Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter
By Josh Gates
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
World adventurer and international monster hunter Josh Gates has careened through nearly 100 countries, investigating frightening myths, chilling cryptozoological legends, and terrifying paranormal phenomena. Now, he invites fans to get a behind-the-scenes look at these breathtaking expeditions.
Follow Gates from the inception of the groundbreaking hit show (at the summit of Kilimanjaro) to his hair-raising encounters with dangerous creatures in the most treacherous locations on earth. Among his many adventures, he unearths the flesh-crawling reality of the Mongolian Death Worm, challenges an ancient curse by spending the night in King Tut’s tomb, descends into a centuries-old mine to search for an alien entity in subterranean darkness, pursues ghosts in the radioactive shadow of Chernobyl, and explores sightings of Bigfoot from the leech-infested rain forests of Malaysia to the dizzying heights of the Himalayas.
Part journey into the unexplained, part hilarious travelogue, part fascinating look at the making of a reality-based TV show—and featuring never-before-published photographs— this Destination Truth companion takes readers on the supernatural expedition of a lifetime.
Josh Gates
Josh Gates is an explorer, photographer, author, and television personality. His work and travels have taken him to more than seventy-five countries around the world. An avid scuba diver, he has participated in sub-sea archaeological excavations in the Mediterranean, and as a photographer, he's traveled from sweltering African villages to the icy heights of the Himalayas. In addition, he has scaled "the roof of Africa" on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and climbed on Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the Americas. He is the host and executive producer of the Discovery Channel series Expedition Unknown and co-executive producer of Syfy Channel series Destination Truth. He is also the bestselling author of Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter.
Related to Destination Truth
Related ebooks
Mysterious America: The Ultimate Guide to the Nation's Weirdest Wonders, Strangest Spots, and Creepiest Creatures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghost Hunting: True Stories of Unexplained Phenomena from The Atlantic Paranormal Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World's Most Haunted House: The True Story of the Bridgeport Poltergeist on Lindley Street Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghostly Adventures: Chilling True Stories from America's Haunted Hot Spots Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The World's Weirdest Places Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Was a Dark and Creepy Night: Real-Life Encounters with the Strange, Mysterious, and Downright Terrifying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This House Is Haunted Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The World's Most Haunted Places: From the Secret Files of Ghostvillage.com Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Unexplained Mysteries of The World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sallie House Haunting: A True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bigfoot: True Life Encounters with Legendary Ape-Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seeking Spirits: The Lost Cases of The Atlantic Paranormal Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chasing American Monsters: Over 250 Creatures, Cryptids & Hairy Beasts Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Ghost Town Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hauntings: True Stories of Unquiet Spirits Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bigfoot!: The True Story of Apes in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mothman: Evil Incarnate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jeepers Creepers: Canadian Accounts of Weird Events and Experiences Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Legend Tripping: The Ultimate Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paranormal Conspiracy: The Truth about Ghosts, Aliens and Mysterious Beings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trucker Ghost Stories: And Other True Tales of Haunted Highways, Weird Encounters, and Legends of the Road Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Michigan Bigfoot Encounters Volume 1: Upper Peninsula Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Menagerie of Mysterious Beasts: Encounters with Cryptid Creatures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Haunted House Diaries: The True Story of a Quiet Connecticut Town in the Center of a Paranormal Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Special Interest Travel For You
