Travel Log

5 August 2003

First day of physical preparation. I invested heavily in water. Now I'm carrying around 75 pounds of water to help build extraordinary endurance. Today's target was 1.6 miles. My weight at trip start: 223.4 pounds, 75 pounds of water plus the backpack brought me to over 300 pounds. I determined that weighing 300 pounds would be quite a challenge, I was in deep sweat by the time I'd managed to strap the backpack on, and I hadn't even started moving yet.

I managed to trudge out and get going, all level ground. Total time elapsed, 30 minutes start to finish. That's about 3 miles per hour, not exactly a brisk run, 20 minute miles. Leg soreness seems ok, back soreness is hefty.

6 August 2003

I got airfare quotes today, $1252 from Airdeals with reasonable travel dates (arrive in Tanzania 9/11 and leave 9/25). My recommended local travel agent managed to find $1387 for a bit longer period (arrive 9/9, leave 9/29). Based on that, I sent in a proposed itinerary to Zara tours using the Lemosho route with extra days:

Upon further reflection, it seems like skipping the high Lava Tower Camp and going direct to the Barranco Camp might be better, and would allow splitting up the harder 6 hour day on the next segment. Hopefully my tour people will advise me wisely.

Conditioning today was 1.9 miles in 40 minutes with the 75 pound pack. Easy recovery but lots of work while it's going on.

7 August 2003

I went for a trekking outing for training today in the Fremont Older Open Preserve. It was approximately 4 miles covered in about an hour and forty minutes. There was some ascent and descent involved in the trek, at time medium steepness and lose dirt chunks (to better simulate Kili scree) -- trailhead was 580 feet, highest point 900 feet. During the trip, I drank about 3/4 gallon (2.84 litre) -- but still ended up with a headache. It feels like dehydration, but maybe it was just exposure. No progress today on tour or airfare.

8 August 2003

Locked down the airfare today; rest day for training.

9 August 2003

Ah... the very beginning. My first "summit". Mission Peak. I established "base camp" (parked the car) at the trailhead, 390 feet. Unwisely, I opted for the Horse Heaven variation on the ascent, which left me stranded without a path to follow near a water trough. I decided to just go direct to the peak by going straight up the hills in between, jumping some barbed wire fences, and circling around to avoid the treacherous looking "west face". It took 3 hours to climb the 2127 feet and 4.2 miles to the summit (at 2517 feet). The descent was considerably easier, taking only an hour to cover 2.8 miles. This converts to 3 hours for 6.7 kilometers and 648 meters. This is almost a typical Kilimanjaro day! The only scary part is that the days on Kili seem shorter but higher; on the flip side, they're twice as long, so maybe it's doable.

10 August 2003

Montara Peak was only 1898 feet starting from the trailhead at about 100 feet. Climb time was 1:54 to the top, and 11 minute break at the top (seemed like about an hour!), and then 1:08 down. Total distance, 7-8 miles. The uphills on this trail seemed harder than Mission Peak, but at least I didn't get lost and have to go cross country again. A lot of mountain bikers were passing me in all directions! With the weekend over, it's back to practice hikes with the big weight for the week. This hike was a good breaking in period for my new hiking shoes; I finally decided my 4 year old Reebok (with soles worn almost smooth from use) just weren't going to get me up or down anything more substantial than a sidewalk.

11 August 2003

Medical preps started today, received yellow fever and polio vaccinations. Luckily my last trip (India) covered a bunch of needed shots, so that was it. Also got prescriptions for Cipro, Amoxicillin (for respiratory infections), and the all-important Diamox. After much reading of others experiences, I think juicing up the Diamox is the "way to go". Discovered my training day yesterday with the new hiking shoes did yield a small unburst blister on one heel. Today was a physical prep rest day, tested the hiking boots (a hand-me-down from my brother some years back) to see how broken in they were -- they're tight but seem workable, I'll have to do some more hikes in them to see how the comfort is. Straight and level, 3.5 miles, no load, 58 minutes. My weight remains relatively constant at 222.4 pounds, but body-fat scale informed me mine was only 18.5% (yes, that's atrocious for all those keeping track at home).

While I was visiting the doctor, he asked me "what's your biggest concerns about this trip". Today the concerns are: (1) dealing with altitude, (2) getting in survivable physical shape, and (3) whether Zara will come through with a trip at all for me. #3 is a bit scary, going on a week since my first mail to them, and no reply, not sure what's going on there.

12 August 2003

Good news from Zara, my itineary is confirmed. Item #3 slips from the biggest concerns list like droplets of springtime showers off the newly budded green leaves. It was back to the 75 pound water load today and back to the 1.9 mile track, this time in the hiking boots. Comfort is still so-so. Time was 41 minutes -- about equal to the first time in tennis shoes and before calf fatique had set in. My calves are certainly feeling the effects of going from no walking to several miles a day. The funnies for the day, walking by a jogger running in the opposite direction and startling her. Ok, some I'm like 8 feet tall, and am carrying this very loud pack, full of water that's sloshing back and forth, and my loud hiking boots are clomping along like an earthquake. I can see how you might miss something like that. And then she gave me the evil eye like I might be dangerous, even though I was obviously weighed down so severely I could only move at 0.98 mph. People are quite funny. (223.2 & 19.1%)

