Sibusiso part of the world's elite
21 July 2008, 10:26
By Niels Posthumus
Sibusiso Vilane, 37, didn't look up often as he climbed the highest part of Mount McKinley. He didn't talk that much either.
Instead he focused solely on where he put his feet - the snow on the Alaskan peak formed slippery balls beneath them.
A slight mistake and he could plummet down a 4 000m narrow mountain ridge.
And if he did, he wouldn't be saved by his American companion, Steve Howe. That much he knew.
The two men hadn't roped up that morning, their hands hidden too deep in mittens to possibly tie the rope correctly between them.
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The temperature on the mountain had dropped below minus 20°C. Sibusiso Vilane, 37, didn't look up often as he climbed the highest part of Mount McKinley. He didn't talk that much either.
Instead he focused solely on where he put his feet - the snow on the Alaskan peak formed slippery balls beneath them.
A slight mistake and he could plummet down a 4 000m narrow mountain ridge.
And if he did, he wouldn't be saved by his American companion, Steve Howe. That much he knew.
The two men hadn't roped up that morning, their hands hidden too deep in mittens to possibly tie the rope correctly between them.
So while Vilane and Howe walked together, they climbed the mountain wall solo.
"A couple of times I saw Steve slip," Vilane says as he remembers the climb. "I was scared. My chest was pounding. When you fall, you're gone. McKinley is a vicious mountain."
When the two mountaineers arrived at the foot of the mountain on June 1, rescue forces had just abandoned the search for two Japanese climbers.
They were officially declared dead and unfound.
But Vilane just had to climb McKinley.
The highest mountain of Northern America, also known as Denali, was the last challenge on Vilane's route to become the first black man ever to have successfully climbed the highest peaks of all seven continents.
Vilane is already the first black man to have climbed Mount Everest, the world's highest peak. He reached its top twice, in 2003 and 2005.
"But without a doubt McKinley was the hardest mountain I have ever climbed," he says. "It's steep and physically exhausting, because there are, in contrast to Mount Everest or Kilimanjaro, no porters to take your provisions and equipment up."
So Howe and Vilane had to walk up to every campsite on the mountain twice, dividing their luggage - food for four weeks, a tent and climbing gear - between the two climbs.
Carrying over 30kg a person in one go was just impossible.
"Denali is the coldest of the seven peaks," Vilane continues. "It was torture. And getting some sleep was an epic on its own. If we managed to fall asleep for only an hour, we were very lucky."
The howling winds kept Vilane awake, even though he and Howe always built a wall of rock and ice around their tent.
At night Vilane would see his companion lying next to him, still wearing all his clothes and with the sleeping bag pulled far over his head.
"You could barely see there was a person in it," Vilane recalls.
On one night halfway through the climb Vilane's thermometer showed a temperature of minus 24°C inside the tent.
"The condensation of our breath formed icicles on the inside of the tent roof. When one of us turned, a whole lot of ice fell down on our faces," Vilane says.
At night his thoughts went back to last year. Around the same time in 2007, he tried to climb McKinley for the first time.
It was the only mountain he had failed to vanquish.
"I ended up in a big snowstorm with my group," he explains. "We couldn't do anything but wait. When it was all over, we were out of food. I was starving, I had to get down."
But it was on that trip in 2007, at the foot of the mountain, that he met Howe.
Some months later they decided to team up and climb McKinley together.
On Friday June 13, almost two weeks after their start, they reached the top.
It had been a very calm and bright day, and at 8.45pm it was still light. McKinley is located close to the North Pole, where it doesn't get dark during the June and July.
But on the top it was even colder than during the climb.
"Howe's finger almost got frostbitten when he tried to take a picture and took his mittens off," Vilane recalls.
But the men decided to stay on top at least for a short while, savouring their achievement together.
"We couldn't really keep quiet about it," Vilane says.
Up there he also remembered all his seven climbs during the past few years.
And he realised he was now part of the world's mountaineering elite - the first black man to conquer the world's seven highest peaks.
- This article was originally published on page 7 of The Star on July 21, 2008
Johannesburg
