Mark Bennett: A father-son outing ... to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro

Mar. 31—As Bill Cox and his father David neared the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the sun rose on the other side of the 19,341-foot tall peak.

They climbed the last few steps in Kilimanjaro's massive shadow.

"Incredible," Bill Cox said of the view from atop the world's highest free-standing mountain.

"You look down and see a cloud layer below you, which is kind of different," Bill explained. "You're so high, you could kind of see the curvature of the Earth."

The duo reached Uhuru Peak, the summit, with their climbing team on Feb. 21. It was a bucket-list moment for David, now 74 years old.

"I wanted a father-son trip before I ran out of gas," David said.

As father-son outings go, theirs would be hard to top. Their two-week adventure took them from Terre Haute — where Bill works as an investment advisor for Fifth Third Bank, and David is a dentist — to northeastern Tanzania, just 200 miles from Earth's equator.

David has been mountain climbing since his 50s. His roster of feats spans from Chile to Mount Shasta in California, Mount Rainer in Washington state and the base camp of Mount Everest in Nepal. David's journey up Kilimanjaro was his loftiest. Ascending to that height with his son made it more special.

It was the first mountain climbing experience for Bill, a 52-year-old husband and father of three. "He did a lot better than me," David said of his son's Kilimanjaro effort.

Bill's preparation included walking around his Terre Haute neighborhood in mountain-climbing boots. He and his dad chuckled at the memory, as they reflected on their trip in a Wabash Avenue coffeeshop. Bill also trained at a fitness center, setting the treadmill uphill incline to its peak level.

It helped, but Kilimanjaro is still a tall task for a first-time climber. It's the highest peak in Africa. Among the tallest mountains on each continent, Kilimanjaro ranks fourth behind Everest (29,035 feet in Asia), Aconcaqua (22,834 in South America) and Denali (20,310 in North America). On the upside, for newcomers to climbing, Kilimanjaro is considered a "walk up" peak, making it less treacherous than others, according to Ultimate Kilimanjaro, an online guide for climbers.

They'd originally intended to climb the Inca Trail to the Machu Picchu in Peru, an outing that would've involved David and all three of his sons three years ago. But the COVID-19 pandemic delayed those plans twice, and then political unrest in that South American country prompted a climbing organization to recommend Kilimanjaro instead, an idea Bill backed. His brothers couldn't make this trip, so Bill and his dad took it on.

After nine months of planning, they left Indiana on Feb. 12 and reached Tanzania two days later. Kilimanjaro stands near Tanzania's border with Kenya. Climbers can take a short, faster route to the Uhuru Peak, the summit, but many who choose that path don't finish, Bill said. Approximately 30,000 people climb on Kilimanjaro each year, but an estimated 50% give up before reaching the top, according to Ultimate Kilimanjaro.

The longer, less exhausting Lemosho Western Breach route is more popular, and Bill and David took that path. They embarked on Feb. 15, a day after arriving in Tanzania.

While the father-son team took the more gradual route, each level they reached included a long look down to where they started.

"When you're climbing and looking up, you're OK," Bill said, "but when you look behind you and see — it's, 'Whoa, a wrong step would be bad.'"

The elevation presents challenges, too. High altitude increases urinary output, according to the University of Hawaii. Bill and David noticed that effect on Kilimanjaro. They also experience the extreme climate differences. Their climb began in 80-degree temperatures in a Tanzanian rain forest, "and by the time you get to the top there's glaciers up there, so it's really cold," Bill said.

Those twists turned sleeping in their tents into more like "periods of rest," Bill said.

Despite David's more extensive experience, he required a bit of extra rest on the climb. Twice, he had to sit down. "I just thought, if I don't sit down, I'm going to fall down, and some of the places you could fall, it would be real bad."

Out of all his climbs, this one took him to the highest altitude. At 74, David was far from the Kilimanjaro's oldest climber. That title belongs to Anne Lorimor, who topped the mountain in 2019 at age 89, according to Ultimate Kilimanjaro. Still, David's accomplishment as a septuagenarian is impressive.

Fortunately, their expert guides eased the difficulties of the Coxes' climb, setting up the team's mess tent, toilet tent and sleeping tents at each altitude camp site. "It was pretty incredible," Bill said of that guides' skill.

"They practice 'leave no trace,'" David added.

The team reached Uhuru Peak on Day 7. After that euphoria, the descent tested their endurance, too. It triggered pain in primarily one part of their bodies — their legs.

"I felt like I'd just run two marathons," Bill said. Once their climb ended, his dad couldn't fully extend his legs for three days, a timespan that included an African safari, hanging out with the climbing guides and porters, and a culturally memorable dinner with the chief and members of the local Maasai tribe at a Tanzanian lodge. The post-climb leg aches notwithstanding, David's adventurous spirit remains strong. It sparked in his boyhood.

"I'd watch Disney on Sunday night, and I thought, 'I could do that,'" David recalled. His parents like to camp in tents, and David participated in Boy Scouts outings, "and that was terrific."

David's first mountain climbing try came as a "side adventure" during a whitewater rafting excursion in Chile two decades ago. "I loved it," David said.

Whitewater rafting gave his son Bill a first in-depth outdoors experience. "I was 12 and fortunate enough to be able to travel a lot," Bill said, who graduated from Terre Haute South High School in 1988 and then Indiana State University.

David and his sons plan to reassemble for a Peruvian climb in late summer. In the meantime, he and Bill created plenty of memories with their trip up Kilimanjaro.

"The adventure of it" sticks in Bill's mind. "The mental challenge of 'can I do it?'"

For his dad, "Just being able to do it with him is pretty cool."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.