Barafu Camp to Summit to Barafu Camp to Millennium Camp
Hiking distance: 4 miles to summit (7hours), 4 miles back to Barafu (4 hours), another 3 miles to Millennium Camp (2 hours)
Starting elevation: 15,300’
Highest elevation: 19,341’
Ending elevation: 12,560’
1. a false sensory perception experienced by two or more individuals at the same time.
2. a controversial psychological phenomenon, the existence of which I strongly doubted until now.
During a rest break at 16,000’, Monica complains that the batteries have fallen out of her headlamp. There’s accusation in her voice, and I know why. I’m the one who installed fresh batteries back in camp (and perhaps didn’t close hers properly). Also, I’ve been nagging her to conserve power by turning off her headlamp during rest breaks. It’s quite possible, then, that the frequent toggling of the on-off switch with her mittened hand caused the headlamp to pop open and spill out the batteries. Either way, I’m to blame.
I slink over to have a look, and Mo’ holds the headlamp disdainfully under my nose like a steaming turd. It’s a palm-sized plastic clam shell, and, sure enough, it's open and empty. With hours of darkness ahead of us, I’d much rather find the missing batteries than dip into our reserves, so we retrace her steps, kicking over rocks on the chance that we'll see something shiny in my headlamp beam. We don’t. Johnny takes notice and cheerfully joins the search. At that point I become too embarrassed to continue, so I spend several minutes de-gloving, unzipping, and peeling back layers in order to retrieve the spare batteries warming against my belly like a baby kangaroo. With rapidly numbing fingers, I pluck three tiny AAA cells out of their Ziploc bag and attempt to insert them into Mo’s headlamp. But I can’t. There’s already something in the battery compartment. It’s a set of batteries.
I stare at her headlamp for a few bewildered seconds, blinking rapidly. Mo’ looks down to see what’s taking so long. “What the…” she trails off, gobsmacked. I check her face to see if she’s gaslighting me, but she’s genuinely astonished. For a long moment, our eyes dart back and forth from the headlamp to each other's faces. I can only conclude that the batteries were there the whole time but I somehow didn’t see them. And neither did she. This seems impossible, as far-fetched as the proposition that a sleight-of-hand expert has joined our trekking party. But what other explanation is there? Oh yeah, hypoxia.
Mo’ and I are so dumbfounded that we don’t even discuss what just happened. Instead I snap her headlamp shut and turn my back to Johnny so he can’t see me stuffing the spare batteries back into their joey pouch. I’m too confused to fully panic, but it is wildly disorienting, even frightening, to feel so clear-headed while staring directly at compelling evidence of a serious mental deficit. I feel like the driver in that Twilight Zone episode who keeps passing the same hitchhiker. Everything seems fine, except for the inconvenient fact that what just happened couldn’t really have happened.
For the second time in a single rest break I am thunderstruck. I desperately want to learn details about how Frankie feels. I want Johnny to call Stephen back and question him about Frankie’s condition so that I can hear exactly how these guys determine when they’ve crossed the line between feeling merely crappy to feeling that they’re in actual jeopardy. More to the point, I want to know how to tell when I’ve crossed that line. All bets are off now as a result of that damned battery incident.
We fall in behind Johnny and slog on without explanation. Leslie starts calling out altimeter readings with every 500 feet of elevation gain. At 16,500’ I’m still feeling strong, but I doubt my self-assessment because I’ve lost faith in my own senses. At 17,000’ I feel an abrupt decline in my IQ. My inner monologue downshifts again and becomes a stupid, monosyllabic muttering, not much more than a hum. I’m also suddenly very, very tired. There was no gradual winding down; my energy reserves expired without warning. Despite being nearly empty, my backpack feels so heavy that it’s pulling me back down the mountain by the shoulders.
I should ask Barak(a) to take my pack – none of the other trekkers is carrying one – but my Y chromosome won’t let me. I don’t have much time to worry about it, though, because Robert has noticed my stumbling. He falls into step beside me and says flatly, “Brian, give me your pack.” I pretend not to hear him, so he brings me to a halt by stepping directly into my path. “Your pack,” he says, looking me in the eye. “Give it to me.” He’s wearing a poker face, but I can tell he's angry. I hand over the pack and he shoves it pointedly at Barak(a), who, looking sheepish, slings it over a shoulder. No doubt Robert is unhappy with both of us – at Barak(a) for not taking my pack in camp, and at me for not speaking up about it. I imagine Robert’s also peeved at himself for having taken so long to notice.
