ahead, never with less than 3 points touching the surface, to waste some energy. To my back the view was utter darkness upon the land and bright twinkling stars in the sky, no moon. But I hardly paid attention to that; there was only the rock, dirt and ever-increasing grade of the land before me to focus on. We stayed at a ‘comfortable group pace’ for quite a few hours, taking quick catch up breaks at times and losing group members with low resolve to continue at others, until a pale, nearly undetectable light began to slowly animate the scene before my eyes. Our goal of reaching the summit before us at sunrise had all but evaporated when we perceived the distance that we still had to go.
It was okay, though, because the sight behind me was, as it often has been in the past half a year, stunning, eye-popping gorgeous. African landscape opened up, tendrils of ravenous river lands creeping across the open ground, which seamlessly became a ‘barren-esque’ slope on the other side of the plain leading to another plateau of green and brown plains. The view, for a few of my friends, alleviated some of their fear in the ascent, but as soon as the light came we knew that the path before us to the crater rim would only get tougher and tougher.
We arrived at ‘the summit’ after the steep ascent of cookies and crème colored volcanic ash rock to be greeted by the wind. Somebody told us before that the farther up you go the warmer it would get. That was definitely not the case! I quickly scrambled to put on more layers, but some of my friends didn’t have much else to put on and suffered for it.
The way up to the crater rim from the summit was steeper and even more treacherous than at any point before. If you were to make one little miss-step or trip over yourself in the slightest then you would begin a tumble down the sharp slope that would not end until long after you broke every bone in your body and died. With that in mind I slowly inched my way up through the rotten egg smelling white rocks (sulfur) to the rim. I made it unscathed save for some light sulfur burning on my hands from the oddly pointed warmth of the rock. Again, the view was spectacular and the wind was buffeting strongly. The only hindrance to the view was the sun, which hovered unimpeded by clouds just above the crater. The crater itself was a deep cut bowl in the rock that must have sloped down to a descent of 250 feet or more.
It was our Maasai guide Mwenge who ultimately got us to the top (he had been there 46 times before). One more thing about the ascent: the smell of rotten eggs was definitely strongest on the way up to the crater rim. I mean it really stunk, overwhelmingly so. Although it did increase my hunger, I think…
The descent was slow, too. We started going down at 7:30AM and I did not reach the cars until 12:00PM noon. It was a very slow slide on the butt kind of descent for the first part. After some time it started to feel less dangerous, even though I know it was not, so I stood up and just walked down as some of the others were doing. The trick was only keeping balance… how hard could it be? I fell multiple times back on my butt against the hard slope before I got the hang of it.
It felt like we weren’t moving. Every ten minutes or so we would stop and wait for those farther up the mountain to catch up. All too often I was one of those trying to catch back up with the group. We were well above the clouds for hours and hours. The slope turned into dirt again, and the game turned into a ski. We were all going faster now and bumping into each other more than ever! Occasionally a loose rock would break off underneath somebody’s feet and shoot sizzling down at the people below. Thankfully nobody got hurt, but there were a few close calls. One time Jake almost got hit and nearly rolled off the mountain trying to dodge and another time a head sized rock just missed Garret’s head. Adam’s knees were really hurting him, too, and I felt pretty bad for him but I could not offer much help.
Once we reached the halfway point I was getting pretty careless. All I wanted to do was run down the slope back to the land rovers waiting for us. The worst part was that we could all see the faint line of the path leading to them from where we were descending. My only desire was toast and peanut butter. If I could only get to the cars I knew I could indulge myself. Time passed and we were getting lower, beneath the clouds, but my desire for toast only rose and rose. Finally, after taking a piss I could not stand it anymore and broke off in a hedonistic sprint towards the cars, not stopping until I reached them. It was glorious, satisfying and triumphant! I then waited for a few others to get down and we were off to camp (while others were still well up on the mountain). I fell asleep multiple times during the 20-minute drive on bumpy roads back to camp, dreaming of peanut butter.
I got to indulge myself in that pure bliss within ten minutes of being back at camp.
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