Mediocre Monk: A Stumbling Search for Answers in a Forest Monastery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unofficial Disney Parks Drink Recipe Book: From LeFou's Brew to the Jedi Mind Trick, 100+ Magical Disney-Inspired Drinks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArthur: The Dog who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 12-Hour Walk: Invest One Day, Conquer Your Mind, and Unlock Your Best Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming a Digital Nomad - 2023 edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Haunted October: 31 Seriously Scary Ghost Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dishoom: The first ever cookbook from the much-loved Indian restaurant Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Disneyland Scavenger Hunt: A Detailed Path Through the Disneyland & Disney's California Adventure Parks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDispatches from Pluto: Lost and Found in the Mississippi Delta Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2024 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Steps to Your Own Internet Travel Agency Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kon-Tiki Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Historic Haunts of Savannah Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Escape the Wolf: A SEAL Operative’s Guide to Situational Awareness, Threat Identification, a Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Camp for Free: Dispersed Camping & Boondocking on America's Public Lands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOn Trails: An Exploration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Microadventures: Local Discoveries for Great Escapes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disney Declassified Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge: Traveler's Guide to Batuu Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lonely Planet The Solo Travel Handbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Digital Nomads For Dummies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHave You Eaten Yet: Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Freaky Florida: The Wonderhouse, The Devil's Tree, The Shaman of Philippe Park, and More Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Reviews for Destination Truth
50 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5TV adventurer Josh Gates tells his story about hosting the monster-hunting series Destination: Truth. He talks about how he got the job, talks about his crew, and about the behind the scenes efforts to fill their hour-long show. His adventurous attitude is catching and this makes good reading. Entertaining travelogue with that little extra -- a monster.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well told travelogue withsome witty humor and philosophical musings.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I enjoyed the show Destination Truth from the moment it first aired. I loved Josh's screen presence, his sense of adventure, and his wit. The great thing about this book is it feels and reads like you're watching an episode of the show. His style of writing carries his voice with it in such a way that it makes his memoir a fun read. If you're not an adventurous person one thing's for sure...this book will stir the passion of adventure in you.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you've ever seen the popular show, Destination Truth, on Syfy, you know what this show is all about. A man (Josh Gates) and his team travel throughout the world in search of the crytozoological and paranormal. And if you've watched the show, you know it's not just about finding the unexplained, it's about the meeting of cultures and beliefs, finding reality within the myth, and Josh Gates traveling the world as he falls, fumbles, and cusses at the always-failing broken-down transportation.
Written by Josh Gates, this book isn't filled with his early life. You will get a glimpse of what made him who he is but this story starts with the inception and creation of the show, Destination truth. You will get a behind the camera's look at his adventures with the show (and trust me, there's a lot you don't see – they film for days or weeks in foreign countries, just to come back and condense it into a 30-60 minute showing) and boy does this man have adventures to tell! Not only is this an excellent travelogue but it is hilarious. Gates is constantly adding in his sarcasm and humor that I find so endearing in the show. He also goes more into depth with his thoughts on the creatures he has been sent off in search of.
If you're looking for the exciting tell-all of this man's life before the show, you're not going to find it. But if you have enjoyed the fun and excitement that this show has offered for 4 seasons, there is no doubt that you will also enjoy this book.
Book preview
Destination Truth - Josh Gates
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
To my father, Lee Gates, and grandfather, Lewis Gates. Real-deal adventurers.
"One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."
—HENRY MILLER
"The truth is never pure and seldom simple."
—OSCAR WILDE
"Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory."
—INDIANA JONES
CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1: We Must Go Back
Chapter 2: 19,340
Chapter 3: Meet Neil Mandt
Chapter 4: Underdressed for Success
ADVENTURES IN MONSTER HUNTING AND PROFESSIONAL GHOSTOLOGY
Chapter 5: We Found Something!
CASE FILE: BIGFOOT
Chapter 6: Post
Chapter 7: Mixmaster Belong ’em Jesus
CASE FILE: LIVING DINOSAURS
Chapter 8: Under New Management
Chapter 9: The Death Worm
CASE FILE: PHANTOM FELINES
Chapter 10: The Delicate Art of Not Getting Killed
CASE FILE: FLYING FIENDS
Chapter 11: Worst. Vacation. Ever.
