Grand Dynamics International

THE CLIMB!
We donned the crampons and crossed the Lewis Glacier at sunrise heading toward the base of the wall. A short scramble and we were at the base. There were lots of options at the base and after some debate I launched off on the sharp end. I felt like a rabid dog tearing after a new-found bone. So much had led up to this day.

The rock was clean and beautiful granite and the temperatures were mid 40’s and warming.

I led up and ran it out til the rope stretched in its finality. And did it again all the way to the base of what we thought was the supposed crux of the climb. I looked up at the huge chimney on the left and overhanging corner and crack system on the right and thought, ‘yes this looks like a crux’.

I launched into it and with some difficulty pulled the first part of the route. It seemed much harder than 5.8 that’s for damn sure and as I climbed it only got harder… and harder… and up above looked like a difficult overhanging finish. Could I do it? Well, yes I think I could have mustered through it. But was that the right choice?

YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!
About one hundred feet up the pitch my mind started screaming what was becoming quite obvious, “You’re Going the Wrong Way!” So instead of ignoring it and feeding my ego to fire the rest of the pitch, I plugged in a nut and began to lower off.

Damn! Arms torched, sweating and generally pissed off, I took the lead around the corner and boom, there it was, the very obvious MacKinder’s Chimney.

I was frazzled at this point and said to Josh, “Well damn, you might as well just take the lead.”

Josh in his calm soothing demeanor replied, “Well I’m happy to do it but if you think it would be good for your head then go for it.” Ahh the beauty of a supportive partner! It is so important to recognize when your partner just needs a little prodding to move through some frustrating emotions. Josh did that for me and I am glad he did.

Me: “Well okay, it looks like I should just wedge my body in that chimney and exit at the top, what do you think?”

“I think that’s the wrong way, just climb the face and traverse in from the other side. Look, there’s a pin up there.”

“Ah, okay then, the altitude must be getting to me. Here we go.” The climbing was actually quite enjoyable 5.8 climbing. No stress, just interesting and steep moves. The hard boots made the climbing extra fun.

TRICKY CLIMBING

From the top of the chimney Josh took the lead and we cruised up some beautiful moderate rock, across the massive face and up toward Bally’s Bivy and the ridgeline denoting the midpoint of the climb. We had been warned that the climbing gets tricky at this point.

This is where you cross over to the facing ridgeline and climb up the west face, which is filled with snow and ice. We had not been able to discern the route from below and at this point we were pretty much following our nose.

The clouds began to form and the mountain mist soon was enveloping us as we made our way through the clouds and up the mountain toward the summit.

We pulled out the ripped pages of the route description which were generally non-descript, and I went with what seemed to make sense considering the current mountain conditions, the aesthetic line and what looked like it would “go.”

What had looked good initially quickly turned into difficult climbing and soon we realized that we were no longer on the “normal” route.

However we did spy several fixed anchors, which led us to believe that we were climbing a portion of the rappel route. This route did not have any rating or line on the description and we would find out later that this is “never climbed.”

This is where things began to get really exciting. I kept on leading and the climbing involved mixed snow, ice and steep unknown roofs and stemming on super exposed terrain. Knowing we were off route added to the excitement because every move is truly into the unknown. Strenuous moves up toward the next hold… will there be something up there? Yes! Thank-goodness!

Climbing was hard with the big pack with all our bivy gear, and the added element of altitude as we climbed up and past 16,000 feet. Although challenging, we pieced it together and moved up the mountain as we were enveloped in the continuous thick afternoon mist. After a few more pitches of climbing I went to pull out the route description again to check on our progress and position on the mountain.

WHERE’S THE ROUTE DESCRIPTION?
To my surprise the route description was nowhere to be found. Actually, if I am honest I wasn’t really surprised I had lost the it (those of you that know me well can attest), just annoyed I couldn’t find it! After rifling through every pocket several times (I know I already checked this pocket but I will look again anyway) we came to the unfortunate conclusion that the route description had somehow gotten out of my pocket and blown away across the mountain. Good one. It felt like something out of the Blair Witch Project when they start going crazy and one of them just throws our the map because it won’t help anyway.

