Above the Clouds: My 1984 Journey to Mount Kilimanjaro

by N.W. MARTIN

In 1984, Robert Turner is a geography teacher from Denver who has spent more than a decade teaching students about Mount Kilimanjaro without ever seeing Africa for himself. Maps, glaciers, altitude sickness, and expedition stories have filled his classroom for years, but a growing sense of unfinished ambition begins to follow him long after the school day ends. His closest friends decide to join him. Marcus Webb is a successful civil engineer from Atlanta, a former Vietnam veteran, and a disciplined marathon runner still carrying the quiet grief of losing his wife, Sandra. Danny Kowalski is a Chicago photojournalist whose career has taken him into riots, disasters, and dangerous assignments around the world. When Danny discovers an old National Geographic magazine featuring Mount Kilimanjaro, the three men make a decision that will take them far beyond anything they expected. Their journey leads them through Nairobi and into the Tanzanian town of Moshi, where they meet Joseph Minja, an experienced Chagga guide responsible for leading them up Africa’s highest mountain. As the climb begins, the group experiences the beauty, culture, and harsh realities of East Africa while traveling through rainforest, volcanic desert, and freezing high altitude terrain toward the summit. But Kilimanjaro is far more dangerous than any of them imagined. Exhaustion, altitude, ice crossings, and moments that come dangerously close to disaster force each man to confront fear, grief, and physical limits in ways that cannot be understood from books or photographs alone.