Chapter 12: Threes and the Christmas Miracle of Whore—Dice
Chapter 13: Yeti
Chapter 14: The Tourist Empire
CASE FILE: MINI MONSTERS AND JUNGLE DEMONS
Chapter 15:
Chapter 16: On the Subject of Ghosts
Chapter 17: Tourists and Pharaohs
CASE FILE: MOVIE MONSTERS
Chapter 18: Amazonia
CASE FILE: SUPER-SERPENTS
Chapter 19: Travel Will Save You
Chapter 20: Something in the Fog
CASE FILE: MARINE MONSTERS
Chapter 21: What the Monsters Taught Me
Chapter 22: Home
Acknowledgments
Foreword
The following is a scattershot account of my tenure over the last four years as a professional vagabond, international monster hunter, and paranormal Hardy Boy. After careening through nearly one hundred countries investigating some of humanity’s most enduring myths and legends, I have emerged fundamentally changed by the journey (and probably have a few weird diseases to boot).
This book has been written, in large part, on dirty airport floors, in sweltering jungle huts, and by the firelight of chilly mountain lodges. This very sentence is being penned aboard a sailboat off the icy coast of Antarctica. My journals have served as trusted guides and helped me navigate the dense wilderness of memory.
In several places I’ve taken geographical liberties, changed a few names to protect the guilty, needlessly slandered several people, misused the word nascent,
and in one instance made something up entirely because it sounded very adventurous in my head.
J.
DESTINATION TRUTH
1: We Must Go Back
Cluj, Romania, 2009
Wind is suddenly screaming into the cockpit of this aging Antonov biplane. Charts and a half-assed, handwritten flight plan whip by my face and through the cockpit door into the main cabin. In the rear of the plane our director of photography, Evan, who has been filming out the open door, is suddenly thrust forward toward the edge of open space, only to be yanked to a stop by his four-point harness. Documents eject past him and into oblivion.
The sound is deafening and the pressure change so abrupt that I try to brace my arm against the roof to steady myself. Instead, my hand is forcefully bent back by what feels like icicles slicing through my fingers, and I instinctively retract.
Open air. I’m immediately overwhelmed by a terrible realization. The cockpit ceiling is gone.
Our audio engineer, Mike, has the common sense to kick the pilot’s door shut from his first-row seat behind me, closing off the wind tunnel coursing through the interior of the plane and sealing me into the roofless cockpit.
Moments ago I was actually bored, fiddling with a camcorder to get a close-up of the plane’s antiquated controls and weathered gauges, the altimeter needle quivering from the vibration of the plane’s beleaguered engine. The pilot, a stout Russian in a thick wool sweater, was languidly operating the stick. Now I’m craning back to get a view of the tail stabilizer through the gaping maw above me, praying the debris from the roof hasn’t clipped it on the way by. I think twice about unbuckling my harness for a better look and instead concentrate on the ground below, which is getting closer by the second.
I probably shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, of course. As the host of the Syfy Channel’s Destination Truth, I’ve spent the last four years traveling to far-flung locales following reports of cryptozoological creatures and paranormal phenomena. Since there aren’t exactly nonstop commercial flights leading directly to the doorsteps of the world’s most enduring mysteries, I’ve made a career, such as it is, out of flying on board the planet’s most laughably derelict aircraft.
But even by my admittedly lax standards, this plane is a piece of shit. I arrived at the airfield (and I do mean field) after two straight days of begging our field producer, Allison, to procure a plane—any plane—that could take us up and over the purportedly haunted Hoia Baciu Forest, the subject of our current episode. After exhausting every possible charter from here to Bucharest, she managed to find this flying Russian coffin and offered a few bucks to a local pilot to coax it back into active service.
The Antonov An-2 is not the sort of plane most people would agree to climb aboard in the first place. Basically unchanged since its design in 1946, it has wings covered in fabric, not metal. The plane is a flying dinosaur, originally intended for agricultural use. A function it might still fulfill as it threatens to fertilize nearby farms with the remains of my crew.
