National Geographic - UK (2022-04)

AT ITS BASE^ SPARKLES WITH DIAMONDSSPARKLES WITH DIAMONDS^ THE SIZE OF ONE’S FIST.

the sun pulsed in a deep blue sky. Below, an ocean

of clouds blanketed the valley. To the west, I could

see dozens of waterfalls pouring from Roraima’s

1,500-foot-tall east face, forming halos of rain-

bows around the plunge pools at the base.

After downing a cup of coffee and some energy

bars, we set off across the ledge, hoping it might

lead to the summit. After half a mile of tunneling

upward through thick bushes covered in spider-

webs, we turned a corner and found ourselves at

and I were arguing about the feasibility of our

plan. In setting the route, it had become clear

to me that hauling Bruce up the cliff like a piece

of baggage was going to be a lot more dangerous

than any of us had expected. My biggest concern

was that Bruce was on blood thinners for a heart

condition—something he had failed to disclose

until we were well into the trek. What if he got

hurt somehow and we couldn’t stop the bleeding?

Right then, a light flashed in an opening in

the jungle far below, a signal from base camp. I

turned on our radio and heard Bruce’s voice. With

a heaviness in his speech, he told us that Brian

Irwin, our expedition doctor, had just persuaded

him to pull the plug on our harebrained plan.

“I can’t tell you how much this grieves me,”

Bruce said. “Fuco, especially, knows the herpeto-

fauna well. I’ll send up the picture that I’ve

drawn of the Stefania that I’m pretty sure is new

to science up there.”

“OK, Bruce,” Fuco said. “I’m going to do my

best to find the lucky Stefania.”

The next morning, the entire valley below

Weiassipu was enveloped in the same gray mist

that we had been living in for days. I now under-

stood why Bruce called this zone a cloud forest.

This basin seemed to create its own weather, and

it was a rare moment when we could see more

than a hundred feet in any direction. It rained

for hours, but luckily the wall was overhung just

enough that we usually avoided getting wet.

While Alex led the way, Fuco and I followed,

looking for frogs inside cracks and digging into

any patches of soil we found. At the end of each

pitch, we used pulleys to haul up heavy bags that

held everything we needed to survive on the wall

for a few days. It was an exhausting day, during

which the only creatures we found were a centi-

pede with an orange stripe on its back and a big,

possibly carnivorous, cricket. It wasn’t until well

after sunset that we crawled into our portaledges,

anchored to the wall next to a narrow ledge 700

feet above the jungle. We fell asleep to the sound

of rain pattering against our nylon rainflies.

When the sun rose the next morning, I

unzipped the door. The clouds were gone, and

the top of the tepui, staring across the plateau. In

the span of a few feet, we stepped from a hanging

cloud forest onto a bog covered in pitcher plants,

yucca, and sundews, glistening carnivorous flora

that resembled Venus flytraps. Off in the distance,

twin rock pinnacles rose above the sinkhole that

Bruce and I had explored in 2012.

It started to rain, and the clouds that had blan-

keted the valley began curling over the summit

rim and enveloping us. Fuco and I found shel-

ter under a mushroom-shaped rock, where we

huddled, soaked and shivering, with my poncho

draped over us like a tarp. Alex, meanwhile, had

disappeared, presumably to go climb something.

Fuco called Bruce on the radio. “Where is the

best place to find that lucky Stefania?” he asked.

I felt bad for Fuco because I knew that he car-

ried the weight of everyone’s expectations. Bruce

told him to look on the branches of small trees

and shrubbery. But he also mentioned that Ste-

fania like to hide inside clumps of moss during

the day and that he usually finds them at night

when their eyes catch the beam of his headlamp.

Fuco and I spent the afternoon wandering in

the fog and rain, poking through thick moss and

combing branches and leaves, hoping to spot

one of the minute frogs, or any kind of verte-

brate, but all we found were some tadpoles from

a known species of frog. Fuco went out again

that night in yet another rainstorm but found

nothing. It felt like a major defeat. Although the

expedition had been designed to sample a broad

range of fauna, the focus had been to find frogs

on this tepui, especially the new species of

Stefania. That this was probably Bruce’s last

expedition made our failure especially crushing.

UP THE MOUNTAIN, TO A WORLD APART 67