Imagine waking up one day and having an irresistible urge to climb mountains.
Cheruiyot Kirui, a banker working with KCB, was in his 30s when he felt the urge to be many metres high.
It was during a work boot camp at Outward Bound Training Centre in Oloitoktok, Kajiado county, that he developed this passion. The Outward Bound is at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro.
“We had gone to stay beneath Mt Kilimanjaro and surprisingly that day, it looked very beautiful,” he says with a smile.
Mt Kilimanjaro, standing at 5,895 metres, is a major tourist attraction in Tanzania.
“As we went eating or having discussions or training, Mt Kilimanjaro was there, looking at us. The orange horizon invited me to climb it. Just like that, I embarked on a mission to try mountain climbing,” he says.
Kirui began with Mt Oloitoktok. Oloitoktok is located at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro on the Kenya-Tanzanian border, just above Oloitoktok town.
After that, he aimed higher and higher.
“In 2014, I climbed Mt Kenya during the Easter holidays and Kilimanjaro. That was the beginning of my outdoor activities,” he says.
He has now climbed Mt Kenya more than 15 times.
“I’ve lost count. The last two weekends, I climbed Mt Kenya. The next two weekends, I’ll be there still. I climb up and down in less than seven hours. It has become relatively easier over the years,” he says.
SUPPLEMENTAL OXYGEN
The desire to climb mountains has pushed Kirui to plan to summit the earth’s highest mountain above sea level: Mt Everest.
The mountain, which lies at a latitude of about 28 degrees, straddles the borders of Nepal and China.
There are many possible routes, but most Everest climbers usually choose between two: the south route in Nepal, and the north route in Tibet. For Kirui, Tibet will be his entry point.
Climbing Mount Everest has become a popular expedition.
Summiting Everest requires a lot of experience in mountaineering elsewhere, a certificate of good health, equipment and a trained Nepalese guide.
The snow and ice on the mountain create deadly hazards, such as avalanches, and there is only a limited climbing season due to bad weather conditions.
“Climbing Everest has been done before. I think the only difference is what I’m trying to do, climbing without supplemental oxygen. That has not been done by any African. It’s the tough way to climb Mt Everest,” he says.
At 8,849 metres, Everest’s summit has approximately one-third the air pressure that exists at sea level.
This significantly reduces a climber’s ability to breathe in enough oxygen. Because of this, scientists have determined that the human body is not capable of remaining indefinitely above 6,000 metres.
The chances of success are much less than when climbing without supplemental oxygen.
“It is riskier than climbing with supplemental oxygen. So you need to be extremely fit. The success rate of climbing without supplemental oxygen is less than 40 per cent,” he says.
“With supplemental oxygen, the success rate is almost 80 per cent. So yes, there are risks, but now you need to be in good physical shape.”
The banker says climbing with supplemental oxygen will be quite easy, and that is not what he wants.You have to be in really good shape to be able to get to the summit and down before your body shuts down
“The challenge for me would be without supplemental oxygen; otherwise, I wouldn’t feel like I’ve achieved much. So I want to see how my body can cope in such altitude,” Kirui says.
He says the risk will be at the death zone level.
Climbers who ascend higher than 8,000 metres on Mount Everest enter the “death zone”.
In this area, oxygen is so limited that the body’s cells start to die, and judgment becomes impaired.
“There, your body is not structured to survive with that oxygen concentration, which is around a third of what is at sea level. The idea is that when you are there, you get to the summit as fast as possible and then down before your body starts shutting down or dying, so to speak,” he says.
“That is the area where people use supplemental oxygen. If you have it, then you’re compensating for the low oxygen in the environment by using the bottled oxygen.”
He says he would conquer that with him being in good shape.
“You have to be in really good shape to be able to get to the summit and down before your body shuts down,” he says.
