Climb Like A Mzungu

As a young man, I gravitate to the risk and reward of mountain climbing, while overcoming fear and facing death. Along my journey, I discover that friends are more important than reaching the top.

"Mzungu!" [ma-zun-goo] bellow the children when they see me climb out of the safari truck. It's Swahili for wanderer, I smile since I'm not just another ordinary foreigner.

Mount Kenya is the second largest peak in Africa, a mere sixty miles away from my birthplace. My parents moved to Uganda as missionaries, and thirty years later, I'm back.

The mist swirls as the climbing rope goes taut. A thousand feet up Mount Kenya, cold and alone, I wonder if lightning will strike in the incoming storm. Reeling in my climbing partner who is tied to the distant end of the rope, the snow swallows me, dusk falls, and not for the last time, I wonder what the hell I'm doing here.

Climb Like a Mzungu is a memoir covering a ten-year span from 1980 to 1990. The challenges are self-doubt and the perils of climbing mountains. Do you relish tromping through the wilderness, hitchhiking across Canada, being kidnapped by Native Americans, or soloing ice-covered mountains? The fast-paced book mirrors the soul searching of Cheryl Strayed's Wild and the humor of Bill Bryson's Walk in the Woods.

Climbers will appreciate the characters, imagining something of themselves in each captivating adventure. Everyone will appreciate the dilemma of romance and work that keep the badass excellence of Alex Honnold or Lynn Hill just beyond reach.