75-year-old West Dundee man not giving up Mount Kilimanjaro dream

After two failed attempts in four years while in his 70s, Bruce Weiss was ready to abandon his lifelong dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

His efforts were thwarted by a heart condition, altitude sickness and back pain. Now 75, Weiss wasn't sure his body could take another effort.

Besides, he thought, no way Esther, his wife of 52 years, would support a third try at the mountain that peaks at almost four miles.

But in the bedroom of their West Dundee home one recent night, Esther looked up from her book suddenly.

“I never thought I'd say this,” she said, “but I know this is your dream, and I know you're disappointed you didn't make it. If you want to try again, I'll support you.”

The declaration stunned Weiss, who instantly pictured himself summiting Africa's tallest mountain. To him, it was more than a goal. It had become an obsession, a passion he had been longing to fulfill since he was a kid. He wasn't ready to give it up.

“Kilimanjaro has been my dream,” Weiss said. “It's my mountain, and I'm not going to be happy until I see the top of that thing.”

Gave up too soon

The son of missionaries,

Weiss spent most of his childhood in Africa.

He attended boarding school in the Belgian Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, until his junior year of high school when he switched to a school in Nairobi, Kenya.

Activities were scarce for Weiss and his boyhood friends - no TVs, video games or anything of the sort.

Instead, they grew up on after-school hikes or three-hour climbs up smaller mountains and sleeping atop them on weekends.

And they dreamed of future adventures: summiting larger, more challenging peaks - especially the approximately 19,336-foot-tall Kilimanjaro.

“I enjoyed climbing, and Kilimanjaro was the mother lode of mountains,” Weiss said. “It was a part of the fabric of what we did.”

Approaching his senior year, Weiss thought his dream might soon become a reality. His school in Nairobi allowed seniors to choose from: A safari, a survival week in the desert, or, being only 150 miles away, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. He knew he'd choose the latter.

As they did every five years, however, his parents returned to the U.S. for their furlough. Weiss went with them, vowing to return. But he went to school and got a job, and few years later, he and Esther got married. A few years after that, they had children.

“Life starts to happen, and you don't have the money or the time,” he said. “When I turned 50, I gave up on it. I thought it was a dream for my youth.”

Nearly two decades later, at age 69, Weiss came across a Daily Herald article about three people in their 60s who succeeded in climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

It lit a fire under him.

“That's all I could think about for the next few years,” he said. “That I gave up on my dream too soon.”

The first attempt

Thus began his preparation for a 10-day trek up the mountain.

Instead of his usual 3-mile walk three times a week, often inside Spring Hill Mall, Weiss would walk 12. He doubled his time in the gym, to six hours per week. He read books about the mountain, researched extensively and purchased top-of-the-line equipment.

When he finally made it to the mountain in 2012, he said, it was like returning home.

Mount Kilimanjaro, a Tanzania National Park, isn't exactly a technical climb, Weiss learned. About 25,000 people attempt it every year, and roughly two-thirds are successful. Altitude-related problems are the most common reason climbers turn back. The oldest person to reach the summit was 85.

Weiss also learned he would have porters to help carry his belongings and cooks to make food at the campsites.

Even though he wouldn't be scaling rock walls, Weiss would be climbing ravines and clambering over rocks throughout the trail. He'd be traveling through the tropics, forests, large fields of flowers, a desert and, at the top, an arctic zone.

And, ascending thousands of feet every day, he'd be risking his own health and safety. Two days into the hike, Weiss's heart condition - atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke and other complications - flared up. He hadn't had a bout of it in years, so he kept climbing.

A day or two later, it happened again.

The higher he got, the greater the risk of a serious heart complication. So on day five, halfway to the summit, he took a trail down.

Later, back at the hotel, Esther tried comforting Weiss, saying, “It's just a mountain.”

He pounded his fist on the table and said, “No. Any other mountain, I wouldn't care. But it's Kilimanjaro. It's the fact that we grew up with it, that we talked about it incessantly as kids, the fact that it's in Africa, my home. I've got to have this one.”

The second attempt

Not long after his return home, Weiss needed heart surgery in November 2013. He gave his recovery a year, then got the OK from his doctor to try the climb again.

This time around, he found a climbing partner and a fellow Kilimanjaro-lover -

Viola Kowalska, 41, a family friend who lived in Florida and had never been to Africa before.

“We were kind of amazed to meet each other, thinking we were the only freaks in the world who cared so much about that mountain,” Weiss said. “It was a passion for both of us.”

The pair met up a few times before the trip and went hiking. They talked constantly about equipment and training, he said, and Kowalska's enthusiasm made him all the more eager for their trip.

Last June, Weiss returned to the mountain with Kowalska and 10 others.

The first few days, Weiss felt strong. He wasn't having heart issues, and his back pain had subsided. But on the fourth night, altitude sickness hit him like a brick

wall.

He was nauseous, he started losing weight and he could hardly eat or drink anything, which made him weak. He kept hoping it would pass, and managed to keep up with the group for the most part.

But on summit day, he had nothing left.

“I was completely depleted,” he said. “I gave it all I had, but I didn't make it to the top.”

Weiss returned home after a second $10,000 trip believing he had been given his last chance. He gave away his sleeping bag, his high-quality gear and wiped the thought out of his mind, never expecting his wife to let him try a third time.

But Esther says she's not going to be the one to stop him from fulfilling his dream.

“I know he desperately wants to do it,” she said. “I think our life philosophy is, if you can afford it or if you're physically able, do what your heart wants to do.”

Third time charm?

Everyone has a bucket list, and

Mount Kilimanjaro remains at the top of Weiss'.

Though he hasn't set a firm date for his third attempt, he hopes to return within the year, and he's doing everything he can to get there.

“Just because you're 75 years old, it doesn't mean you should quit,” Weiss said. “Obviously I'm extremely disappointed I didn't get to the top, but I don't give up. I keep going, I keep pushing ahead.”

When his atrial fibrillation flared up after he returned from his second climb, he started on medications that controlled the condition. When his back started hurting again, he looked into arthroscopic procedures with little recovery time, so as not to hinder his physical ability for long.

After that's taken care of, likely early this summer when his part-time job as a Community Unit District 300 bus driver is on hold, he'll start training again. He'll reach out to the climbing friends he met during his previous two attempts and ask if they'd like to go again.

Weiss has had doctors advise him against making the climb. But he's invested thousands of dollars and several months of training, and the more time passes, the angrier he becomes about not yet making it to the top.

And the more he imagines himself returning, the more he believes he has another shot at conquering his mountain.

“Everybody keeps telling me third time's the charm,” Weiss said. “Let's hope that's the case for me.”

Things to know about Mount Kilimanjaro

• Elevation: About 19,336 feet

• Location: Northern Tanzania in East Africa

• Climate: During ascent, climbers will traverse tropics, forests, fields of flowers, desert and arctic areas.

• Best time to climb: December to February or July to September

• About 25,000 people attempt to summit every year; about two-thirds are successful. Altitude-related problems are the most common reason climbers turn back.

• It is the highest peak in Africa and the tallest free-standing mountain in the world.

• American Robert Wheeler is the oldest man to climb it. He reached the summit at 85 in 2014.

Source: Tanzania National Parks; World Wildlife Travel; Guinness World Records