Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter (2 page)

The sound is deafening and the pressure change so abrupt that I try to brace my arm against the roof to steady myself. Instead, my hand is forcefully bent back by what feels like icicles slicing through my fingers, and I instinctively retract.

Open air.
I’m immediately overwhelmed by a terrible realization.
The cockpit ceiling is gone.

Our audio engineer, Mike, has the common sense to kick the pilot’s door shut from his first-row seat behind me, closing off the wind tunnel coursing through the interior of the plane and sealing me into the roofless cockpit.

Moments ago I was actually bored, fiddling with a camcorder to get a close-up of the plane’s antiquated controls and weathered gauges, the altimeter needle quivering from the vibration of the plane’s beleaguered engine. The pilot, a stout Russian in a thick wool sweater, was languidly operating the stick. Now I’m craning back to get a view of the tail stabilizer through the gaping maw above me, praying the debris from the roof hasn’t clipped it on the way by. I think twice about unbuckling my harness for a better look and instead concentrate on the ground below, which is getting closer by the second.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, of course. As the host of the Syfy Channel’s
Destination Truth
, I’ve spent the last four years traveling to far-flung locales following reports of cryptozoological creatures and paranormal phenomena. Since there aren’t exactly nonstop commercial flights leading directly to the doorsteps of the world’s most enduring mysteries, I’ve made a career, such as it is, out of flying on board the planet’s most laughably derelict aircraft.

But even by my admittedly lax standards, this plane is a piece of shit. I arrived at the airfield (and I do mean field) after two straight days of begging our field producer, Allison, to procure a plane—any plane—that could take us up and over the purportedly haunted Hoia Baciu Forest, the subject of our current episode. After exhausting every possible charter from here to Bucharest, she managed to find this flying Russian coffin and offered a few bucks to a local pilot to coax it back into active service.

The Antonov An-2 is not the sort of plane most people would agree to climb aboard in the first place. Basically unchanged since its design in 1946, it has wings covered in fabric, not metal. The plane is a flying dinosaur, originally intended for agricultural use. A function it might still fulfill as it threatens to fertilize nearby farms with the remains of my crew.

It is common in moments of potentially fatal catastrophe for the world to close in around us and become much smaller. Disaster is often countermanded by an intense focus, even if it happens to resolve on strange and seemingly arbitrary details. Looking over at the captain, I’m suddenly engrossed by his bald head. Where once there was a comical comb-over, there is now this emancipated ribbon of hair dancing in the vortex and joyfully reaching up to the heavens. It looks like one of those inflatable noodles outside a used-car dealership. Like any pilot worth his salt, though, he seems utterly unfazed by his new coif or by our circumstances in general. Where can one buy a little of that
Right Stuff
bravado required to shrug off the fact that your airplane is now a convertible?

When Captain Chesley Sullenberger famously ditched that crippled US Airways jet in the Hudson River after a flock of geese turned themselves into engine-flavored pâté, it barely seemed to raise his pulse. He casually noted to air traffic control, “We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” as though he was stopping off there for a cup of coffee. My distress call would have consisted of a jumbled litany of swearwords arranged in no particular order followed by an ecstatic,
“Holy JESUS we’re going to crash into a river! MOMMY!”
During this particular aviation mishap, I do my best to stay calm and not soil my pants. This is the best I can muster under the circumstances, and I’m feeling fairly heroic about it.

The pilot adjusts the flaps and begins to bank around toward an open field. Time continues to slow down, and I think about the circumstances that brought me to this moment.

How did it come to this? How on earth did I end up here, plummeting in a partially disassembled biplane toward some anonymous field in Romania?
A few years ago this would have been inconceivable. But now it’s just another day at the office. I manage to catch the pilot’s gaze for only a moment; above the din he leans over and yells,
“We must go back.”

Indeed. We must. Five years, to be exact.