As Barak(a) walks away with my pack I mutter gruffly to Monica, "Well, there goes a testicle." She grunts her dissent and turns away so that I can't see she's rolling her eyes at me. But I know what she's doing, and I know I deserve it. Truth be told, I’m grateful that Robert finally caught on to me, but it may already be too late. For all I know, hauling that pack this far has cost me the strength I’ll need to reach the summit, still several hours away.
The airborne dust is so thick that it looks like snow blowing sideways through our headlamp beams. The lack of oxygen up here has turned us all into mouth-breathers, too, so our throats, already cracked and inflamed from the arid, desiccating air, are also coated with sandpaper grit. Everyone's panting, even on rest breaks, so we’ve all pulled bandanas and balaclavas over our mouths in self-defense. But it’s not enough. Monica is coughing almost continuously now – deep, raspy coughs that make her bend at the waist, leaning on her poles for support.
Somehow, against all odds, an original thought arises in my addlepated skull. I ask Johnny if Monica can be moved to the front of the line where she won’t be exposed to all the dust we’re kicking up. “Good idea!” he exclaims. He gives Barak(a) a few instructions in Swahili and the three of us trudge to the front of the queue. Then, before anyone else is ready, Barak(a) bolts up the trail far faster than we’ve ever seen anyone move on this mountain. Mo’ and I clamber after him, literally leaving everyone else in the dust. And it works! Mo’s coughing drops by half. But I have no idea why we’re scrambling so rapidly, and I can’t ask because I don’t speak Swahili.
The continuous exertion is keeping my core warm in spite of the rapidly dropping temperature. My fingers, however, are getting numb, and the tip of my nose is raw from the ongoing formation and calving of snotcicles. In addition, I have never experienced a greater degree of lethargy. I can’t bring myself to do anything more than put one foot in front of the other. Grabbing a snack, checking my watch, wiping my nose – too much effort. Even though I’m gagging on dust and swallowing relentlessly, uselessly, to try to dampen my aching throat, I’m too tired to suck water through the mouthpiece of my CamelBak. Let me be clear: I am too weary to draw water through a straw. I do manage to drag down a few sips during rest breaks, but I’m not getting nearly as much as I need because I won't drink while walking. I am aware that this is putting me at risk, but that knowledge does not change my behavior.
Below us, many small lines of headlamps snake back and forth across the otherwise invisible switchbacks. They hang in the darkness like a broken string of Christmas lights. Many flickering lines also hover above us, making it abundantly clear that we are nowhere near the crater rim.
The silence becomes oppressive. No one is singing, telling jokes, or trash-talking about soccer anymore, so Mo’ and I are left with our thoughts, which are minimal, and with our discomfort, which is substantial. Soon I’m stumbling like a drunk, catching myself with a trekking pole just before taking a header. The consequences of a fall here could be dire. Granted, I can’t see beyond my headlamp beam, but occasionally we pass what appear to be very steep drop-offs right next to the trail. In addition, there’s a lot of poop and used toilet paper right at trailside, suggesting strongly that there’s not enough room on either side of the path to find privacy without risking a deadly plunge.
Somewhere around 17,500’ I start to get bed spins without the bed. Every time I turn a corner at the end of a switchback, I feel as if my body is staying in place while the whole mountain rotates beneath me. I nearly fall each time, then miraculously catch myself and continue. At around 18,000’ the spinning gives way to the sensation that the ground is zooming in and out – rushing up at my face and then falling back to my feet again – over and over. I am so sleepy that I think I may actually be passing out for a few milliseconds between steps. It feels very much like I’m falling asleep each time I step forward and then waking up again just in time to catch myself with another step. I expect any second to find myself on the ground looking up at the stars – or perhaps waking up in a hospital.
My condition has a name: ataxia. Rescue professionals also call it “the umbles” because ataxia victims mumble, stumble, and often tumble. Ataxia has many causes; among the most common being hypothermia, dehydration, and stroke. How you’d tease out one from the others in this particular context is anyone’s guess. I could be having a stroke right now and no one would know. Not even me.
