Day 77 & 78 - Climbing Mt. Cameroon

Wednesday – Day 1

            Today is the day we plan to climb Mt. Cameroon. Talking about climbing the mountain with Alyssa initially got me excited; however, as the days and the hours came closer to this event I started to get mixed feelings. After a quarter filled with studying, working, late night taco bell runs, tearing through bags of blowpop lollipops and barely any sleep, even a small walk uphill seemed difficult. Who was I kidding? However, I could not appear weak because I was the one who pushed for this climb to happen; so I attempted to get psyched up. That was a fail. Doubts and fear started to invade my mind, thus making my sleep restless and left me to count sheep for the remainder of the night.

            The alarm finally rang at 5 a.m. Alyssa and I got out of the single bed we shared that night and got our things ready. (Just a side note: single beds don’t work for two people who like to sleep “spread eagle” and roll around throughout the night). After enjoying a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and some coffee that Alyssa made, we got our third person, Kim (a new German friend we met), and headed off with Bill to meet our guide and porters.

            Upon our arrival, our guide, Vitalis, and the other porters greeted us and took our packs. Alyssa, Kim, and I each had our own daypacks filled with snacks, water, and some light clothing. However, they weighed no where near as much as our other backpacks that were filled with our sleeping bags, even more water, and more miscellaneous items that we females think we need but never use.  After a little bit more chit-chat and organizing, we finally headed off on our two day adventure.

            The first part of the hike was not that bad. We hiked passed some plantations, farms, cows, and then finally entered the rain forest. During this time, I was starting to think that maybe this adventure wouldn’t kill me after all. We chatted and had a spritely gait to our walk. We even thought that we could pick up the pace a little; however, Vitalis advised us to walk slower and “conserve” our energy. We obviously did not know what was ahead.

            As we entered the rain forest, I was continually amazed with the surrounding vegetation and noises we heard. It was definitely very enchanting to pass through and so beautiful! We took some pictures here and there, and after about 1.5 hrs we made it to Hut 1—our first official rest stop.

            At Hut 1, we took off our packs from our sweaty backs and one of the porters brought out bread, cheese, and chocolate for us to snack on. I haven’t gotten used to the whole chocolate-on-bread scenario, so I just ate my bread plain. As we were resting, the youth group that had gone before us to climb the mountain came back down and also rested at Hut 1 (pictured to the left). Apparently, one of the girls got very sick and couldn’t make it past the intermediate hut and so the remainder of the hike had been cancelled. Anyway, we met some of the church group at Hut 1 and they were singing, dancing, and pounding sticks and blowing whistles to keep to the tune. It was very lively and seemed somewhat like a tribal dance. Alyssa and I were interested by the initial “commotion” and we walked around the deck to see what was going on. Alyssa had her camera out and was capturing the moment, while I stood helplessly next to her. As the singing continued, I apparently looked too bored and the next thing I knew, I was thrown on the dance floor only to make a fool out of myself. As much as I’d like to think I can dance…I can’t. Thankfully, Alyssa didn’t capture every embarrassing second. Although I would not put myself in that position again, it was fun and seeing everyone singing, dancing, and having so much fun with each other made me appreciate the closeness you experience here with everyone in Cameroon. People here are so friendly and so light-hearted! Seeing all the energy that was going around made me hopeful that the hike wouldn’t be that bad. I was wrong.

            After our break at Hut 1, we headed off to the intermediate hut. During this leg of the hike, we finally exited out of the rain forest and started the “real” uphill journey up the mountain. This portion of the hike consisted of previously burnt off face of the mountain. This left a good amount of ash and dust to walk on. On our way to the intermediate hut, each of us kind of set our own pace. Much to my surprise, I was going a lot faster than I thought I could. I think my main goal was to get to the intermediate hut as fast as possible. However, this foolish action would lead to my near demise later on. After reaching the intermediate hut, we gobbled down on some snacks and took a break that was definitely too short (for me).

