An Athlone man became the latest from the town to reach the roof of Africa when he conquered Mount Kilimanjaro last week (September 13 ) as part of a Simon Community challenge.
Solicitor Cormac Lohan was part of a 14-person expedition from across Ireland who summitted the 5,895m (19,341ft ) Tanzanian peak after a six day, 80-kilometre climb through jungle, savannah, and scree.
For comparison, this altitude is five vertical kilometres (three miles ) higher than the summit of Carrauntoohil, Ireland’s highest point.
Cormac reached the highest point on the continent of Africa at 9.20am last Tuesday, the team having set out for the top at 2am that morning using only head lamps to find their way, and climbing hands and feet through loose, gravel-like scree for most of this time.
Because Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano, the highest point is on the rim of the crater which led to some frustration that morning.
“It’s like a false summit. You see what you think is the top from first light, but when you get there you realise it’s just the edge of the crater and you still had to walk round the edge of it for another mile or so and climb another 200m to reach the top,” said Cormac.
Amplifying his achievement, Cormac managed the feat despite having picked up a bronchial infection on the second day.
“I was finding the going very hard. But you’d see people coming down who hadn’t made the top. They’d reached their altitude and couldn’t go any further, so they had to turn around and come back down,” he said.
“I’m really glad I’ve done it, but I’ll never do it again,” said the 41-year-old former Garbally boy, who gave a graphic account of climbing in thin air, with a persistent, four-day cough.
His group spent around half an hour at the summit, before beginning a two-day descent.
Despite being only 250 kilometres from the equator, Cormac believed the cold was as hard to get used to as the thin air; however it did offer some unforgettable experiences.
“There were these glaciers near the summit, huge things, and the only thing I can compare them to was the crystal cave in the Superman movies. Magnificent,” said Cormac.
He paid great tribute to his Masai guides, and the amount of work they did to help this group of inexperienced hikers to the summit.
“They used to sing every morning to get us going, when all you wanted to do was stay in your tent,” he remembered gratefully.
“You think there’s a recession here, but these lads are surviving on, they’re grateful for, a dollar a day,” he said.
As a reminder that this was not the walk in the park that some may regard it, Cormac and his co-climbers had the reality of the location brought home to them on the descent with the news of the death of a climber in another group.
