An African peak pulls adventurer ever higher
By John Halverson/The Week
If having fun is the measuring stick, Walworth County's own Tom Johnson is--dare we say--right up there among great mountaineers.
His recent climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro wasn't all fun--there was the 21 hours of walking on three hours of sleep--but Tom sure has fun in the retelling.
Tom's day job is co-owner of Reed's Marine and his sunlit office is a far cry from the heights of Kilimanjaro, which towers almost four miles above the Serengeti in Africa.
But a few years ago he became an adventurer after commiserating with friends at a reunion. Unlike most plans made by middle-aged men at reunions, this one came to fruition with a climb to the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.
Tom, 57, called the trip a "mancation"--something that happens "when my fear of growing old causes my ego to become larger than my IQ."
But he was unable to rest on his laurels after a skeptical customer, apparently thinking Machu Picchu was some sort of Peruvian side-dish, said, "Why mess with that stuff ... climb a real mountain ... at least people know what that is."
So this past winter, after six months of training on Tom's part with Bob Militello of Delavan's Opt for Fitness, Tom and some of his Machu Picchu buddies--"three Chicago Irishmen, a Texan and myself"--were ready to tackle a "real mountain."
Tom points out that Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain that doesn't require the technical skills of, say, a Mt. Everest.
"All it takes is some help from the porters and being able to walk up for a long time with an ever-increasing lack of oxygen," he later wrote in an e-mail memoir to friends.
But a quick Google adds perspective:
At 19,340 feet, "Kily"--as the pros call it-- is the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, meaning it's even higher than Everest if you measure from bottom to top instead of by distance above sea level.
Kily is the highest mountain in Africa or Europe and just short of our own Mt. McKinley.
Only about half of the people who try to climb Kily make it all the way, putting Tom in pretty exclusive company.
But the climb itself was only part of Tom's mancation as he and his cohorts took the scenic route to Kily via a safari across the Serengeti, one of the most famous eco-systems in the world.
Tom says that to understand Africa, "extremely" should be put in front of the following words: "big, beautiful, dusty, vast in some areas, crowded in others, disorganized, slow-moving, poor, varied, friendly, happy, clean-clothed, smelly from body odor, wonderful natural resources, backward in many areas and modern in other areas.
"It was epitomized when I saw a poor but well-dressed man with no shoes, tilling the field with a rudimentary hand tool. He looked up, smiled, waved and then I noticed he was also talking on his cell phone," Tom said.
After nights of hearing hyenas and elephants within earshot and seeing elephants and water buffalo inside their camp, Tom and his group went from one extreme in the Serengeti to another in Mt. Kilimanjaro.
As Tom put it, "One of the earth's greatest flat nature areas is next to arguably the most beautiful vertical natural place on this planet."
No wonder Kilimanjaro's mystical quality inspired Ernest Hemingway to make climbing it a symbol of doing something for its own sake.
Tom compared the first four days of their ascent to "an advanced Boy Scout outing." That all changed when they reached base camp and started the next leg of their journey. After trying to get two or three hours of sleep, they left before midnight in pitch black.
"We walked all night, with headlights and flashlights, up the loose gravel for over four hours and then up and around boulders for another two hours."
When they reached Gilman's Point, Tom could have received a certificate saying they'd reached the summit, but decided to push on to the real summit after a short rest, an energy bar and, seemingly, divine intervention.
"Mercifully, when I felt I couldn't go any further, a magnificent dawn slowly lightened the sky, the path and then our faces.."
The trek down was even more dangerous. "We were just so tired, and falling forward was a constant threat," he said.
The final tally that last day: 5,000 feet up, 7,000 down. Twenty-one hours of climbing. Three hours of sleep.
No wonder that when they were done, they rewarded themselves with a trip to nearby Zanzibar, "an exotic location, full of trade, intrigue, multiple cultures and sultans."
Not everyone in his group fared the climb as well as Tom did. One turned back at 12,000 feet. Another could only get to 17,000 as his borrowed equipment failed (his luggage was lost somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea.) The Texan made the top but descended on a stretcher because of injuries caused by a fall.
"The assorted other problems of headaches, sore muscles, poor sleeping, diarrhea, difficult breathing, blisters and skin fungus were minor and to be expected," Tom said.
The next mancation?
When pressed, Tom said something about biking through Vietnam.
But, for now, the familiar waters of the Delavan Inlet flowing past his office into nearby Delavan Lake, Tom seems content in retelling his story on a dry, flat surface instead of reliving it at 19,340 feet.
ooo
If having fun is the measuring stick, Walworth County's own Tom Johnson is--dare we say--right up there among great mountaineers.
