The Ascent

For those of you who have had the pleasure to experience karoake with me, you surely know one of my all time favourite tunes, Aint no mountain high enough, by Marvin Gaye. This is a particularly fitting song for this weeks post…

The Ascent- Cameroon is home to Central\West Africas highest mountain, fittingly named Mt. Cameroon. This mountain has served as a test for many adventure seekers, both local, and from abroad. Standing at 4000 meters tall, with about 34 kilometres of hiking, a trek up this mountain aint no walk in the park…I can vouch for that personally, as you read this, I sit here a broken man. Burnt to an extreme crisp (apperantly there is less natural UV protection up there), and aching from head to toe, my destroyed body is the proof of the most exhausting experience Ive ever had. We set out, a Tunisian (my friend Selemen),two Canadians (myself and Ludwig from Montreal) and a Norwegian (a galnamed Ingrid) at 5am, looking for a challenge, to make it to the summit and back in one day..a journey that most people do in 2-3 days, camping along the way. Now Ill admit, the mountain got the best of me, Selemen and I were unable to make it to the summit, but our other two teammates did, of the 4000 m, I climbed about 3800 and back down in 14 hours of continuous hiking.

The beginning of the climb was through a tropical rainforest, it was truly beautiful, but hot and humid with lots of mud and tree roots to struggle over uphill . By the time we reached the first out post, our spirits were still very high, we had a quick break and started into our baggettes, trail mix, and bananas. After we emerged from the forest we were greeted by an amazing sight. By this point we were too high for dense forest to continue and we looked upon the face of the mountain, grasslands, a few trees, and lots and lots of crumbling volcanic rock (yes, the Mt. IS a volcano). We continued our climb, gradually rising above the cloudcover, and a few hours later, we reached the most difficult part of the ascent, a steep section that literally brought me to climbing up on my hands and knees because it was so steep at points, add in the crumbling jagged rocks and youre in for a goodtime! At was at this point I experienced my first horid leg cramp, which continued to slow my pace for the rest of the day. The thinner air, and my lowlevelof physical activity over the last two months surely were the causes. By this time our group  split up. The other Canadian and the Norwegian sped ahead like experienced mountain goats, Selemen and our guide fell behind, and I continued independently at my slow limping pace. For a period of time I was completely alone on the mountain side, sourrounded above and below by clouds. It was surreal. By 1 oclock I stopped for a few moments justto experience the complete silence. Ive never experienced this absoulute absnece of sound before. If I held my breath I could hear nothing but my own heart beating in my ear drums. No birds,no wind, no insects buzzing, no motorcycles, no yelling, no talking. Just nothing. After climbing bymyself for some time I realised Iwouldnot be able to make it to the summit and back down before dark. Thats the thing about climbing a mountain. You become so fixed on reaching the top, that you forget you have to climb alllll the way down to. Lacking flashlights, this is something I did not want to attemptafter dark, so I had to swallow my pride and turn back about an hour away from the summit. Good thing I did to…it would have made the hike back through the rainforest even more hellish than it was. On my way back down, our guide popped out from behind a rock cropping and scared the bejesus out ofme. I stopped for a moment to relax and dozed off to sleep (I sleptonly ‘ hours the night before). All I can say is WOW, waking up from a nap, a nice cold breeze, warm sun (the cause of my severe burns) and my first sight as looking DOWN on billowing white clouds and looking straight across  at the clear blue sky..amazing,and totally worth what my body is experiencing today. Of course it was hard to appreciate this beauty for the next 7 hours of hiking back DOWN the mountain. Know that saying its all down hill from here? Thats supposed tomean things are onlygetting easier? NOT true at all, the climb down was equally if not more difficult than the way up!

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