So there we were. Perched precariously on the west side of Mount Kenya, somewhere about 16,200 feet in altitude, enveloped in mist, surrounded by rock, snow and ice, wind blowing, off route, with only our intuition to guide us to the top.

ALPINE MOUNTAINEERING: IT’S KIND OF LIKE FUN, BUT DIFFERENT

The next few pitches were exactly why I go into the mountains. Climbing up some unknown path toward an elusive summit amidst adverse conditions. Josh took the lead once again and climbed a beautiful pitch combining stemming, chimney, face climbing and turning corners to an incredible exposed small ledge. We knew the normal route was somewhere over to the right, and it was my first intention to get there. Exploring that possibility would require committing moves off the belay ledge with no gear placements and a delicate traverse on very small holds on some random run-out pitch.

I stepped up and led out over a bulge and some twenty feet up or so was able to get in token alien protection piece, allowing me to investigate. The moves would require difficult exposed down climbing where the second would be left with a potential large fall. No Dice. I traversed left and turned the corner heading up the unknown western ridgeline. Snow, ice, sketchy chalkstones and challenging terrain led us up to yet another crux pitch. And this one was the gem of the route.

As the mist fully enveloped us and the wind continued to howl we climbed an exhilarating series of steep overhangs with exposed stemming and committing reaches. Simply awesome!

Two more rope stretching pitches and I came over the ridgeline and across the gully of the “normal route.” We were back on route and heading toward the summit up the final stretch of easy climbing. I howled as Josh stepped up and over the final moves and there we were – staring across the vast African mountain-scape.

Glistening sun ripped the cloud bank and we were standing on the summit of Mount Kenya!

Soon there after the clouds dunned a beautiful red hue as we snapped our summit photos and screamed with success! Emotions overwhelmed me. It seems like the summit of a mountain brings it all together. Every ounce of making the trip happen, all the things you have left behind, all the things you want to do or achieve in your future – it all comes to a head on the mountain top.

It is in those moments that life truly is sweet.

We made our way to the Howell Hut and began the process of a nice brew up by melting snow.

As we brewed the water, it was my turn to experience the AMS. Emotional exhaustion and being “on” for the entire day had taken its toll. The altitude at 17,000 feet didn’t seem too bad initially, no real difficulty breathing. But as I lay in my sleeping bag I felt exhaustion pour over me. I was done and it was time to rest.

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OUR PLAN & BETA ON THE CLIMB
It is worth noting that it was very difficult to get any straight answer about route conditions or much else about climbing Mt. Kenya. The one thing I had figured out was that if you want to climb it between December and March, the route on the Nelion is in condition, and if you climb it between June and October, the Batian is in condition. Both can reach each other via the Gates of the Mist, assuming all the rest goes well.

We felt good that we had enough to pull it all together, and the sense of uncertainty added to the experience. For example, in communicating with the Kenya Mountaineering Club, the only beta we got about the climb was, “Expect Ice.” Considering that Kenya had been in a monsoon and received the most rain in the last ten years and we were climbing the route in the earliest possible suggested time-frame (the route starts opening up around Christmas), we thought we were in for a real doozie. So much that I started stressing because I only brought one GM ice axe and thought I might need my Cobras to get after it in all the snow and ice.

OUR APPROACH
There are many ways to approach the climb to Mount Kenya. Our initial plan was to take the most direct route into base camp and to plan for some acclimatization days along the way. After some discussion, we analyzed the possible routes and decided on the most scenic route which would also serve our acclimatization needs.

The intended ROUTE to climb Mount Kenya was as such.