At our next break I sit down on a rock and involuntary put my head in my hands, eyes closed. I hate looking this pathetic, but it’s out of my control. I am so sleepy that I can’t believe I’m still awake. If this weren’t actually happening to me, I wouldn’t believe it possible for someone to be this sleepy without passing out, yet somehow I remain semi-conscious. It seems terribly unfair.
“Don’t sleep, bruthah!” pleads a voice from another dimension. A thermos drops at my feet and someone pushes a steaming mug of – what is that, water? – into my hands. Yes, it’s hot water. I sure could have used a hit of cocoa or coffee instead – or maybe epinephrine.
The voice is clearer now. It is low and resonant, with a thick Swahili accent. “Doooon’t sleeeep,” it repeats, sounding ironically like a lullaby. “You’ll be fine, bruthah. But dooon’t sleeeeeep.”
I can’t see who’s talking to me but I ask him if I can take a 5-minute nap. I’m sure I’ll be fine if I could just sleep a little. And here’s the thing: At this moment it sounds to me like a perfectly reasonable request. In retrospect it’s clearly an insane request. You can’t nap at 18,000’ without shelter and expect to wake up, period, much less wake up refreshed. But I can’t grasp this because I’m hypoxic now and the Magic Show is in full encore. I hear myself begging the guides for a short nap, but my words seem to be coming from someone else standing a few feet away in the darkness. Why won't they listen to him?
(Although I have no recollection of it, Monica swears that at this point a porter standing behind me placed one hand on my shoulder, raised his other hand to the sky, and pleaded, “Don’t give up, bruthuh! Climb this mountain! Fulfill your dream!”)
By now a small crowd has gathered around me. I haven’t looked up yet but I hear several voices overhead and when I open my eyes I see a semi-circle of hiking boots in my headlamp beam. Robert asks rhetorically if I’m ready to get going again. He doesn’t expect an answer. He expects me to get up and start walking. Instead I rise up shakily and ask him if it’s safe for me to continue. I know I’ve got AMS, and I need to know how bad it is.
Leslie can see that I’m near quitting so she intervenes. “What do you want to do, Brian?” she asks.
“I want to know if it’s safe for me to continue,” I repeat. Frankly, I’m shocked I can express such a complex thought in my condition. What I really want to say is that I know our guides are under tremendous pressure to get us all to the top. Trekkers who don’t summit sometimes blame the outfitter, demand refunds, and write unpleasant online reviews. I’m concerned, therefore, that my guides have a strong incentive to drag me into Icarus territory – too high, too fast. But I can’t say any of that now because it’s too complicated. At my current level of consciousness, anything more intricate than “See Spot run” is ambitious.
Ignoring Leslie, Robert steps right up into my personal space. For several long seconds he studies my face from about six inches away. “Headache?” he finally asks.
“No,” I say, “but I took two Advil at Barafu. Maybe that’s masking a headache.”
“Vomiting?” he asks.
“No, but I can’t eat anything and I don’t even want to drink water.”
“Exhaustion only,” he says, clinically. “You continue.”
Stupid as I am from hypoxia, I’m not so far gone as to miss the irony in someone clearing me to climb a mountain because I’m merely exhausted. I stare at Robert for a moment to see if he winks. Nothing. Then Johnny approaches and asks what’s going on. I tell him I’m not sure it’s safe for me to continue. He studies my face. “Headache?” he asks.
“No,” I say, “but I took two Adv…”
“Vomiting?” he interrupts.
“No, but I…”
“Exhaustion only,” he pronounces. “You continue.”
And off we go. Unfortunately, the impromptu medical exam costs me and Mo’ our pole position. The other trekkers have gotten out ahead of us, so we’ll be eating their dust again. I feel guilty about it, and Mo’ coughs deeply as if to punctuate the thought.
Crime and Punishment: noun
1 a novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about a self-important, self-styled intellectual who, through a cascading series of terrible yet carefully-considered decisions, drags himself deeper and deeper into a quagmire of his own making.
2 a random book title that just now popped into my head for no apparent reason.