Submitted Photo
Tom Johnson at the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro
Tom's day job is co-owner of Reed's Marine and his sunlit office is a far cry from the heights of Kilimanjaro, which towers almost four miles above the Serengeti in Africa.
But a few years ago he became an adventurer after commiserating with friends at a reunion. Unlike most plans made by middle-aged men at reunions, this one came to fruition with a climb to the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.
Tom, 57, called the trip a "mancation"--something that happens "when my fear of growing old causes my ego to become larger than my IQ."
But he was unable to rest on his laurels after a skeptical customer, apparently thinking Machu Picchu was some sort of Peruvian side-dish, said, "Why mess with that stuff ... climb a real mountain ... at least people know what that is."
So this past winter, after six months of training on Tom's part with Bob Militello of Delavan's Opt for Fitness, Tom and some of his Machu Picchu buddies--"three Chicago Irishmen, a Texan and myself"--were ready to tackle a "real mountain."
Tom points out that Mt. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain that doesn't require the technical skills of, say, a Mt. Everest.
"All it takes is some help from the porters and being able to walk up for a long time with an ever-increasing lack of oxygen," he later wrote in an e-mail memoir to friends.
But a quick Google adds perspective:
At 19,340 feet, "Kily"--as the pros call it-- is the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, meaning it's even higher than Everest if you measure from bottom to top instead of by distance above sea level.
Kily is the highest mountain in Africa or Europe and just short of our own Mt. McKinley.
Only about half of the people who try to climb Kily make it all the way, putting Tom in pretty exclusive company.
But the climb itself was only part of Tom's mancation as he and his cohorts took the scenic route to Kily via a safari across the Serengeti, one of the most famous eco-systems in the world.
Tom says that to understand Africa, "extremely" should be put in front of the following words: "big, beautiful, dusty, vast in some areas, crowded in others, disorganized, slow-moving, poor, varied, friendly, happy, clean-clothed, smelly from body odor, wonderful natural resources, backward in many areas and modern in other areas.
"It was epitomized when I saw a poor but well-dressed man with no shoes, tilling the field with a rudimentary hand tool. He looked up, smiled, waved and then I noticed he was also talking on his cell phone," Tom said.
After nights of hearing hyenas and elephants within earshot and seeing elephants and water buffalo inside their camp, Tom and his group went from one extreme in the Serengeti to another in Mt. Kilimanjaro.
As Tom put it, "One of the earth's greatest flat nature areas is next to arguably the most beautiful vertical natural place on this planet."
No wonder Kilimanjaro's mystical quality inspired Ernest Hemingway to make climbing it a symbol of doing something for its own sake.
Tom compared the first four days of their ascent to "an advanced Boy Scout outing." That all changed when they reached base camp and started the next leg of their journey. After trying to get two or three hours of sleep, they left before midnight in pitch black.
"We walked all night, with headlights and flashlights, up the loose gravel for over four hours and then up and around boulders for another two hours."
When they reached Gilman's Point, Tom could have received a certificate saying they'd reached the summit, but decided to push on to the real summit after a short rest, an energy bar and, seemingly, divine intervention.
"Mercifully, when I felt I couldn't go any further, a magnificent dawn slowly lightened the sky, the path and then our faces.."
The trek down was even more dangerous. "We were just so tired, and falling forward was a constant threat," he said.
The final tally that last day: 5,000 feet up, 7,000 down. Twenty-one hours of climbing. Three hours of sleep.
No wonder that when they were done, they rewarded themselves with a trip to nearby Zanzibar, "an exotic location, full of trade, intrigue, multiple cultures and sultans."
Not everyone in his group fared the climb as well as Tom did. One turned back at 12,000 feet. Another could only get to 17,000 as his borrowed equipment failed (his luggage was lost somewhere over the Mediterranean Sea.) The Texan made the top but descended on a stretcher because of injuries caused by a fall.
"The assorted other problems of headaches, sore muscles, poor sleeping, diarrhea, difficult breathing, blisters and skin fungus were minor and to be expected," Tom said.
The next mancation?
When pressed, Tom said something about biking through Vietnam.
But, for now, the familiar waters of the Delavan Inlet flowing past his office into nearby Delavan Lake, Tom seems content in retelling his story on a dry, flat surface instead of reliving it at 19,340 feet.
ooo
posted at 2:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home