Day 1: 10 K Park Entrance to Camp One (Old Moses) at 10,000 feet
Day 2: 14 K to Camp 2 (Shipton’s Camp) at 14,000 feet
Day 3: Acclimatization hike to 14,700 feet and back to the same Shipton’s Camp
Day 4: Up to the summit of Lenana (the trekkers summit) at 16,355 feet and descend to 15,000 to the Austrian Hut Camp.
Day 5: Cross the Lewis Glacier, climb to the Summit of Nelion on Mount Kenya at 17,057 feet – Bivy overnight. Potential climb across the Gates of the Mist to the other summit of the Batian on Mount Kenya and back.
Day 6: Descend to the Austrian Hut and trek to MacKinders Camp.
Day 7: Out of the park by 1:00 and back to Naro Moru by dark.
Day 8: Nairobi

As the plan began to take formation, we realized that if all went well with weather and acclimatization, we would be spending Christmas Eve on the Summit and waking up on top of the world on Christmas morning. It would be a special day for me, and even though Josh is an atheist, it would be special for him too!

Food shopping. Check. Gear packed. Check. Final Blog Post with intended route. CHECK. Locked and loaded. Show time – go time. Just before we headed out, Michael reminded us of one minor detail. Park Fees. In Kenya the park fees are charged per day, and at Mount Kenya, the fee is $55 a day. We had forgotten to calculate that minor detail of $300 for each of us. Stop at the bank for USD so we wouldn’t get hammered by the exchange rate at the park entrance: Check.

MONKEY IN A CAGE AT THE GATE
Finally we were on our way. At the entrance to the gate an interesting thing occurred. There is a garbage pit near the entry and Jeffrey told us to come take a look at what had happened. A huge mountain monkey had been trapped in the pit under the boards and was fighting to get out, banging his head on the boards and bleeding. A few locals stood around thinking the right thing to do would be to take off the boards and let him out. The only problem with that is that when the monkey, which is typically non-aggressive, comes out of the pit, he may be confused and think that the person freeing him was actually his captor. You can imagine what the monkey might do to someone he thinks has enslaved him. We arrived on the scene just in time so see one of the locals lift the board and the monkey explode out of the pit. He charged frantically and swerved just past the innocent bystander and off into the jungle. Holy crap. Thank God that thing didn’t target one of us. There would have been virtually no way to protect against the fury, speed and strength of a confused and angry big-ass monkey.

Sweet. Let’s start the hike!

Without belaboring the story of hiking in Mount Kenya, I’ll let the photos do the talking and just say that the terrain is beautiful. Open fields to valleys filled with wild cactus and surrounding mountains. The hiking was perfectly moderate and enjoyable and the gradual approach helped with the acclimatization in preparation for the climb.

Shipton’s camp is one of the coolest base camps I have been in and is directly below the start for the North Face of the Batian, which is the next technical route on the list!

The climb up to Lenana was quite enjoyable, except all the litter along the way. We had some fun with an alternative scramble to the summit. This was also the point where Josh and I got into our first argument because I wandered off without telling him to solo scramble up some ridiculous exposed face of the mountain to the summit. Sorry again Josh!

It is worth noting that Lenana really does make for a great objective and nice summit for those who are trekkers not into technical climbing. There’s a nice summit flag and everything.

FINAL BASECAMP – SURREAL FEELINGS and AMS
We arrived at the Austrian Hut feeling great initially. The entire mountain was in the clouds and completely covered in mist, so we could not look at the route. We had a nice hot lunch and almost within minutes of finishing lunch, both Josh and I started to act a little weird. I wanted to go set the tent and lie down immediately. He wanted to stay put and drink tea and not move. We both were edgy for the first time on the trip.

Twenty minutes later we were laying down to rest and I had a surreal feeling. I had trouble catching a full breath and definitely felt nauseous. I told myself it was normal and that a little rest would be all I needed. Josh laid in the tent feeling relatively incapacitated. We rested for a few hours hoping it would all just go away and we would feel normal again. Although I didn’t sleep the rest was much needed.

The clouds lifted and around 6 pm and I got the first glimpse of the wall we were to attempt the next morning. After a few gulps of WTF I slowly I began to piece together what I expected to be the route. We could tell the general flow and the bottom half looked relatively clean of snow and ice. Sweet!

However, we both felt like total crap and it only got worse.

