Peak of adventure: Metro-East folks tame Mount Kilimajaro -- sort of

BY MAUREEN HOUSTON

News-Democrat

What would you call a vacation on which you trekked 7 or 8 hours a day, sweat during the day and froze in sleeping bags at night, encountered soaking rain, sunburn and altitude sickness, ran out of water and got diarrhea from drinking water melting off a glacier?

A nightmare? Two metro-east families call it an adventure.

Bob and Addy Ginter, of Millstadt, and John and Katy Stein, of Swansea, and their 30-year-old son, Chris Stein, flew from St. Louis to Detroit to Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, on Feb. 13 to trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the tallest mountains in the world.

Five days up and two days down.

They were inspired by "The Roof of Africa," a movie that played at the St. Louis Science Center in February and March 2007.

"(In the film), seven or eight people went up the mountain," said Addy, 55, a senior claims consultant at Allsup Inc. "One was 60. The youngest was 14. They made it seem easy."

The Ginters and Steins figured if a 60-year-old could do it, so could they. After all, they spent John's 50th birthday roughing it on a rustic island off the coast of Belize.

But Mount Kilimanjaro threw them a few curves.

"The trek was a little more taxing than we thought," said Addy. "We were physically and mentally challenged ... When we were doing it, I thought it was torture."

The friends, who met working out at a Scott Air Force Base gym, talked about their adventures over dinner at the Swansea Applebee's. Katy wore a souvenir T-shirt and the hiking boots that took her up the mountain. Addy's bracelet reminded her of the Serengeti, where the group safaried after the mountain climb.

"We had a discussion when we were there," said Katy. "Would we do this again? I don't think so. One lady said, 'It's kind of like having a baby. As time goes by, it wasn't that bad.'"

Thousands of people climb the highest mountain in Africa each year. Their group of five from the metro-east, added three more -- the Steins' niece and her husband, a native Tanzanian, and a friend.

For the climb, the group of eight had a lead guide, four assistants, 20 porters, two cooks and a waiter.

Climbers are not allowed on the mountain without a guide. The porters carry gear -- usually on their heads -- set up camp and prepare food.

Their trek began at the Machame Gate of Mount Kilimanjaro Park, one of five starting points. The elevation was 6,000 feet (The summit is 19,500); the temperature was 80 degrees. A half-hour into the climb, rains came. They walked 4 1/2 hours in the rain.

At the start, they couldn't see the mountain for the trees. As they got higher, they could see farther. But distance played tricks.

"We'd think, 'Oh, good. We are almost there.' Two hours later, we were still not there," said Addy.

Hundreds of fellow travelers and porters followed well-worn paths, leapfrogging ahead or slipping back.

Bob compared the experience to a long run: You just keep putting one foot in front of another -- until you can't.

"On the second day, I became increasingly sick," said Katy. "I believe it was altitude sickness. I don't think I've ever been that sick. ... I thought I was going to die."

The usually smiling Katy was quiet and struggling.

"You're at one point on the mountain where you can continue to go forward or they arrange for you to get off the mountain. It's difficult to make that decision."

She, son Chris and a guide got off at Shira, but still had to trek 1 1/2 hours to reach a ride down -- and what a ride it was in a 4-wheel drive vehicle over rocky paths. They waited at a marketplace for trasnportation to their hotel, but President Bush was visiting and the city was closed down.

"No one was going in," she said. "No one was going out. We sat there six hours, waiting to ride into town."

On Day 4, the remaining trekkers encountered steep cliffs. They negotiated by huggng rocks as they climbed. Then, they ran out of bottled water. Their porters collected water from glacier melts that was supposed to be boiled and treated with iodine, but later that day, they all were sick. Still, they forged ahead.

Guides time the climb to the summit to coincide with sunrise.

When John noticed the first hints of light on Day 5, he asked his guide how close he was. When he learned it would be two more hours to the top, he knew it was time to turn around.

"The state I was in, I could have forced myself to go on, but they would have had to carry me down," he said. "I was only going by sheer will power."

He was surprised he didn't make it.

"I thought I could will myself to do anything."

Addy had made the decision a little earlier.