13 August 2003

I read one of the Kilimanjaro tour sites, they said "if you can regularly run 2 miles, you should be in good shape for the trekking part of the Kilimanjaro trip." Hmm, 2 miles. Time for speed tests; 2 miles, 22:26; I got under a 12 minute mile which is about all I can expect. This is an indicator of the general degradation of the human body when your job in life is to sit in front of a computer screen and type madly, answer your phone, and have meetings. I guess the computer geeks would have been eaten quickly in the hunter-gatherer society of our forefathers. Today is one month to go exactly! T-30 days! My calves are still quite sore; so tomorrow and Friday will be rest days in preparation for the weekend climbs. I hope to do a high altitude test to see how rough over 10k is ... if successful, this will be the first of four high altitude weekends leading up to the trek. More news this weekend! (221.4, 18.3%)

14 August 2003

Rest days are fun. The Tanzania consulate tells me I need to submit a letter from my employer to prove that I can sustain myself while visiting. The VISA is the next thing to work on; I need my airline tickets (which haven't shown up yet despite the $10 express handling fee for them!) to submit as well, and then need at least two weeks to process the papers -- have to send everything to Washington DC and then get them back.

15 August 2003

Another rest day. I paid the $200 trip reservation fee. It was funny calling my bank and having them wire money to some account in Africa. You could tell the guy at my bank was thinking "so you think this $200 will let you repatriate the $20 million in gold deposits from the royal household of the ex-army chieftain of the seven tribes of Nigeria." But, no, really, these guys are on the up-and-up. I hope!

16 August 2003

Summitted White Mountain Peak (14246 feet), the third highest mountain in California. (Trip Report) It was a good trip, but I didn't do acclimation correctly and paid a big price. Overall, considering my abject failure at even pretending to acclimate, I still did well, and learned some useful lessons for Kili. I have a few weekends left for big climbs before the climb; next time I'll try really acclimating.

The good news is that with about a 700 meter gain, and a 12 kilometer trek to the top (taking 5 hours), this should be a good comparison for days on Kilimanjaro.

17 August 2003

A lazy Sunday afternoon. I was ripped off by the official trail map which identified this high point at 2547 feet, so off I went to Unnamed Scenic Overlook 2547... but it turned out it was really Unnamed Scenic Overlook 2004! This trail was up and down over and over, I think I probably got 5000 feet of altitude gain from going down and back up a bunch of tiny hills before finally reaching the scenic overlook. 3:14 (4.9 miles) to the overlook and 0:38 (1.6 miles) downhill.While I was walking up the hills, I experimented with the "pole pole" method of walking. If you walk slowly enough, you really can climb a huge grade without stopping and without being out of breath. Slowly enough for me is "take a deep breath", step one foot, "breathe out deeply", "other foot". My normal walking pace is about 3-4x that rate, but on steep grades I only take 20, or 12, or 5 steps and then have to stop and recover. Now the only question is whether the slow walk is fast enough... if so, maybe I'm on to something. I don't know if the slow walk would have helped me on White Mountain though! I think it's altitude sickness prevention rather than treatment.

18 August 2003

Tested out my slow walking speed. 1/2 kilometer (yeah, miles don't mean much when all the distances I have are in km anyway) took 30 minutes at slow pace, 5 minutes at normal walking speed. Normal walking speed gave me some elevation of heart and breathing rate, not super (but it was a half kilometer flat, not too hard!). I think the slow pace might actually be fast enough, it's kind of funny, it takes about 2 minutes to shuffle across a road intersection! It definitely takes a lot of patience too, you're not going anywhere fast at 1km/hr.But that's ok, I have 8 days to get to the top, there's no big rush. I want to take all available time and not have altitude effects. (220.6, 18.7)

19 August 2003

Long day at work means short day of preparation. Did the 3.5 mile fast walk with no breaks in about 55 minutes. (218.4, 18.7)

20 August 2003

Day of rest.

21 August 2003

Different route and testing altimeter watch and GPS. 3.12 miles in 1:09. Average heart rate was 101 bpm.

22 - 24 August 2003

Attempted Split Mountain (14058 feet) and met dismal failure. Was sidetracked off the track to base camp which led to 12 hours of somewhat treacherous psuedo-rock climbing with a 50 pound pack. Long hard days, hopefully easier than Kili, but potentially not. I also decided that due to the lack of time before the trip at this point, I'll have to forego the entry visa until I actually arrive in Tanzania. Very dangerous! I'm excited but intimidated by the sheer magnitude of the task ahead. Upon return, clocked in at 212.6 pounds and 16.8% body fat. You can really drop some weight in just a few days albeit temporarily.

25 August 2003

Rest day recovering from over-exertion on Split. Figuring out plans for long weekend (one of two remaining before departure). My new GPS says Uhura Peak is only 9723 miles away at a bearing of 19 degrees. Quite strange, I guess the closest approach is over the North Pole from California!

26 - 29 August 2003

All spent recovering from Split. I pulled some muscles or tendons in my right knee, and it is quite painful.

30 August 2003 - 1 September 2003

Survived a summitting of Mount Shasta (14162 feet) over a three day trip. The good news, altitude sickness was no problem, and I made it. The bad news, weak knee going into the trip is now substantially worse; I'm on ice and minimal exertion for the next week plus hoping for recovery before the trip. The Shasta trip included one day with a 1200 meter gain, which was probably about equivalent to the final leg of the Kilimanjaro trip (from Barafu Hut to the Crater), so it gave me a good idea of the level of exertion required. Shasta was starting elevation of 2133 meters and ending at 4317 meters, for a gain of 2100 meters over a 3 day period.

2 September 2003

Still recovering from sore knee and blisters from Mount Shasta.

27 September 2003

I made it! I'll update this area with the pictures and travelogue of the trip soon!