Mali, West Africa: Climbing The Hand of Fatima and Wanderdu in the African Heat
By: Brittany Griffith
I was on my back, sprawled out on a sort of flat boulder, looking up at Wanderdu’s vast expanse. The 800-foot wall was moving into the shade—but not enough yet to climb on. We were in northern Mali and climbing in the sun was out of the question. On the fifteenth parallel in West Africa, so close to the equator, Mali’s heat is brutal: 100 degrees during the day—in the winter; summertime temps routinely hit 140.
We had been here nearly two weeks, climbing the towers of The Hand of Fatima, and the heat and dryness were wearing us down. I tried to remember the last time I peed, and couldn’t. We had already climbed all five towers, which was our main goal. The summits ranged from 500- to 2000-feet tall, with 5.10 to 5.12 climbing. We had climbed Wanderdu already and the 5.11c route we were going to attempt today had a reputation for being runout and scary. But we had to reach the summit—that’s where the New Years Eve party was.
On our first night at the Hand of Fatima, a figure approached our grass hut as I began unpacking our bags. “Hi, I hear you guys are here climbing” he said in what I swore was a Michigan accent. I shined my headlamp in his face. I didn’t recognize him.
“Who are you?” I said rudely, still crusty and dusty from our 12-hour off-road 4x4 drive.
“I’m Jared,” the unknown face said back. “Me and my buddy are in the Peace Corps, and we do some climbing here.” Sure you do, I thought to myself.
“We’re staying down the road,” Jared continued, “but heard there were some Americans here at this encampment.” How he had “heard” we were here was beyond me… we had only arrived an hour ago.
Upon arriving for their two-year commitment and traveling throughout the region, Jared and Kevin discovered the Hand of Fatima and that there was actually climbing in this god-forsaken land. Now here they were, spending every available free minute commuting from their respective villages to climb at the Hand. Jared said he had climbed before in the States, while Kevin had never climbed before coming to Mali and learned how to here at the Hand. These guys were stoked—to climb and to hang out with some Americans after months of living in villages with the locals. They had both become fluent in regional dialects (Jared in Tamasheq and Kevin spoke Fulani), and their only other company was their wives, who were also in the Peace Corps. We thought we were going to be the only “Westerners” in the area, so we were equally stoked to have some English-speaking friends to hang out with. The next night, when Kevin and Jared invited us to spend New Year’s Eve on the summit of Wanderdu with rations of gin in plastic pouches, he was my hero.
But now, suffering from the heat and general exhaustion of climbing almost everyday for two weeks, Wanderdu’s summit seemed a long way away. The plan was to meet on top that evening before it got dark. The party would be a group of four couples: Jared and his wife, Kevin and wife (who hadn’t climbed before), a French couple (Iliana and Nico, who were both alpine guides), and JT and myself. Team Peace Corps were going to take easier and shorter
routes on the backside, while the French Team and
us had a go on the 800-foot Panic in Gotham City, a
5.11c trad/bolted route.
The French Team had gotten to the base of the wall first and they were struggling with the route finding and the chaluer (heat).
“We have to start climbing,” I said to JT.
“No way am I climbing until the wall is in the shade and has cooled down,” JT quickly rebutted.
“If we don’t go now, we’ll run out of light” For once, I was the one with more motivation to climb. I’m sure it had something to do with gin on top.
“But Iliana is still following the first pitch,” JT complained. “She’s dogging!”
I leaned back into the sun and looked up at the wall. Sure enough, there she was, limp on the end of the rope, with her helmet, headscarf, sunglasses, overstuffed daypack with Nico’s huge, size 12 approach shoes dangling on the outside, and her massive chalk bag (unopened). Oh, and her climbing shoes were untied. No wonder she couldn’t manage the technical looking, steep 5.11b dihedral halfway into the first pitch. I could see the sequence and wanted to tell it to her, but couldn’t think of the word for “finger lock” in French. I guess there probably isn’t one. “Allez,” I muttered, silently urging her to hurry up, fearful that we get stuck climbing in the dark if they didn’t.
