Two photos from Shane

Dear Stephan and Theresa

My name is Shane Brooks, I live in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. I work for the City of Appleton as Manager of Technical Services. I am in charge of all analytical and process technology for the City’s drinking water, wastewater. Also as an analytical resource for the police and fire departments.

I stumbled on your web sight and was very interested to see your excursions. Thank-you for sharing your travel chronicles and photo journals. I was in Africa for the month of January 1999 shortly before you went there. I went with a friend to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro followed by a similar safari program. Some of our experiences on that mountain were so similar to yours that it was both painful and funny at the same time to read them on your web page. We planned the climb for 7 days instead of 9 days as you did. When we landed in Nairobi, Kenya, they lost all of my friends luggage on Air France. We were stuck in Nairobi for 2 days and finally had to leave for Tanzania without it. Our Arusha guide service told us not to worry that they would get us started up the Machame route and one of our 4 porters would stay behind at the park gate and catch up with us later. We were highly doubtful but we had no choice. It is disheartening to start a well planned climb without half the gear. Two hours before arriving at Shira Plateau, we heard a whistle from down the mountain, and our guide told us that was Ismus the porter. He had had climbed up the mountain that morning with the biggest Alaskan Jansport Pack and accomplished in about 6 hours what it had taken us two days of climbing.

What a relief. We did not experience the gut wrenching altitude sickness which you described but I did have a slight case of bronchitis which my wife and little girl passed on to me before I left. That would come back to haunt me later. It rained and blew on Shira / Scott Fisher Camp for two days on and off. Even the cave started leaking in multiple spots.

As we approached Arrow glacier snow, sleet and ice started and continued on through the night. We camped as you did below the Western Breach Wall. We slept from 7:30 PM until 12:30 PM got up and started up the wall in pitch black. The entire wall was covered with ½ inch of black ice. With no crampons, ropes or ice axes, the climb started out very treacherous. My partner was responsible for carrying the spare headlamp batteries and I the first aid kit. He forgot the batteries and his burned out ½ hour into the climb mine about 1 hour. All we had in the dark for the next 7 hours was one cheap Tanzanian hand-held flashlight which our guide would climb with, stop and shine it for me and then again for my partner. We worked all the way up that breach wall in the dark on solid ice in this manner. I saw my life flash before me on several heart stopping boot slips. My wife and I adopted a little girl in September of 1998 and when I left on this trek she was only 4 ½ months old. We cleared the crater rim at 8:00 AM and continued on up to the summit. Boy what a relief to see that sun come up.

Our trip down the mountain was almost identical to yours except that we did the breach wall / summit / descend all in one time period. From the time we started climbing the wall until we arrived at the next camp was about 17 solid hours. It rained solid for the last two hours of that descent.

The next morning we did the final descent to Park Headquarters and it was a blast. The shower in Arusha was incredible.

The next morning we left for the safari. We were lucky and saw the big migration of wildebeest and zebra coming south from the Masai Mara in Kenya. Our first night in the Serengeti we saw four mother lions and all of their cubs right before sunset feeding on several small wildebeest carcasses. They were beautiful. That night the lionesses moved the cubs to a kopjes right behind our tent. We did not know this. During the night some hyenas tried to move in on the lionesses food and they started roaring to call the male lions in for protection from the hyenas. It turned out the male lions were on the other side of our tent area. At 4:00 AM the big males started roaring as they walked by our tent. We both sat up in our sleeping bags so fast we almost ripped the zippers out. The whole ground shook around the tent. There I was, the only defense I had was a 3 inch bladed Swiss army knife. If a big paw would have come in at me and I would have stabbed it with that knife, that lion would have laughed at me. We discussed the option of bolting for the Truck, but Junior our guide had heard the ruckus, climbed in and locked all of the doors. We would have had a 50 foot scramble to get to the truck. I am 6’8" tall and 270 pounds, I would have made it about 10 feet and I’m sure that lion would have had me.

I have a photograph with my huge hand completely inside of the male lion’s paw print in the mud the next morning. The guide said this one must have weighed at least 400 pounds. I guess we were lucky.

My friend Todd and I are also looking for our next adventure together. Potentials are a trek into Thailand, an Ocean Kayaking excursion to the Kodiak Islands to see the Kodiak Spring Salmon Feed, or to Costa Rica for a trip through the rain forest canopy on cables and pulleys.

I backpacked around Europe on Eurail for 3 months one summer also and have many great stories from that excursion.

My wife and I have a Bichon Frise dog named Kirby. He is all white and looks like a 17 pound cotton ball. We love him dearly and he goes everywhere with us that we can take him.

Must run for now but thanks again for sharing your wonderful adventures with us cyber pals. I enjoyed reading everything. I hope to touch base with you in the future for sharing fun adventures and maybe bounce some travel ideas and tips off of each other.

My e-mail address is shane.brooks@appleton.org