SIX OF US from Galveston went to Africa from Jan. 11 to Jan. 25, 2002.

I first heard the idea from attorney James B. Galbraith. Sometime late in the year 2000, Jimmy told me a group of Houston attorneys planned to climb Kilimanjaro. They were putting a group together. If there was an opening, would I be interested?

	Left to right, climbers Dolph Tillotson, Jim Galbraith, Richard Henderson, Tom Kimbrough, Brent Masel and Harry Wallfisch.

With very little thought, I said yes, count me in.

Kilimanjaro is located a few degrees south of the Equator in northern Tanzania not far from the border with Kenya. As mountain climbs go, Kili is more of a long hike than a real climb – the kind with crampons and ice axes, climbers roped up, and the traditional gear one associates with Everest or K2. At least that’s what the guide books said.

Kilimanjaro’s Uhuru Peak, at 5,896 meters, is the highest point on the African continent. Thus, the mountain is one of the so-called Seven Summits – the highest points on each of the world’s seven continents.

It was billed as a little more than a hard walk uphill through five “biospheres,” beginning in cultivated lands at the mountain’s base, moving through dense, tropical rainforest and ending in the arctic permafrost at the peak.

That benign sounding description turned out to be both more and less than the truth.

The Houston attorneys never got their trip together, so in January 2001, Galbraith and I began planning our own trip.

We decided it would be a good experience to climb the mountain, then take another week or so – as long as we were in Africa – for a photo safari in the Great Rift Valley.

We searched the Internet for information, and Jimmy came up with the name of a promising outfitter – African Adventures, with offices in Arusha, Tanzania, and in Atlanta.

So, over chicken salad, we decided the trip was a go, at least for us, and we decided we’d ask several people we each knew to come along. We talked a bit that day about the kind of people we wanted with us, and we set a few basic criteria:

• They had to be physically fit, or at least reasonably so.

• They had to be people who each would carry their share of the burdens of the trip without complaint.

• They had to be adaptable.

• They had to be the kind of people who would treat the porters and guides well and respectfully.

• Finally, the people we chose had to be people we’d enjoy living with in close quarters for two hard weeks. We wanted people who would rather die than whine and whose sense of humor was strong.

Looking back now, that discussion may have been the most important element in the trip’s success. The six of us who went all made it to the top of the mountain. More remarkably, we came back from Africa better friends than when we left.

Group members were:

• Jimmy Galbraith, 48, an outdoorsman, father of two boys and an attorney with the firm of McLeod, Alexander, Powell and Apffel. We never elected officers, but if this group had a leader, Galbraith was it.

• Dolph Tillotson. I am 52, the father of two grown children. I publish The Galveston County Daily News, and I am a runner who has completed nine marathons.

• Dr. Brent Masel, 53, also father of two boys, also a marathon runner. Brent is a neurologist and administrator of the Transitional Learning Community in Galveston. Brent and I probably had the least outdoors experience of the group.

• Dr. Harry Wallfisch, 54, an anesthesiologist at UTMB, father of two, and our most reluctant member. Harry had to be convinced to go, but it was worth it. He has the best sense of humor of any of us and tells a great story. In the end, although he expressed the most doubt about his ability to make the climb, Harry was first at the summit.

• Dr. Tom Kimbrough, 50, a general surgeon at UTMB, father of three. Tom turned out to be one of our most experienced outdoorsmen. In a very talkative group, Tom distinguished himself through understatement.

• Dr. Richard Henderson, the youngest of our group at 45, and a veterinarian. Richard has a subtle but distinct sense of humor combined with useful knowledge of the animals we would see in Africa. The Hendersons have one son.

That was the group – six professional men between the ages of 45 and 54. Originally, a publisher friend of mine agreed to make the trip, but he backed out after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

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