A harrowing climb up Kilimanjaro

Jeannette Johnston '94 was an anthropology major while at the University. She recently took a safari and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa. She spoke with 'Prince' senior writer Jennifer Chang.

Prince: How did you get interested in climbing?

Johnston: Kilimanjaro is not a technical climb. A lot of people and a lot of the companies that sell trips call it a "walk-up" or a "stroll at high altitude." . . . I found out that the mountain is a lot more dangerous than people give it credit for. I actually had never been camping before I went to Princeton. I went on one of those freshman OA trips, and it literally petrified me. I was wondering what I was doing going into the woods with a bunch of people I didn't know right before making the biggest leap of my life. But it ended up being a really great experience.

P: What happened to the person that died on your climb?

J: We were climbing up on New Year's Day. The top of Kilimanjaro is a crater filled with rock and snow. When you get to the rim of that crater, you walk along the rim to get to the true summit, which is called "Uhuru" peak. So we got up to the rim of the crater and started to walk along towards the summit. I was feeling altitude for the first time on that trip, and so I was walking behind the group. I was feeling drunk basically, and I was trying to take it slowly. I looked ahead of me and saw someone standing there in a yellow jacket. It slowly registered that there was no one in my group that had a yellow jacket, and I realized that most of the other groups that had left on time would be on their way down the mountain at this time. It turned out to be the husband of a woman from a different group and who had just collapsed. So I tried CPR and so did someone else in my group, and it didn't work. It was very unsettling for a bunch of reasons. First, we were in sight of the summit — this woman had just come from the summit. Also, when you do CPR, you're always told to do it until an ambulance or doctor comes. Here nothing was happening, and so you pull your hands away and that's the end. So, that was New Year's Day. It was pretty disturbing.

P: Were you able to continue on your trip?

J: People in my group were so focused on reaching the summit, and we really didn't have very much conversation about her and what had happened. We had a weird group anyway. There wasn't a great group dynamic, so we weren't really into sharing anyway. The problem with Kilimanjaro is that it's pitched as a "walk-up." So people don't expect to run into problems. But the fact is that Kilimanjaro is a dangerous mountain, and people do die. A lot of them die because they're getting high-altitude sickness and they're not descending . . . But egos, conceit and general misconception can really conspire against you, and in the case of this woman, it led to her death.

P: Is Kilimanjaro a big tourist attraction?

J: There are about 10,000 tourists who climb Kili a year, which is a huge number of people for a mountain that is that high. It is 19,341 feet — that's 500 meters higher than the base camp at [Mount] Everest.

P: What was the total number of days it took for you to climb up and back down the mountain?

J: It took us six days to go up and two days to come down. I think six days is two more than average, but my group was pretty hard-core, and we took a more challenging route. The route that 90 percent of people go on is nicknamed "The Coca-Cola Route" because you can actually get Coca-Cola at various huts along the way.

P: After the climb, you went on an African safari. What was the most interesting part?

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J: I went on the safari on my own, which was bizarre . . . So I had a cook and a driver, which made me feel ridiculous. I had to lie to them and tell them I was married because I didn't want them to think I was a single woman on this trip alone. My guide was really knowledgeable. At one point, we saw this lion that had just killed a wildebeest coming toward the truck. We were completely bewildered, but I also sunk down immediately and rolled up my window. She looked really calm and sedate, but I knew that she wasn't going to give it away if she wanted to attack us. But she just brushed up against the car and went on her way. Talk about a heart-beating experience.

P: Throughout the trip, you wrote a lot in your journal. Are you planning to compile your journal entries into a book?

J: Actually, I'm not sure right now what I'm going to do. I have several pitch letters out about this trip, but at this point I don't quite know where to go with it. My plan is to try to sell articles about the trip. If it leads to something, then that would be fantastic.

P: What was the most memorable part of your entire trip?

J: I guess I would have to say the Kilimanjaro experience, even though the Zanzibar part has so many memorable moments too. But, there are very few days that go by that I don't think about Jennifer Mencken, the woman that died at the summit.