            After our short rest at intermediate hut, I looked up to see our next checkpoint—the infamous magic tree (pictured to the right). Apparently this tree is the only tree that has been known to survive and thrive on the front face of the mountain. It is exposed to lots of sun, cool weather, and not very much water. Anyway, my point is, this tree looks a lot closer than it really is. I decided to stay close behind Alyssa because at this point my legs are screaming and she had a good pace to follow. It was something like this: take 10 small baby steps, try to catch our breath, whine a little, look anxiously at the magic tree, repeat. It was a great strategy. At this point, our spritely gait and chattering have come to almost a complete stop. As we neared the magic tree, I could feel little muscle spasms occurring in my quads and right calf. I decided to push through them because I didn’t want to appear like a whimp. However, by the time we reached the magic tree I was suffering some pretty severe quad cramps and had to take a little longer to rest and stretch. So much for not appearing to be the whimp of the group. Looking back, I bet my attempt to “sprint” up the hill to intermediate hut contributed a fair amount to the painful cramps that left me to look like a fool in the fetal position. 

            After stretching and doing everything in my power to relieve the cramps, we decided to move on to our final destination for the day—Hut 2. As we started walking again, I started experiencing extreme tightness in my quads and more cramping. I tried to push through it, but ended up bending over, holding my legs, and hobbling like a cripple. At least it made everyone else laugh. There came a point where I just couldn’t walk anymore, and to further my pain, Mr. “Charlie Horse” decided to come pay a visit to my calf. It was a great time. One of the porters tried massaging out my tight quads, but that was even more painful. I remember thinking to myself, this is it. I’m the one who wanted to climb this bloody mountain and now I can’t even climb it. Perfect. Anyway, to make an already long story short, I rested and was finally able to make it to hut 2 with the group.

            At Hut 2, we pretty much did nothing for the rest of the day. We relaxed, got our tan on, and met some cool peace corps volunteers that were behind us. One of the porters cooked us a delicious meal of rice, plaintains, and some stew that had some questionable meat in it. Alyssa, Kim, and I decided not to eat it because it was a little too sketch. We felt bad, but couldn’t bring ourselves to stomach the unknown meat. Oh and lest I forget, one of the porters took a group of us on a quick 15 min hike to a really sweet cave. After getting some pictures and exploring a little bit, the day started to wind down and sunset came. Looking out over the clouds was so amazing! We took many pictures and Alyssa, Kim, and I were all thankful that we were able to experience this trip together.

            Later that night, tea was brought out and we all enjoyed a nice “cup” of tea. Some of these “cups” were cut off bottom halves of water bottles that were probably picked up along the way. Accepting the common excuse “This is Africa”, Alyssa and I decided to continue to drink out of these special ”cups”. Only the Lord knows what germs I’ve ingested during my stay here. Anyway, as bed time rolled around most of our group huddled in our bags in Hut 2 and decided to finally call it a night. Day 1 was officially over and we barely made it. Now to conquer the summit and Day 2.

            *On a side note, let me tell you about the bathrooms. If there was every a time for a person to work on their “aim”, this was the time. I wasn’t expecting a gold toilet, but I just couldn’t bring myself to use these porter potties. Even though I had to go, whenever I would walk near one, I suddenly lost the urge to purge. Thankfully I was able to find a random bush and nourish nature with whatever nutrients I had excreted. However, let me tell you…Alyssa probably “went” 10 times during our stay at Hut 2. She was amazing. I’m sure her aim was perfected before we left, because she was brave enough to squat over the hole in the presence of bees and spiders…minus the one time she went out in the bush.

What a day.

~ Lizzy

 Lizzy and I stretching out before the long hike up to Hut 2!

 The three of us with our porters watching the sun come up!

 The beautiful sunrise the first day of the hike, so amazing

 The mountain side we climbed up

 Our break at Intermediate Hut, now to magic tree!

 The delicious plantain chips that our cook made!