It is common in moments of potentially fatal catastrophe for the world to close in around us and become much smaller. Disaster is often countermanded by an intense focus, even if it happens to resolve on strange and seemingly arbitrary details. Looking over at the captain, I’m suddenly engrossed by his bald head. Where once there was a comical comb-over, there is now this emancipated ribbon of hair dancing in the vortex and joyfully reaching up to the heavens. It looks like one of those inflatable noodles outside a used-car dealership. Like any pilot worth his salt, though, he seems utterly unfazed by his new coif or by our circumstances in general. Where can one buy a little of that Right Stuff bravado required to shrug off the fact that your airplane is now a convertible?
When Captain Chesley Sullenberger famously ditched that crippled US Airways jet in the Hudson River after a flock of geese turned themselves into engine-flavored pâté, it barely seemed to raise his pulse. He casually noted to air traffic control, We’re gonna be in the Hudson,
as though he was stopping off there for a cup of coffee. My distress call would have consisted of a jumbled litany of swearwords arranged in no particular order followed by an ecstatic, Holy JESUS we’re going to crash into a river! MOMMY!
During this particular aviation mishap, I do my best to stay calm and not soil my pants. This is the best I can muster under the circumstances, and I’m feeling fairly heroic about it.
The pilot adjusts the flaps and begins to bank around toward an open field. Time continues to slow down, and I think about the circumstances that brought me to this moment.
How did it come to this? How on earth did I end up here, plummeting in a partially disassembled biplane toward some anonymous field in Romania? A few years ago this would have been inconceivable. But now it’s just another day at the office. I manage to catch the pilot’s gaze for only a moment; above the din he leans over and yells, We must go back.
Indeed. We must. Five years, to be exact.
2: 19,340
Tanzania, Africa, 2005
Above the arid plains of Tanzania’s grasslands, the mighty silhouette of Kilimanjaro rises like a dusty temple, a singular cone breaking up the endless, supine earth. In the adjacent town of Moshi, where locals beat back the sweat and heat of 110 degrees, it seems inconceivable that the distant white frosting on Kilimanjaro is actually glacial ice. But from up here, it’s a different world altogether.
At 11,000 feet, I squint in the chilly twilight to follow the narrow trail beneath my feet. The landscape is utterly alien, and a soupy mist clings to the rock face by my side. I run my hand along the smooth stones for balance, my fingers red from the icy water trickling down from above.
Just before sunset, my group and I finally stumble into Shira Camp. The darkening haze is punctured by the welcome sight of dozens of glowing orange tent domes. This is one of several camps that temporarily cradle countless expeditions ascending the side of Kilimanjaro. But our relief at arriving here is short-lived. Rain suddenly buckets down, and porters scramble to assist with tents as night arrives unceremoniously. By the time I finally get into my own shelter, water is seeping up through the seams in the floor; I’m shaking cold as I strip down, searching for drier clothes.
I came to Africa as something of a personal challenge. Almost exactly a year before this day, I looked in the mirror and decided to change who I saw looking back. I had been living in Los Angeles for more than five years, hustling to find work as an actor while slowly building a photography business on the side. But contrary to my naïve expectations, being a Hollywood actor/photographer did not automatically come hand in hand with a disposable income and the company of beautiful models. So, to support my ambitions and pay my rent, I was mostly waiting tables.
At Tufts University, I had double majored in drama and archaeology in what must have seemed like an attempt to force my parents into an early grave. Because if it’s one thing America is clamoring for, it’s guys who dig in the dirt with a flair for the dramatic. Luckily, my parents were empathetic. My mother, a vivacious and free-spirited young woman, grew up in tumultuous 1960s England and somehow found my father, a charming American deep-sea diver and self-made man. The two of them were endlessly supportive of my interests and passed on to me their humor and a confidence to follow my own path, as they had done.
