See You at The Top

If you’ve read my profile you know that I trekked up Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania nearly two years ago.

Kilimanjaro is the world’s largest free standing mountain, 5,891 meters or 19, 330 feet at its peak.

And while I no longer dream that I’m actually climbing Kili – something that kept occurring weeks after the trek – I still think about that trip, our group of eight trekkers and the people I met along the way to the top.

One young man named Martin from Germany particularly stands out.

My group spent six days on the mountain – four days attempting to reach the top via the Machame route and two days descending. The group included my wife, her twin sister and her husband, my sister and her husband, my sister-in-law’s colleague Kimani, and a teacher from Vancouver, Canada I met on the bus from Arusha to Moshi, Tanzania who decided to join our group.

We met Martin on the second day at Shira Camp after a day of trekking that took us out of the green, lush rain forest into the rocky moorlands. He passed our camp in search of one of the many latrines scattered about the area.

We were relaxing, watching the many clouds float into the camp engulfing us, blocking out the sun and then passing on toward Kibo, one of Kili’s two snow-capped peaks. We exchanged greetings and all the inquiries about where we were from with Martin. At the end of the conversation, Martin said: “See you at the top.”


Afterwards, Martin and his group would pass us along the trail and we would greet one another. He was with a group of young British trekkers, probably in their late twenties, and as they passed us with hiking sticks in both hands, they seemed to be moving at a swift pace. I, for one, embraced the concept of “Pole, Pole,” slowly, slowly in Swahili.

“See you at the top,” Martin would always say as he passed.

The night of the ascent to the Summit --- you start the ascent at midnight to arrive at the top by sunrise – I crossed paths with Martin again. That last ascent from camp Barafu (which means ice in Swahili, so you get an indication that we were moving into the arctic region) everyone looks like coal miners because we have headlamps on to see. You look up the mountain there's a trail of lights, you look down the mountain another trail of lights.

My headlamp, unfortunately, did not work and as I and Kimani broke away from our group at a faster pace with Taday, one of our guides, I found that Kimani didn't have a flashlight and the batteries had died in Taday’s big flashlight. So it was dark. And it was a struggle trekking with a 35 to 40 mph wind blowing us around, our water bottles freezing, my legs becoming like lead. I had never experienced such exhaustion in my life.

As I rested on a rock, briefly contemplating turning back as I watched a man who had passed us along the way with his guide, now turning back -- defeated by Kili -- another group of trekkers, their headlamps lighting up the path, slowly trekked by.

The last one in line stopped, shined his light on me and said: "Hello."

I knew that voice. "Martin"? I said, exhausted.

"Yes. See you at the top," he said and he kept moving on.

I did make it to the Summit, a place called Stella Point, close to 18.840 feet or more, near the snowy crater – enough to get a certificate stating that I’d made it to the top. But opted not to push on to Uhuru Peak.

I didn’t see Martin at the top. But I did meet him on his ascent down from the Peak. “So you made it to the Peak?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “My friends made me.”

And he kept on trekking.