 The cave we hiked to after dinner

 Hut 2, this is where we spent the night, the huts are pretty neat, I must admit!

 The beautiful view from Hut 2, it was an amazing sunset and an amazing view!

 All cuddled up and ready for bed!

Thursday – Day 2

            Last night in Hut 2 was interesting, to say the least. Our sleeping quarters consisted of a big wooden loft, where we squished together as many sleeping bags as possible. I believe we fit Alyssa, Kim, myself, and several of our porters on the loft. All I can really remember that night was I had fallen asleep, nice and “snug” between Kim and Alyssa. Actually, scratch that, I didn’t fall asleep—at all. I moved around all night trying to find some sort of position that I could fall asleep in. Didn’t happen. The wooden boards did not serve my back or my bum very well and thus led me to lie awake to the sounds of some of our porters snoring, some mumbling here and there, and other miscellaneous movements.

            5:15 am finally rolled around and we were awaken by our guide, I believe. Kim apparently hadn’t slept well either. Alyssa and I learned that the porter sleeping next to Kim kept snuggling up against her. Haha. Alyssa, on the other hand, managed to get some sleep during the night and no complaints were heard from her end. After getting ready and eating a small breakfast consisting of bread, chocolate, cheese and tea, we were finally ready to begin our journey to the summit.

            The air was thin and our muscle ached from the previous day as we hiked on toward Hut 3. Our pace was slow and our water breaks were often. Vitalis had offered to carry one pack for the three of us, which contained some clothes, 2 bottles of water, and a couple snacks. We took our first “official” break after about 1-1.5hrs at another cave on the way to Hut 3.  After about 10 mins, Vitalis decided it was time to continue on to Hut 3. As we continued to Hut 3, we could feel the air get even more thinner in our lungs and from what I recall, Alyssa had started to get a little bit of altitude sickness. I had experienced some light-headedness, headaches, and other symptoms of altitude sickness the day before and had acclimated to the altitude, so I didn’t experience any headaches. However, my right calf up to my knee was quite tense and I was scared that I would cramp up and not be able to make it to the summit. I remember silently praying quite constantly that I would not cramp up and that we would be safe on our way to the summit. I guess my prayers were heard, because we made it to the top. But don’t let me spoil the story for you just yet.

            After about another hour or so, we reached Hut 3 (pictured above left). By this time our 1.5 liter bottle of water had been gulped down by Kim, Alyssa, and I. All we had left was Alyssa’s nalgene bottle to last us to the summit and back down to Hut 2. After about another 10 minute break at Hut 3, Vitalis urged us to continue on to the summit—about a 45 minute hike. As we continued toward the summit, the terrain consisted more of small rocks and “sand”. The air continued to get thinner and the winds picked up quite a bit. By this time, most of our hike had become more of a mental game. To make a long story short, we finally reached the summit. We were filled with a sigh of relief; however, there were crazy winds up at the summit so we decided to make our stay there short. The view was amazing! Clouds seemed bigger and closer and we could see endless valleys. After climbing a net of 10,000 ft from Buea to the summit, we definitely felt on top of the world. I believe the altitude of Mt. Cameroon is a little over 13,000ft. After snapping several pictures at the summit and taking in the beautiful view, we decided to make our journey back down to Hut 2.

            On our way down, the winds continued to try and sway us off the path. Eventually we met up with the Peace Corps group who was on their way to the summit. We high-fived them as we ran down the trail to Hut 3. We arrived at Hut 3 around 20 mins later.  While resting at Hut 3, the last water bottle was emptied and thus our next source of water would be at Hut 2, where our porters were waiting for us.

            The hike down from Hut 3 to Hut 2 was definitely not as quick as the hike from the summit to Hut 3 was. Our initial excitement to get down the mountain was quickly diminished as the hot African sun beat down on our dehydrated bodies. I remember stumbling several times like a drunkard and barely catching myself from an embarrassing fall. Alyssa and Kim apparently didn’t have as many stumbles as I did and to maintain what dignity I had left, I tried not to stumble as much. Didn’t work. At least my reflexes were cat-like and no serious tumbles were taken from my end.  After about 1.5 hrs or more, we finally reached Hut 2. By that time our knees were aching pretty badly, we were dehydrated, and us girls started to get a little grumpy because we still had to get all the way down the mountain. The hardest part was still yet to come.