THE NIGHT BEFORE OUR ATTEMPT and PROJECTILE VOMITING
Josh kept feeling progressively worst and as I sat down to dinner Josh went the other way out the door for some good old fashioned projectile vomiting. Yep, Altitude Mountain Sickness was rearing its ugly head and threatening the entire expedition. We had decided to not take diamox for the altitude and go au natural because we had taken enough time to acclimatize, at least we thought.

Well all sorts of thoughts started running through my head. First it was disbelief, but it was hard to deny that darn vomiting thing. Then it was empathy for Josh and acceptance of the situation. Then we just took the, “lets just plan like you are going to be better in the morning” approach and packed our bags.

I pulled the classic “cut the route description out of the book maneuver (Gary I can see you rolling your eyes!). Jeffrey our guide commented on the tactic. “So I guess you will be buying your friend a new book.” “Well, yeah if I can’t tape it back in.” Yeah Gary!

We headed to the tent and crossed our fingers. Remarkably, it worked. When Jeffrey shook the tent at 4:40, Josh sounded like a regular human being, I was giggling, and it was go time.

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INTRODUCTION
On December 19th, 2011, Josh Morris and I set out from Nairobi to climb Mount Kenya. Five days later we found ourselves on the side of the mountain in a bit of a predicament.

Location: Mount Kenya – somewhere on the South West Face, about 16,200 feet in altitude, some 800 feet from the summit. Surrounded in mist, cold wind blowing, perched precariously on a tiny belay ledge.

Dialogue:
Josh: “Let’s take another look at the route description, because we are definitely off-route.”
Tim: “Dude, I think I lost it.”
Josh: “You lost it? How do you mean, ‘lost it?’ Really? Well, check your pockets again.”
Tim: “I mean lost it, as in ‘gone’. I just checked, again. Damn it – it must have just blown away.”
Josh: “The route description just blew away?”
Tim: “Well I didn’t throw it off the cliff on purpose. I definitely lost it! Ahhhhh! Well, we were off route anyway, right?  It can’t get much worse, can it?”
Josh: “Right. Well, which way are we going to go…?”

Mount Kenya is a spectacular mountaineering objective. It has all the excitement and wildness of Africa, including the entrance through the capital city of Nairobi and vibrant urban pursuits to set the stage. A stunning and moderate approach to a base camp altitude of 15,000 feet for a 2000 foot moderate technical climb where you can even bivy on the summit in a tiny hut.

Although many trekkers seek out Point Lenana as the summit objective, to reach the Summit of Mount Kenya requires a technical ascent up two thousand feet of technical rock. Statistically speaking, only one and three who attempt will make it to the summit. The mountain holds all the allure of the unknown. It bisects the equator with snow on half the mountain and sun on the other and seems to be continually shrouded in mist for ever-present dramatic effect. The mountain of mist reminds me of a big fat question mark, followed by an exclamation point. Perfect?!

MY PARTNER – JOSH MORRIS
A critical part of mountaineering, some might even say the “crux” is choosing the right partner to spend time with. Time with your partner involves traveling over countless miles in various terrain, making tons of decisions together, sharing a tiny tent and placing your life in another persons hands, literally, in very precarious situations. It’s also critical to share a similar “style” of travel.

I am psyched have made this journey with my life-long friend Josh Morris

PARTNER HISTORY
There is an interesting history with Josh. We met in 2004 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. A week later I was running from the tsunami on the beach! Since then our relationship has evolved from fund raising and delivering training programs for the tsunami victims to business development for Corporate Experiential Training with Grand Dynamics in Asia. A few years back we got together for a truly epic climb in Cambodia, The Spirit of Mokwai, which was featured in Climbing Magazine’s Epic Edition for one of the year’s most dangerous feats.

PARTNER PRESENT
Josh is a beyond highly competent rock climber. In fact, he climbs 5.13, runs his own sport climbing company, Chiang Mai Rock Climbing Adventures, and is unbelievably steady, structured and methodical. However, his mountaineering experience is very limited, he lives at sea level and has very skinny legs. Ha!

