Minden Cottager Climbs for Big Brothers

Just one year and two weeks ago, on February 13th 2009, Bill Adams had just reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Standing at 5,895 metres Kilimanjaro is awe inspiring yet that wasn’t quite enough for this adventurer. On April 11th 2011 Bill will disembark with fellow travelers to tackle Mount Everest, which stands at an incredible 8,848 metres. These journeys all started back in 2008 when Bill had just gone on a three week safari in Tanzania, spending time camping in the Serengeti desert. On returning from the Serengeti the pilot asked Bill if he wanted to fly over Kilimanjaro. Bill jumped at the offer and they toured over the mountain. He landed back in Canada on a Tuesday afternoon and the following morning a friend told him about some travel plans she had. Bill says, “She told me she was putting together a climbing group to climb Kilimanjaro next year. She asked if I was in? I told her 48 hours ago I was just flying over it, I’m definitely in.” The feat, although obviously an extremely personal climb for each mountaineer, was organized to raise money for Big Brothers of Sarnia-Lambton. Bill Adams currently splits his time between
living in Sarnia and at his residence on Denna Lake in Minden. Big Brothers is a nation wide mentor program, and its mission statement reads, “To provide responsible guidance in the development of life skills to the children of our community through companionship with adult volunteers.” All of the money raised would go directly to the cause, with each mountaineer paying for the trip costs; food, accommodation, flights, guide etc. Shortly after agreeing to the Kilimanjaro climb Bill became involved with other fundraising events with Big Brothers. In the
mean time he clocked up numerous hours at the gym to prepare himself for what lay in wait. Although the trip was designed to raise money to help children in Canada the climbers made sure they didn’t forget about the children they were to meet in their host countries. Bill explains how “the first thing we did when we landed in Tanzania was to go to an orphanage. We met the kids there and took 40 sweaters with us; it was cold for them at night. We gave them money towards their school. When we travel to Nepal we’re going to Kathmandu and in some way we’ll support the local kids. It’s our attitude that if we are the guest of that country then we want to try and do something for that community. On the Kilimanjaro trip some of the climbers sponsored a cook to go to school so he
could become a licensed guide on the mountain as he couldn’t afford the schooling costs. By African standards the pay of a guide is very good.” It took the team of 24 climbers seven days to reach the summit and two days to descend. It’s quicker on the way down as the climbers don’t have to acclimatize to the altitude. They spent eight to ten hours a day walking reaching a number of 68 miles in total.
In order to reach the summit at 5,895 metres they actually walked 21,9456 metres. Bill explains “it’s called walk high, sleep low. You go up to say 3,000 metres and go down to 2,500 metres to sleep. Then the next day you go up to 4,000 metres and you come back to 3,500 metres to sleep. You are constantly going up and down all the time. We had on an optima that would only measure when you were going up which we kept at constant. It showed we had gone up to a total of 21,9456 metres, that’s part of the acclimatization.” The acclimatization was a large part in the climb resulting in a success. Altitude sickness, diarrhea and dehydration are the main challenges to overcome. “Some people got very ill, one
individual had to stop because of the altitude sickness. You have to force yourself to constantly drink water, it’s extremely dry at the top because dehydration is such an issue.” The group of climbers had eight guides to help them to the
top who climb Kilimanjaro every two weeks. “My guide was called God Bless believe it or not. It was so funny because every time someone would sneeze we’d say; God Bless and he’d turn around and say yes? Something wrong?” Bill and his fellow climbers slept in tents that felt like “you were crawling into a fridge with your camping gear on. You don’t get much sleep; the biggest issue is having breathing
troubles. You’ll fall asleep and then you’ll wake up because you are having trouble breathing.” To keep energy levels high they consumed energy bars, pasta,
stews and porridge. Foods that are packed full of carbohydrates keep them going. Bill recalls that as soon as “we came down from the mountain at 3pm, we got cleaned up at a nearby hotel and then immediately caught a plane to Amsterdam.” It was then when they adventured outside of the airport, while waiting to catch their flight home that they all ran as fast as they could, to the Golden Arches. “Everybody ran for cheeseburger and fries, at that point in time it was the best meal we’d ever had,” laughs Bill. Food issues aside the biggest challenge for Bill was, “once you get above 4,500 metres the challenge becomes mental not
physical. You’ve trained and conditioned your body so you know that you are in good shape but once you get over that mark because of the lack of oxygen in the air it becomes more of a mental climb. You have to keep telling your body to keep
going and not to stop. Your mind starts to play tricks on you because of the lack of
oxygen. Subtle things, like you’ll use your chapstick, put it in your pocket, 10 minutes later you want to use it again but you can’t remember where you put it. You think your going crazy. Walking at such a high level you’re physically tired, you can’t do anything quickly, everything has to be done in a very slow
deliberate fashion.” Reaching the top of the mountain on the seventh day was, “anti-climatic in a way, there is a sign on some rocks saying you’ve reached the summit. There’s no Timmies, no big band.” He adds, “We were all sad to leave the summit, you get back home and it’s somewhat of a downer. The whole trip is
so intense and exciting and you return home and think this is boring. Everyone goes through a bit of a downer on the way back. You think what am I going to do now?” And that’s exactly what was running through the rest of the climbers’ minds. They had started planning the Everest trip before they had even reached the bottom of Kilimanjaro. They raised approximately $175,000 for Big Brothers of
Sarnia-Lambton from climbing Kilimanjaro and they hope to break the $200,000 barrier from the Everest trip. The Everest trip will take 21 days with 16 of them climbing days. Forty climbers will be participating on the Everest trip which will comprise of three groups. One group will go from Kathmandu to base camp Everest which is 5,500 metres which is where all the climbers will congregate. The second group will try and do a summit attempt on Everest which Bill won’t be
participating in. “That’s out of my league, that’s 8,848 metres, its death zone climbing.” The last group which Bill will go in will climb from Kathmandu to base camp Everest and drop south to Island Peak. Island Peak is a mountain in the Himalayas which is 6,189 metres and Bill hopes to summit it. Island Peak is a
snow capped mountain with an exposed summit ridge. They’ll wear crampons and will be harnessed on a rope climb. Two or four people from the Big Brothers group will attempt to summit Everest. Climbing Everest is a much more technical climb, it’s colder and snow ridden. Bill who says that “climbing relaxes me, I don’t get nervous. There’s an American climber, Ed Viesturs who has a saying, ‘reaching the summit is optional, getting down is mandatory.’ You have to know when to say I’m turning around, you need to be able to make that decision.” Bill trained for a full year for Kilimanjaro and for Everest he’s already been training for the past 15 months. Once coming off the mountain he took a two week break and went right back to the gym. He’s now been training close to two years to get ready for Everest. You can donate to the Everest climb by visiting the website www.sarniabigbrothers.org Bill says, “Any funding we receive is greatly appreciated. Funding is a full time job to continue to raise funds to keep the organization going.”
When Bill relocates to Minden permanently in the future, he will look at the Haliburton branch of Big Brothers Big Sisters as one community group to join. He adds, “It’s a great organization and if the Haliburton branch ever wanted to set something up similar to what we’ve done I would gladly assist them.” Everest won’t be the last climb for Bill, how he’ll top Everest though you’ll have to stay tuned