            At Hut 2, we were able to lie down and rest for a little bit. I actually remember falling asleep on the wooden boards that I tossed and turned on the night before. After what seemed liked 2 minutes of a break, Vitalis was ready for us to head down back to our starting point. I remember thinking to myself, there’s no way my knees and tight right leg are going to make it down the steepest part of the mountain. I believe I have failed to mention that the steepest part of the mountain was from Hut 2 down past the Intermediate Hut, where that particular face of the mountain was burnt off and left down to ash, dust, and exposed rocks. After some last minute stretching, we were off.

            Inch by inch, we made it to the Magic Tree. After a quick break, we inched ourselves slowly down to the Intermediate Hut. It amazed me to think of runners running down this terrain. I imagined myself trying to do the same, but the resulting image left me ended up rolling down the hill like a tattered soccer ball. Crazy.  As we slowly made our way down, the sun was beating intensely on our front sides and I was glad that at least I was getting a good tan out of this. After finally reaching the Intermediate Hut, we gobbled down on some bread, which now had a good amount of dirt sprinkled on it. What’s a little dirt anyway? I figure this was a good instance to use the excuse “this is Africa” to help me consume the bread, which I (and Alyssa and Kim) did so quickly.

            After our break at Intermediate Hut, we met up with 2 Swiss-French backpackers we had met the day before. These ladies didn’t make it to the summit and had thus started the climb down. Apparently one of them just couldn’t walk anymore and their guide could not carry her down the mountain. Just as a side note, the guides that take people up and down the mountain are expected to be able to carry their tourist(s) down the mountain in case of an emergency. So, our guide, Vitalis, offered to help her and he carried her down the rest of the mountain on his back. He was even running down the mountain with her. It was seriously amazing. As if running up and down the mountain isn’t crazy enough, he could do it with an extra 130lbs on his back! It still baffles me to even talk about it. (pictured above, our guide carrying the girl)

            As we made our way down to Hut 1, our pace quickened as we exited out of the steepest part of the mountain and made our way down to the rain forest. After reaching Hut 1 in good time, we rested for about 10 minutes and decided it was time to finish off the hike for good!

            We practically “ran” (more like fast-walked/jogged) down through the rain forest. To (again) make a long story short, after about 1.5 hrs we made it back to our starting point. Kim, Alyssa, and I nearly collapsed on the ground. We had made it. Thank the Lord. No one got hurt and everyone made it down safely and in good time. We called Bill and he was on his way to pick us up. As we waited, we examined ourselves and the dirt and ash that had accumulated on our bodies left us looking 2-3 shades darker than our normal skin tone. I could literally run my finger down my arm and you could see the separate layers of dirt and my natural skin tone. It was great; but we were definitely ready to take showers. Once Bill finally came, we took pictures with our group and thanked our guide and all of our porters for the successful and fun trip. Climbing into the car was a struggle for all of us because the mountain had left us to hobble around like old ladies with arthritic knees.

            After finally getting back home, we took nice long showers and prepared some din din. I really don’t remember much after the hike because I was just so tired and focused on getting a shower.

            What a crazy, but fun-filled two days. Day 1 consisted of about 5 hrs of hiking, while Day 2 consisted of almost 10 hrs of hiking up to the summit and all the way back down. Phew! I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to climb Mt. Cameroon with my best friend, Alyssa, and my newfound friend, Kim. It is definitely an experience I will remember forever.

~ Lizzy

 The view from Hut 3

 Lizzy and I with our guide on top of the world

 The amazing clouds on the way down!

 We made it...all the way up and all the way back down! It was a rough couple days!