JOSH’S ARRIVAL: WE DELIVERED A TEAM BUILDING EVENT IN NAIROBI
Josh arrived on Saturday morning and we headed directly to a local park to deliver a team-building event. We have worked so many times together that the whole program flowed with ease. The program took place in a local park filled with people playing praying, chanting, dancing, singing and sunning. An incredible buzz of energy all around us keep the bar high for keeping our own team engaged!

I am continually enchanted by the power of experiential training activities and the universal applications. Having delivered programs around the world, the same issues are always present.

Communication, trust, role clarity, support, fear of failure, group decisions, synergistic process the more interpersonal dynamics that fuel a successful team.

We spent the day playing, processing, sharing and celebrating and in the end it was another amazing experience in Kenya. Tukosowa was our word send for the day, which means, “We are incredible!” And isn’t that the truth! WE ARE INCREDIBLE!

AUTHENTIC TRAVEL TO NARO MORU TOWN
Packed up and ready to roll – we made our way out of Nairobi and a few hours later were at the local town of Naro Moru when our first logistical decision was to be made.

What would you choose?
Do we go with a high end resort lodge set in nature, safe and secure for good nights sleep before heading off to the mountains OR do we step into the unknown and shack up in a local style, highly uncertain hotel that probably has disgusting toilets, bumpy beds and potentially shady suspects waiting in the shadows to take what they do not have?

Funny that we had been talking a lot about the journey of authentic travel and what that concept really means. In fact Josh was finishing his Ted Talk description of the very topic and we were deeply processing his ideas about the choices travelers are continuously making and the experiences that result. Are you aware of the choices you make while travelling, how it expands or contracts your comfort zone and the impact it has on the local culture?

Of course, we went local, scary, disgusting toilet route and the decision opened our eyes to the rich local culture of a small countryside town in Kenya. A local dinner with of Yoma Choma set the tone perfectly. Essentially a butchered goat is grilled and then chopped up at the table into bits for gnawing. Delicious! Actually this is one of the best dishes you can find in Kenya. Yoma Choma. Mark and Remember. YUMMMMYYY! The bright colors of the morning opened our senses as we wandered around town and captured a slice of the local culture.

Soon we were on a motorbike and headed to meet our porters and arrange the trip logistics. One of the greatest feelings is being on a dirt-bike headed into the countryside in search of the next local connection on an international adventure. It’s almost like a third-world tradition in that the motorbike gets you to places faster and cheaper than you might be able to get otherwise. Do it!

KENYA PORTERS AND GUIDES
We had discussed how we wanted to approach the trip and a few factors came into play on the decision for using porters. First, there is an extensive system of huts in Mount Kenya National Park, which essentially means you do not have to carry a tent. However those huts cost on average $20 per person per night. Six nights times two and there’s an additional $250, which we don’t need to spend. Besides, we had a tent and wanted to use it, so that was that.

Then there was the idea of being completely self-sufficient for the climb, which seemed like an admirable thing to do. But then again there was the local economy of porters and guides, which we did want to contribute to in some fashion. And then of course, well, there’s just the luxury of having someone cook for you and carry your stuff for you to make for a luxurious experience and also to increase the odds of having more energy for the main event – the climb. And to be clear – the climb itself would be unguided.

We would tackle the mountain on our own, in alpine style. We would carry our own bivy and sleeping bag with us to the summit with the goal of sleeping on top of Mount Kenya at a small bivy hut, called the Howell Hut.

At Mount Kenya Porters and Guides, we met Micheal, the head liaison for the porters club. The club is a collection of the Mount Kenya Porters and Guides that support the trekkers and climbers in the park. Each porter is hired and a percentage of the proceeds go to the association and the profits and/or dividends are shared with the members at the end of the year. This situation makes it a smart economic decision to use the porters and to support the local guiding community.

Essentially there are three categories of service: Guide, Cook and Porter, each with a designated role for support service. After some discussion we ended up with a cook and three porters, one of which also served as the guide. The guide is the man in charge and also speaks the best English.

The main man who served as guide was Jeffrey. Highly knowledgeable, friendly and a machine in the mountains. We would get to know Jeffrey very well over the coming week.

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