By the time we flaked the ropes and booted up, the French Team were on the ledge below the second pitch.
With JT belaying and crouching in the slightest sliver of shade, I headed up the first pitch, determined not to bitch about the heat. Five seconds into the lead I wailed, “Jesus, it’s like a sauna up here!” The rock was still blisteringly hot, projecting heat like a furnace. 
“I’m so goddamn hot!” I whined
“You got it…” JT mumbled, hiding in the shade.
“I’m serious! This is awful!” I continued on with my complaints every meter up the pitch.
Just before manteling onto the belay ledge I looked up to see that the French Team’s rope went through the first three quickdraws of the bolted second pitch, then back down to the ledge. Tied to the other end was Iliana, sitting against the wall, helmet off and pouting. Nico was smoking a rollie and appeared resigned.
“Allez-y, nous vous suivrons” He offered.
JT took the lead; clipping her three draws and then headed up into unknown, chalkless territory. Luckily his pitch had been in the shade for a while and wasn’t nearly as broiler. Twenty feet runout above the last draw, he quietly and calmly mentioned, “Hmm, I can’t see the next bolt or gear placement.” I could tell he was just a bit concerned. If he fell, he’d hit the ledge.
“Come on, baby, you got it,” I offered for encouragement. But gin is what I was really thinking about. “It’s only 5.11, you can do it!” You better do it, because we’ve got some pretty high stakes here. Gin. It had been a long dry two weeks.
JT made it to the next anchor without issue and as soon as he shouted “Off belay” I was chalking up to follow. I’ve climbed a lot in France, so I wasn’t that shocked when, as I looked down for a foothold after the initial moves off the ledge, I nearly kicked Nico in the head as he lead immediately behind me. There was no way they were going to get off route again…
A few more pitches of superb climbing on flat edges and square-cut roofs and we all arrived on top, safe and sound just as the sun was setting. The summit was the perfect place for a party: flat, smooth rock with plenty of room to bivy. Team Peace Corps was already there and they marveled at our lightweight gear. They had hauled up Coleman sleeping bags, wool blankets, canteens of water, stove, and, most importantly, these cool little packets of gin and one hitters of powdered juice. I was in charge of dinner, so I whipped up six packets Back Packer’s Pantry Sweet and Sour Chicken. I thought it tasted like sweet and sour cardboard, but Team Peace Corps, who had lost their pampered American taste buds, devoured it. Jared actually drank the water from the pot that I was using to wash it with—an act that truly stunned the French Team, as did Kevin’s freeze-dried S’mores and Cookies and Cream Jell-O pudding he had received in a care package. It’s always fun when you can shock a French person, especially with food.
Then came out the fireworks. Kevin had received them as well in a care package. The boys began holding them in their hands and firing them into the night sky. I wasn’t allowed to play with fireworks as a child, so I didn’t understand how bottle rockets worked. I thought it was more like a sparkler, so I held on to it, which was a bad idea as the rocket blew up in my hand. Luckily I didn’t spill any of my gin.
The food was polished off, the fireworks were shot, the booze was drunk and our summit festivities wound down. No one knew the time, but figured it was close enough to midnight. We wished each other a Happy New Year and went off to find a choice spot to lay down our bags. As I lay there trying to fall asleep, I realized that Mali was the seventh country in which I’d celebrated New Year’s Eve and just then, I could hear faint whooping from below. I stood up in my bag and looked down at a couple of dim lights at the encampment a half-mile away. I flashed my headlamp toward the noise. Seconds later, lights flashed back with more whooping. It was midnight. It was New Years. I had no resolutions to state, no promises to cut back on my vices for 2009—the next year would be guided just how my previous had been: by my desire to have many, many more nights and adventures as special as this one.