2: 19,340

Tanzania, Africa, 2005

Above the arid plains of Tanzania’s grasslands, the mighty silhouette of Kilimanjaro rises like a dusty temple, a singular cone breaking up the endless, supine earth. In the adjacent town of Moshi, where locals beat back the sweat and heat of 110 degrees, it seems inconceivable that the distant white frosting on Kilimanjaro is actually glacial ice. But from up here, it’s a different world altogether.

At 11,000 feet, I squint in the chilly twilight to follow the narrow trail beneath my feet. The landscape is utterly alien, and a soupy mist clings to the rock face by my side. I run my hand along the smooth stones for balance, my fingers red from the icy water trickling down from above.

Just before sunset, my group and I finally stumble into Shira Camp. The darkening haze is punctured by the welcome sight of dozens of glowing orange tent domes. This is one of several camps that temporarily cradle countless expeditions ascending the side of Kilimanjaro. But our relief at arriving here is short-lived. Rain suddenly buckets down, and porters scramble to assist with tents as night arrives unceremoniously. By the time I finally get into my own shelter, water is seeping up through the seams in the floor; I’m shaking cold as I strip down, searching for drier clothes.

I came to Africa as something of a personal challenge. Almost exactly a year before this day, I looked in the mirror and decided to change who I saw looking back. I had been living in Los Angeles for more than five years, hustling to find work as an actor while slowly building a photography business on the side. But contrary to my naïve expectations, being a Hollywood actor/photographer did not automatically come hand in hand with a disposable income and the company of beautiful models. So, to support my ambitions and pay my rent, I was mostly waiting tables.

At Tufts University, I had double majored in drama and archaeology in what must have seemed like an attempt to force my parents into an early grave. Because if it’s one thing America is clamoring for, it’s guys who dig in the dirt with a flair for the dramatic. Luckily, my parents were empathetic. My mother, a vivacious and free-spirited young woman, grew up in tumultuous 1960s England and somehow found my father, a charming American deep-sea diver and self-made man. The two of them were endlessly supportive of my interests and passed on to me their humor and a confidence to follow my own path, as they had done.

But with no prospect for actually earning a dime as a young archaeologist, I tried my hand at acting, a passion since my breakout performance as “Bottom” in a high school production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
With Los Angeles casting directors somehow overlooking the rave reviews from my hometown newspaper, the
Manchester Cricket,
I was auditioning often but working little. I found myself jumping at every opportunity I could to leave L.A. and escape into the unknown. I had already driven across America seven times, canvassing every state in the country, save one (I’m coming for you, Oregon). I had been to Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Bangladesh, and spent several summers in Israel excavating the ruins of the Roman city of Caesarea.

Travel, when undertaken habitually, becomes a potent intoxicant. After all, who among us hasn’t stared at perfume ads, Corona commercials, and Thai Airways billboards and been lost in a coconut-scented what-if? It is most often detectable in a telltale faraway gaze observable on the faces of married men vacationing in the tropics. They dream, if only for a moment, of shedding their identity, abandoning their earthly possessions, and opening a tiki-themed bar on the beach, toes in the sand.

Travel is also Newtonian: it has a sort of momentum. Unless interrupted by crying babies, work obligations, or an empty bank account, it
wants
to remain in motion.

In my case, I didn’t just keep moving. I accelerated. As each trip came to an end, I grew discomposed in less and less time, fidgeting to start another adventure. Within weeks I started typing random destinations into online travel sites, searching for cheap airfares and plotting out fictional escapades. I got quick fixes with the occasional debauched weekend in Vegas or a listless drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. I was hooked. And suddenly my life as an actor took a backseat to my dreams as a traveler.

Then I looked in the mirror. I felt older. I wasn’t a kid in school anymore. I was considerably overweight, bored, and generally unhappy. I tried to combat this malaise by going to the gym with some regularity. Without a specific goal, though, I slipped back into bad habits and comfortable routines.

