...When Men and Mountains Meet

The expedition assembled. It had been called the strongest team since Scott and Oates set off to conquer the south pole with a couple of huskys and an endless supply of flags.The team was at their physical peak. Firstly there was David Cloete, primed after regular sessions on the pool-side Stairmaster aboard the Love Boat. Then James White, carbo-loaded to the hilt after months of company luncheons. Lawrence Mallen had proved his might by recently shrugging off the ardor of a Comrades marathon, while Tough Guy and myself had had five weeks of intense cardio, sprinting either away from hoards of Ethiopias children or murderously towards its horrific touts. This was a crew well-drilled, motivated and – above all – flatulent. The destination was Mount Kenya. The aim, nudity on a grand scale.

The purple sun rose on the horizon and Lenana Peak came vividly into view. So too did the dense snow that covered it. This was a particular concern given that we had pledged, for no ostensible reason, to summit naked. Hours of scrambling against a conveyer-belt of scree in the pitch black finally seemed worth it. Of more dubious valuewas our altitude medication and its myriad side-effects: toes and fingers tingling like Harry Potters wand, bladders reduced to those of senile octagenarians, mouths complaining that everything tasted of Robocops urine. And despite these, Whitey began to display one of the cardinal signs of altitude sickness: persistent conversation about how attractive Cloetes father was. More alarming, no one disagreed.

The expedition reached the peak. The smug cloud hanging over us could be viewed from the park entrance. On all sides everything about Mount Kenya was gigantic: giant valleys covered in giant loeblias, giant peaks covered in giant snow, giant hyrax, giant noses. That was until the time came to de-robe. Nothing was giant about this. A vicious combination of freezing temperatures and bad genetics combined to form what was to be, at best,a forgettable photo shoot, at worst a severe blow to our collective self-esteems and future job prospects.  Our guide Richard – a man of few words – was overheard telling his friend “You see, I was right. The mzungu are a cursed race!”.  No matter. Morale was high. And so was Whitey. So nothing really mattered except the fact that we had made it. As the old adage goes ‘Weird things happen when men and mountains meet’. We certainly proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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Also, in this spirit of achieving goals our fund to raise money for the Key School for Autism has just surpassed the R40,000 mark thanks to the kind generosity of many of you out there! Weve still got a long way to go to get to our magic R100,000 mark but already you have all given more than we ever thought we would raise. Big up.