But with no prospect for actually earning a dime as a young archaeologist, I tried my hand at acting, a passion since my breakout performance as Bottom
in a high school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With Los Angeles casting directors somehow overlooking the rave reviews from my hometown newspaper, the Manchester Cricket, I was auditioning often but working little. I found myself jumping at every opportunity I could to leave L.A. and escape into the unknown. I had already driven across America seven times, canvassing every state in the country, save one (I’m coming for you, Oregon). I had been to Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Bangladesh, and spent several summers in Israel excavating the ruins of the Roman city of Caesarea.
Travel, when undertaken habitually, becomes a potent intoxicant. After all, who among us hasn’t stared at perfume ads, Corona commercials, and Thai Airways billboards and been lost in a coconut-scented what-if? It is most often detectable in a telltale faraway gaze observable on the faces of married men vacationing in the tropics. They dream, if only for a moment, of shedding their identity, abandoning their earthly possessions, and opening a tiki-themed bar on the beach, toes in the sand.
Travel is also Newtonian: it has a sort of momentum. Unless interrupted by crying babies, work obligations, or an empty bank account, it wants to remain in motion.
In my case, I didn’t just keep moving. I accelerated. As each trip came to an end, I grew discomposed in less and less time, fidgeting to start another adventure. Within weeks I started typing random destinations into online travel sites, searching for cheap airfares and plotting out fictional escapades. I got quick fixes with the occasional debauched weekend in Vegas or a listless drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. I was hooked. And suddenly my life as an actor took a backseat to my dreams as a traveler.
Then I looked in the mirror. I felt older. I wasn’t a kid in school anymore. I was considerably overweight, bored, and generally unhappy. I tried to combat this malaise by going to the gym with some regularity. Without a specific goal, though, I slipped back into bad habits and comfortable routines.
Thinking back on it now, I can’t remember what turned me on to the idea of climbing a mountain. Beyond the stairs to my apartment, I don’t think I’d ever climbed anything in my life, let alone one of the famed Seven Summits. But once I settled on the idea, Kilimanjaro seemed a logical choice. Along with being suitably exotic, Kili is a non-technical climb that offered exactly what I was looking for: a goal that would challenge but (probably) not kill me. A sword of Damocles that would intimidate me into changing my lifestyle. I paid in full for the climb and, with a 365-day runway ahead of me, had all the motivation I needed. Every morning that I lay in bed thinking about not working out, I simply imagined my broken body frozen in mountain ice. I promptly got up and went to the gym.
To assist me in this venture, I assembled possibly the least qualified climbing team on the planet. My first recruit was my great friend Aron Epstein, because if there’s one thing the Jews are known for, it’s accomplishments in high-altitude mountaineering. Aron can’t weigh more than one hundred pounds, and I’d go on record as estimating that at least a quarter of that comes from the bottles of hand sanitizer hidden in his jacket. Neurotic, brilliant, hilarious, and, most important, recently unemployed and independently wealthy enough to join this suicide run, he seemed a logical choice. The expedition was rounded out by Colin MacNaughton, a longtime friend, travel soul mate, and software engineer who smokes like a chimney and has a thing for high-end Scotch. Colin lives in San Francisco, where they have steep hills that I presumed he must have walked up occasionally, probably while smoking. This seemed like qualification enough at the time.
With my dream team in place, I got down to business. I trained throughout the year. Really went at it. I ran like a hamster in a wheel, took endless hikes in the Hollywood Hills, and endured no less than three different personal trainers. Grave adjustments to my diet followed (sayonara, fast food) and by year’s end I had lost eighty pounds and was in the best shape of my life. The day after Christmas 2005, my compatriots and I boarded a flight to Africa, giddy at the prospect of adventure.
It takes about a week to ascend Kilimanjaro, with stops at various camps to acclimate to the extreme altitude. Each day becomes progressively harder as the thin mountain air provides less sustenance. We are climbing what is known as the Machame Route, or Whiskey Route,
so named because it is decidedly more serious than the standard Marangu Route, or Coca-Cola Route.