Thinking back on it now, I can’t remember what turned me on to the idea of climbing a mountain. Beyond the stairs to my apartment, I don’t think I’d ever climbed anything in my life, let alone one of the famed Seven Summits. But once I settled on the idea, Kilimanjaro seemed a logical choice. Along with being suitably exotic, Kili is a non-technical climb that offered exactly what I was looking for: a goal that would challenge but (probably) not kill me. A sword of Damocles that would intimidate me into changing my lifestyle. I paid in full for the climb and, with a 365-day runway ahead of me, had all the motivation I needed. Every morning that I lay in bed thinking about not working out, I simply imagined my broken body frozen in mountain ice. I promptly got up and went to the gym.

To assist me in this venture, I assembled possibly the least qualified climbing team on the planet. My first recruit was my great friend Aron Epstein, because if there’s one thing the Jews are known for, it’s accomplishments in high-altitude mountaineering. Aron can’t weigh more than one hundred pounds, and I’d go on record as estimating that at least a quarter of that comes from the bottles of hand sanitizer hidden in his jacket. Neurotic, brilliant, hilarious, and, most important, recently unemployed and independently wealthy enough to join this suicide run, he seemed a logical choice. The expedition was rounded out by Colin MacNaughton, a longtime friend, travel soul mate, and software engineer who smokes like a chimney and has a thing for high-end Scotch. Colin lives in San Francisco, where they have steep hills that I presumed he must have walked up occasionally, probably while smoking. This seemed like qualification enough at the time.

With my dream team in place, I got down to business. I trained throughout the year. Really went at it. I ran like a hamster in a wheel, took endless hikes in the Hollywood Hills, and endured no less than three different personal trainers. Grave adjustments to my diet followed (sayonara, fast food) and by year’s end I had lost eighty pounds and was in the best shape of my life. The day after Christmas 2005, my compatriots and I boarded a flight to Africa, giddy at the prospect of adventure.

It takes about a week to ascend Kilimanjaro, with stops at various camps to acclimate to the extreme altitude. Each day becomes progressively harder as the thin mountain air provides less sustenance. We are climbing what is known as the Machame Route, or “Whiskey Route,” so named because it is decidedly more serious than the standard Marangu Route, or “Coca-Cola Route.”

Once the rain passes at Shira Camp, Aron, Colin, and I enjoy a terrible meal together and then crowd into a single tent to keep warm and engage in our nightly ritual of playing Scrabble. It is New Year’s Eve. At ten minutes to midnight, we put down our wooden game tiles, throw on our down jackets, and shuffle out into the cold. Earlier in the evening we invited strangers from all over the camp to join us, and for the first few minutes it looks as if nobody is going to show. Then, tent by tent, lanterns come on, zippers unzip, and a group of hearty souls emerge to ring in the new year on the frigid side of a dormant volcano. Warm embraces erupt among German climbers, Japanese millionaires, and Tanzanian porters. An Australian woman has smuggled up a small bottle of champagne, which we all pass around and drink in shared communion near the roof of Africa.

I’m suddenly struck by the idea that people all over the world are gathering in places like this. Uncommon places. Unthought-of places. In my mind, New Year celebrations had always been the domain of city squares, crowded bars, and drunken house parties. I close my eyes and wander the world for a few moments to imagine a couple embracing on the deck of a sailboat in the Pacific, science crews popping champagne at the South Pole, submariners shaking hands at stations deep beneath dark waves, and nomads gathered by firelight in desert wadis. Something is shifting in me.
At this very moment.
My view is expanded somehow. I’m suddenly aware of an almost uncontrollable
need
to find these places, to be
with
these people. This is the moment that I become a traveler in earnest.

The next day our guide calls us aside and asks if we’d like to alter our route to a trail known as the Western Breach. This takes me by surprise, since we’d carefully chosen the Machame Route almost a year ago. It’s unorthodox to make a change like this mid-climb, and it takes a few minutes of listening to his pitch while carefully studying a map to realize what he’s proposing. The new route would be nearly two full days shorter and therefore financially beneficial to the porters, who could deposit us back to Moshi earlier and link in with their next group. We discuss the option, but it involves a much more direct ascent to a campsite perched inside the summit crater. Aron has already lost his appetite at this altitude, and climbing faster seems a dangerous gamble. We choose to stay on course. I don’t know it at the time, but this decision may actually save our lives.