"It was 18 degrees near the top with bad winds," she said. "A big gust of wind knocked me over. I fell down and stayed there. All I wanted to do was sleep. I didn't care whether I froze."

She closed her eyes. Her 24-year-old guide got her up and led her back down the mountain until it was easier to breathe and she got her bearings back.

Bob, with his guide, made it to the top. His reward? A view of glaciers and snow-capped mountains. He took photos, made a brief video and thanked his guide, telling him, "I couldn't have made it without you.'"

"I was exhausted when I made it to the top," said Bob, "but I had all this energy. You can only stay up 15 minutes. It's hard to breathe. There's 30 percent less oxygen."

A couple months later, the Ginters and Steins are enthusiastic recounting their adventure. They delighted in reacquainting themselves with things they take for granted -- flush toilets, abundant toilet paper, ice cubes, the smell of shampoo and soap, McDonald's cheeseburgers and 600-thread sheets.

"It was a learning experience," said Katy. "I wish I could be there now with the energy I have, without jet lag."

"My colleagues thought I was crazy," said Addy. "They still think I'm crazy."

"Most of the people I work with were fascinated," said Katy. "They thought it must be the trip of a lifetime and it was."

"I am a consultant," said Bob. "Sitting at work in my cubicle I look back and wish I would have spent more time taking it all in."

About the travelers:

Addy is a senior claims consultant at Allsup Inc. Her husband, Bob, 47, is a consultant for Booz, Allen, Hamilton at Scott and a retired Air Force chief master sergeant. They have two grown daughters.

John, 51, a retired Air Force captain, and Katy, 50, own and operate the Swansea GNC (General Nutrition Center). Katy is a Swansea police officer. They're the parents of three.

They're all from military families. "That probably has a lot to do with it," said John. "When you're in the military, you're used to moving around."

Who's climbing? A lot of British, Australian and Israeli.

"Ninety per cent were younger than us," said John. "There were hundreds on the trail with us. You went at your own pace."What they ate: soup, a lot of chicken, fried potatoes, jerky, fruit and protein barsTalk it up: "Everyone had cell phones," said Katy. "They might not have food or a roof but they have cell phones." "Two companies had cell towers. You could just about call from the summit," said John.

What do you do after you scale a mountain? Go on a five-day safari through three parks on the Serengeti that included an early morning ride in a hot-air balloon that seated 18. "The elephants down there didn't like the sound," said Katy. "They looked up and squealed." They also saw giraffes, a jaguar, monkeys, baboons and a black rhino. They saw thousands of wildebeests making their annual migration.

Souvenirs: Bracelets, belts and tanzanite, a blue-purple stone. John's favorite is a wire and gemstone ostrich. They saw a lot of ostrich and used to raise emu.

What they would do different: Hire more porters so they wouldn't run out of water, and use garbage bags to keep everything dry.

Next trips: Las Vegas in May and New York City in July. They'll see a Broadway play, visit Atlantic City, N.J., and attend the Bruce Springsteen concert at Shea Stadium, the home of the Mets that will be torn down after the season. For You Original Stories and Photographs by Bruce Springsteen's Legendary Fans

I was the guy who said, "Sure, if you can stay in tune" when Bruce asked, "Can I play?" I did recognize him; I was just being a smartass.

Thanks, Bruce (Or: The Boss played a request)

 Ryan White, The Oregonian April 01, 2008 02:20AM

VANCOUVER, B.C. -- This happened. YouTube has it, if you're into exact quotes and amazing songs. The following is a functional, if not artful, retelling.

One of my traveling companions this weekend has been Bryan Steelman. He owns this joint. The other, Jim Brunberg, owns this joint. Bryan snowboards with Nate, who plays bass for the Foo Fighters.

That's how we came to be backstage at the Foo show in Vancouver on Sunday night. (Thanks yet again to Nate and Dave and the rest of the ultra-cool people in your band.) And that's where we met Bruce Springsteen. It's late, and I'll keep this quick. But he was far more kind and gracious than I, a semi-bumbling fan bothering him on a night off, deserved. He signed an autograph and later, stood next to us at the side of the stage for about half the Foo Fighters set, bopping his head. After the set, he walked by on his way out, gave us a wave and I said something like, "See you tomorrow night."

"Any requests?" he said.

I didn't quite hear him.