Once the rain passes at Shira Camp, Aron, Colin, and I enjoy a terrible meal together and then crowd into a single tent to keep warm and engage in our nightly ritual of playing Scrabble. It is New Year’s Eve. At ten minutes to midnight, we put down our wooden game tiles, throw on our down jackets, and shuffle out into the cold. Earlier in the evening we invited strangers from all over the camp to join us, and for the first few minutes it looks as if nobody is going to show. Then, tent by tent, lanterns come on, zippers unzip, and a group of hearty souls emerge to ring in the new year on the frigid side of a dormant volcano. Warm embraces erupt among German climbers, Japanese millionaires, and Tanzanian porters. An Australian woman has smuggled up a small bottle of champagne, which we all pass around and drink in shared communion near the roof of Africa.
I’m suddenly struck by the idea that people all over the world are gathering in places like this. Uncommon places. Unthought-of places. In my mind, New Year celebrations had always been the domain of city squares, crowded bars, and drunken house parties. I close my eyes and wander the world for a few moments to imagine a couple embracing on the deck of a sailboat in the Pacific, science crews popping champagne at the South Pole, submariners shaking hands at stations deep beneath dark waves, and nomads gathered by firelight in desert wadis. Something is shifting in me. At this very moment. My view is expanded somehow. I’m suddenly aware of an almost uncontrollable need to find these places, to be with these people. This is the moment that I become a traveler in earnest.
The next day our guide calls us aside and asks if we’d like to alter our route to a trail known as the Western Breach. This takes me by surprise, since we’d carefully chosen the Machame Route almost a year ago. It’s unorthodox to make a change like this mid-climb, and it takes a few minutes of listening to his pitch while carefully studying a map to realize what he’s proposing. The new route would be nearly two full days shorter and therefore financially beneficial to the porters, who could deposit us back to Moshi earlier and link in with their next group. We discuss the option, but it involves a much more direct ascent to a campsite perched inside the summit crater. Aron has already lost his appetite at this altitude, and climbing faster seems a dangerous gamble. We choose to stay on course. I don’t know it at the time, but this decision may actually save our lives.
An expedition from our outfitter traveling along this more direct route will be caught in a rock slide cascading from the summit. When the dust settles, three American climbers will be dead. Several more will be seriously injured and airlifted to Nairobi. News of this won’t reach my team until we return to Moshi. For now, the sight of a distant helicopter circling around the far side of the summit barely catches my attention.
Our last night is spent at Barafu Camp, perched at an uncomfortable 15,000 feet. All of us are feeling the effects of altitude at this point. I have a relentless headache pulsating through my temples. Aron, after being spoon-fed his dinner the night before, has mustered a recovery and is eating again. Colin, however, is on the decline. He has developed a deep cough that seems to worsen by the hour, and there are now a few broken capillaries on his face. Our nightly Scrabble game is played more out of obligation than enjoyment. We sit in a daze and attempt to place letters on the board. Our minds are doughy at this height, and our most impressive play is the word dogs
for a measly six points. The game is abandoned, and we lie down in silence.
The final push to the summit of Kilimanjaro is particularly taxing. With almost no sleep, we rouse at eleven p.m. to gear up for the bid. At three miles above sea level, the temperature is well below freezing. We struggle into layer after layer of clothes, barely able to catch our breath. Our guide’s inspirational pep talk consists of one very straightforward sentence: Keep walking.
It is inky black. The narrow beam from my headlamp illuminates a dull blue-white circle of frozen earth two feet in front of me. With my hood pulled up and my goggles iced over, I can’t see anything else. Occasionally an ankle will drift into the far edge of my light, my only indication that I’m following someone. We walk uphill for more than six hours. Within the first hour, the water hose on Colin’s CamelBak freezes solid, and my beard becomes caked in ice. Every so often one of us will yell out, and we’ll stop to pee or rest our legs. It’s a long night of shared solitude; nobody has the strength to talk, and it’s