God's Mountain

Location:
Tanzania

Volcano, active, Tanzania

By Steve Foreman

If anyone had bothered to ask me on the day my son Zak and I climbed Ol Doinyo Lengai (the Maasai's "Mountain of God"), the question “Why do people climb mountains?” the famous and fatuous answer “Because they are there” could never have been more aptly applied. There seemed no other possible, logical, or earthly reason for submitting ourselves to such torment. The whole six-hour ascent of the only active volcano in the Rift Valley of Tanzania was a hard, stumbling, cold struggle up a steep, undefined route across broken boulders and unstable scree. The route was almost straight up – no switchbacks or doglegs – and for nearly the entire ascent, the angle was steeper than 45 degrees, often requiring the use of hands and knees to continue. In many places, the climb fitted the cliché “three paces up, two down.” I was constantly falling down unseen ankle-wrenching holes or gullies, tripping over boulders or sliding backwards on loose gravel, and I became very agitated and annoyed with the mountain and myself. If this had been the M25 Motorway, I would have committed ‘road rage’!

The arrival on the freezing summit six hours later should have been met with elation and a sense of achievement, which, in turn, should have alleviated the pain and made the whole thing worthwhile. However, I was so knackered and freezing cold, all I could do was lay down among the huddled heap of blankets and fall asleep. After an hour or so of this cold repose, escaping the persistent chill wind in the shelter of a wall of solidified lava, I struggled to my feet and looked around in the growing light of imminent sunrise, where I gazed upon the weirdest and most surreal landscape I have ever laid eyes upon. All around, cones and plugs raised their twisted and convoluted shapes out of a lava plain of white and grey sediment, which was surrounded, partially, by the broken perimeter wall of the caldera. Solidified ripples and runnels snaked out before me like the fossilised remains of mud, squeezed from between the toes of a giant. Livid vapours roiled up out of hidden fissures and clouds of sulphurous gas hissed from dark cracks. In a Stygian cauldron, molten rock boiled and bubbled, while steam escaped from under pressure-cooker rocks in ear-splitting whines and whistles. The rising sun backlit the curtains of vapour, changing their hues to pinks and reds, while the sulphur vomited like yellow bile and green scum from a broken sewer.

I forced my legs to move, nudged Zak’s mummified form with my boot, and stepped out onto the solidified lava. After walking several paces, I paused to unravel my camera from the devastated contents of my backpack. Now stationary, I could feel heat rising through the soles of my boots. I rubbed some life into my knees, and then staggered across the vast expanse of grey to a huge break in the caldera. Standing on the outer edge of the crater where the main lava flow had cascaded down during the last eruption, I was stunned by the vista spread out below me. A tapestry of green and brown undulations – folded and fanned, sundered and riven – stretched away to misty horizons on all points. To the southwest, I could see other volcanic peaks: Empakai, Olmoti, the famed Ngorongoro Crater and Oldeani, and beyond these and to the West, nebulous yet known, the first verdant hues of the Serengeti Plains. Moving across the lava plain, I came to another high exposed point on the rim. From here, looking North, I could see the blue, amorphous smudge of Lake Natron. All around volcanic hills and massifs loomed up out of the Valley of Volcanoes - Kitumbeni, Gelai, and Longido and in the far distance, Mount Meru.

As the sun rose higher, the colours changed. The grey rock faces of the crater became washed with pinks and scarlet, and the steams metamorphosed through the spectrum, even as I watched.

I eventually bumped into Zak, who had been wandering around in a stunned silence – unwanting of conversation or company. Together we made our way to God’s Kitchen – a deep, cavernous adit wherein high-temperature molten minerals simmered and belched noisily. Scalding hot splashes of this thick brown gravy leapt out of the hole and splattered onto the edge we stood, where it dried and solidified within minutes, taking on the colour and texture of chocolate-stained aluminium foil. This was just a small part of the process that has continually formed, destroyed, and reformed the shape of the crater for millions of years. Eventually, with all our explorations and photographs completed, we prepared ourselves for the return journey.

The descent, by the same route, was a torture on the toes and knees, and the pain and subsequent weakness and trepidation made it easy to lose one’s balance on the treacherous surface. The sun now reached its zenith, and the heat beat down relentlessly on the exposed and treeless Lengai – and the tiny figures staggering down her rugged slopes. Loose gravel and scree betrayed my carefully placed feet, causing me to slide or stumble and slip over – an action that became almost constant on the final half of the six-hour descent. It was only the next day, following a well-needed and well-deserved sleep that the sense of achievement really sank in. Retracing our route across the Rift Valley, we looked up at the summit of Ol Doinyo Lengai with a new perspective – and new respect. We had not conquered God’s Mountain – Ngai had allowed us to visit and escape to tell the tale.