"What's that?" I said.

"Any requests?"

"Uh ... why am I blanking? ... Off the third Essential disc ... None But The Brave!"

"Oooh. That's a tough one," he said. He smiled and walked off. Though I figured it was all in my head, I could have sworn he at least looked intrigued by the idea. It's a beautiful, brilliant song, but also one he'd apparently never played with the E Street Band. I didn't know that. I figured it for rarely played, and KNEW it was a song I loved. Go for broke, right?

(According to this database -- yes, such a thing exists -- he's played it three times, all in Dec. 2003, and with Max Weinberg's band.)

So last night in Vancouver, in the middle of the set, Bruce steps to the mic to explain how he met this guy last night, some guy who'd been down front at the last two shows, and made the mistake of asking if said guy had a request and the guy comes up with "an obscure outtake from Born In The U.S.A. It wasn't even on the record. It was an outtake. We've never played this."

Or something like that (again, see the video for the exact words). I was a little (no, a lot) awed. Bruce said he didn't see that guy, but he was sure the guy was out there.

I was, at this point, the only one in section 111 standing, yelling, dorking out. They were going to play the song.

And they did. They played None But The Brave. And they played it Well. Nailed it.

I can't believe they played it. And I don't quite know how to fully tell the story in a way that captures what happened, and how big and joyful it feels.

Best then to keep it simple.

Thanks, Bruce.    ForYou

"The first thing that I do when I come out every night is to look at the faces in front of me, very individually," Springsteen says. "I may find a certain person and play to that single person all night. I'm playing to everyone, but I could see one or two people and decide, 'You're the reason that I'm out here right now, and that I'm going to push myself till it feels like my heart's going to explode.' "

Certainly, anyone who has caught Springsteen live might assume that he or she was that lucky fan.

The singer/songwriter, who added three Grammy Awards to his collection this month, is famous for throwing house parties in arenas and stadiums, channeling his charisma and camaraderie with his longtime bandmates into performances that seem at once intimate and majestic.

Sitting in his dressing room during a rehearsal break at Asbury Park Convention Hall — just a stone's throw from the Stone Pony, the decidedly smaller venue that the 58-year-old Jersey boy helped make a national landmark — Springsteen is true to his persona: a regular guy with a larger-than-life presence (and an endearingly goofy laugh).

Tour keeps going

After releasing last fall's critically acclaimed Magic, his first album with the E Street Band since 2002's The Rising, he and the group played dates in the USA and Europe. The current leg of their tour will wrap April 30 in Charlottesville, Va.; then they head back overseas, returning for three homecoming gigs at Jersey's Giants Stadium in late July. (Sessions Band keyboardist Charles Giordano, who played on Springsteen's Pete Seeger albums, fills in while E Street's Danny Federici undergoes treatment for melanoma.)

"On any given night, what allows me to get to that higher ground is the audience," Springsteen says. "I look for an audience that's as serious about the experience as we are, which, after all these years, continues to be pretty serious."

Springsteen tends to use the pronoun "we" a lot in discussing his creative process these days. His career with E Street has been littered with detours, including starkly haunting acoustic albums such as 1982's Nebraska, 1995's The Ghost of Tom Joad and 2005's Devils & Dust. His colleagues have enjoyed side outings as well.

"Each one of us has at one time or another stepped out, to protect not only our own interests but the interests of the band," Springsteen says. "It's rare to be with the same people 35 or 40 years after you started with them, and at this point in our lives, its pleasures are very great. You really appreciate the guy next to you, you know?

"You ask for your audience's investment in your music; you're in a relationship with them. And their relationship with the E Street Band is separate from whatever else I might do. I like the idea of us being something that people rely on."

He's been in the studio with E Street, along with Brendan O'Brien, who manned the boards for both Rising and Magic. The singer also is "recording on my own, for an acoustic record. I work on a lot of projects at once." But he acknowledges that he was excited by the pop-savvy songwriting and lustrous production that distinguished the tunes on Magic.

"I got to use muscles that I hadn't used in a long time," he says. "It's been fun going back to more lush arrangements and not being afraid to craft a bigger sound, to get back to writing choruses and hooks."

