By Dan Balkin
Geography is ever fascinating. The peak of Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, summits at 19,340 feet; the base of HoliMont, where our main patrol room sits, is 1,560 feet. That means there are 17,780 feet of elevation separating our Patrol room from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro – but that geographical tidbit does not measure the depth or breadth of an act of human kindness. A few years ago, the Ski Patrol received new jackets. An idea was hatched by then Patrol leader Tom Tobias to collect their old jackets in our Patrol room and ship them to the happy-go-lucky but poorly clad Sherpa’s who guide climbers up Mount Kilimanjaro. In 2012, Tom and his son Taylor journeyed to Tanzania to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. It requires intense physical and mental training to successfully make the climb. While training, they would often hike up and down HoliMont or Kissing Bridge ten or twelve times over the course of a day. From base camp, it takes seven days to summit. There are no cabins with roaring fires. The climbers sleep each night in tents, and as one ascends, both the oxygen found in the air and the temperature plummets. At 18,000 feet, the elevation of the final camp before the push to the summit, the oxygen level is 50% of what it is at sea level.
peak in Africa.
When Tom and his son landed in Tanzania they were immediately struck by the omnipresent poverty. They had a guide named Protus, who was an orphan and a native Tanzanian, but now lives in the USA. A number of years ago, an American couple on the Kilimanjaro hike adopted Protus, brought him back to the U.S., and even gave him the opportunity to earn a university degree. Protus now has a company where he leads groups of hikers on the Kilimanjaro journey. Tom said that as he and his group of roughly 25 hikers were ascending the mountain, they were shocked by the poverty of the sherpas. Each sherpa would carry 80-100 pounds of supplies to each succeeding camp as the climbers ascended. Many of them were wearing only sandals, shorts, and lightweight windbreakers to hike up this formidable mountain. After his party summited and descended, Tom said that they gave much of the equipment they brought on the climb to the sherpas: heavier jackets, hiking boots, backpacks, gloves etc. Upon returning home, Tom kept up an email friendship with Protus and his son Taylor remained in contact with another sherpa. When it was time for new Patrol jackets, Tom thought of the poorly clad sherpas and how they would treasure the warm jackets at higher altitudes. The jackets were collected in the Patrol room, and many Patrollers added extra items such as ski pants, hats, gloves etc. Two other Patrollers, Ralph Salerno and Dave Hawkes, contributed their time getting the jackets boxed for shipment. Tom, Ralph and Dave agreed to split the cost of shipping the jackets and other gear to California. California? Yes, this is where the guide Protus now lives. Sadly, Protus informed Tom Tobias that if they shipped the jackets directly to Tanzania, the endemic poverty and corresponding corruption would almost certainly cause the jackets to be confiscated before they reached the intended recipients – the sherpas. Fortunately, as mentioned earlier, Protus is a frequent flyer to Tanzania for his Kilimanjaro guiding business. He said he could stuff about four to six jackets and other collected gear in his personal luggage and hand deliver the cargo, trip by trip, to the needy sherpas. Tom was grateful that so many of his fellow patrollers stepped up to help the sherpas.
He also reflected that many of the used jackets would have wound up in dark closets or rarely used drawers, but now they were being repurposed in a meaningful way. On seeing the abject poverty, Tom said “It doesn’t take much to enhance someone’s life.” Yes, there are also people in our own back yard that sometimes need a helping hand, but as Mark Twain famously said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” There are sherpa’s in Tanzania, having met American friends, who would agree.