Uganda & Kenya
May 2017

Years ago, my friend Andy Earl told me about snow-covered peaks in Uganda. They offered what was likely the only skiing on the African continent outside of Morocco, which many people consider more European than African. I had to visit the Rwenzoris.

Four years later, I'd finally found partners to join since Andy couldn't. Kasha Rigby, Mary McIntyre, and the reliable Robin Hill were warned before our trip. "We might be making literally 5 turns. There might be 100 feet of ice, without snow. This might be the most ridiculous ski trip ever," I told them. They were still interested.
Those are some seriously awesome friends.

I didn't know if I'd be able to go do this, given the frostbite I'd received just a month earlier in Alaska.
But on our 10th day in Uganda, we walked back toward the hostel that we'd left a week and a half earlier, having seen no one aside from our guides and porters. In that time, we'd walked through several climate zones, had our camps burned down by arsonists, climbed to the top of the 3rd highest peak in Africa--which technically sits in the DRC--, and skied down it.
After a mountain gorilla safari and a quick week in Kenya to climb Africa's 2nd highest peak, Mt. Kenya, we left Africa with a disgustingly real, face-to-face encounter with climate change.