The songs on Magic, like much of Springsteen's work with and without the E Street Band, also drew attention for their social and political consciousness. "Part of what I'm doing is chronicling the times we live in. The people that have really moved me, whether it was Frank Sinatra or Hank Williams or Bob Dylan or James Brown or Curtis Mayfield or the Sex Pistols and The Clash. When you hear their music, it defines a particular moment."

But "in the end, music is an emotional medium and a sensual medium. I don't like to write rhetorically or get on a soapbox. I try to make the stuff multi-layered, so that it always has a life outside its social context. I don't believe that you can tell people anything; you can only draw them in."

That's Springsteen's philosophy not only as an artist, but also as an extremely famous citizen. "I don't think that people take their political opinions from musicians or actors," he says, alluding to his endorsement of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election and participation in that year's Vote for Change tour. "You can be marginally helpful sometimes, and if you're not careful, you can be marginally damaging. I always try to tread carefully."

Thoughts on politics

In the current presidential race, "there are two really good Democratic candidates for president. I admire and respect them both enough to wait and see what happens." But while he won't endorse Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama yet, he specifically praises the latter, who cited Springsteen as the person he would most like to meet in a recent interview with People.

"I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," Springsteen says. "And I think (Obama's) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter? How do we create a more humane society? We've lived through such ugly times that people want to have a romance with the idea of America again, and I think they need to.

"The hard realities and how things get done are important, too, but if you can effectively convince people that it's possible to make things better, they get excited."

Springsteen is equally avid in championing members of his profession. "I buy CDs all the time. I'll go into a record store and just buy $500 worth of CDs. I will! I am singlehandedly supporting what's left of the record business." His iPod selections include "everything from old American music and old jazz to a lot of new stuff."

His three children with his singer/songwriter wife (and E Streeter) Patti Scialfa are similarly eclectic in their tastes. Elder son Evan, 17, "likes political punk: Rise Against, Against Me, Rage Against the Machine, who I knew from being friends with (Rage guitarist) Tommy Morello. He's always telling me, 'Hey, check these guys out.' He'll take me to shows with him sometimes, which is nice. He doesn't stand with me. He's usually in the mosh pit or something."

Younger son Sam, 14, "likes reggae music and tends to be more of a classic rock guy," while daughter Jessica, 16, "is into top 40, so I'll hear a lot of Rihanna and Mary J. Blige. There's actually an enormous amount of good music in the top 40 these days, well-written songs and well-made records."

Springsteen is more ambivalent about downloading. "I hate to see record stores disappear, and I'm old-school in that I think you should pay for your music. But what my kids do is download a lot of things, pay for them, and then if they love something, they'll get the CD. That may be the future."

With Magic approaching 1 million sold, Springsteen isn't lamenting the end of the music industry's glory days, when pop stars released blockbusters such as his Born in the U.S.A., which has sold more than 15 million copies since its 1984 release. "There are people who still view making albums as a vital form of expression — I know I do." He and the E Street Band "lucked out and had a few singles here and there for a while, but it really wasn't in our nature. Sales go up and down, but we tour a lot, and we've had a pretty consistent audience."

That audience now includes a substantial chunk of his children's peers, Springsteen notes proudly. He has spotted many young fans at recent shows, "probably more than we've had in a decade here in the States. And in Europe, we have an enormous young audience. Every time we go over there, there's a new wave of 16-year-olds."

Still, sustaining the illusion of eternal youth has never been part of this rock icon's long-term plan. "I was 24 when I wrote 'We ain't that young anymore' " in the song Thunder Road.

"If you go back to Darkness on the Edge of Town, which I wrote when I was 27 or 28, or The River, where there are a lot of songs about relationships coming together and falling apart — the characters on those records are all adults.

"I was interested from when I was pretty young in writing music that I felt I could sing at the ancient age of 40 — or maybe even older. It was important to me, along with the exhilaration and rhythm and sexual vitality of youth, which I wanted to maintain, to add a certain complexity — the kind of complex questions you have to sift through once you reach adulthood.

"I've written in that voice consistently, and I assume that I'll continue to go where life leads me." ForYou

Photographer and Springsteen fan Rocco Coviello has been shooting Bruce for 30 years

By J. C. Lockwood/jlockwoo@cnc.com