By Edmund Smith-Asante
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| The long flight of steps up the mountain |
I had to be nuts to attempt climbing
a 15km long flight of over 877 wooden stairs to the apex of the Kwahu mountain
at Obo, but I couldn’t be damned – I was at my daring best.
I must admit though that when I got
to a point after climbing forever, I felt a bit disappointed as the sign said I
had only climbed 300 of the flight of steps. “What! Can I make the rest of the
journey?” I asked myself.
But there was this very encouraging
writing that said “Keep Going, You’re Almost There”.
Reading the inscription spurred me
on and it was there that I said to myself that I would not stop until I had
arrived at the apex. It was easier said than done, but determination was my
companion as I climbed at my own pace, stopping anytime I felt I needed to take
a short rest.
Before long, I was there, at a dizzy
height of 2,500ft above sea level, although the last portion was the trickiest
part. Thankfully, the designer and local engineers had provided rails to help
the climber, which were absent for three quarters of the way up, as they had
seen that it was steepest and scariest getting to the end or top.
Coming down the flight of steps was
not any easier as I had to contend with wobbling knees as I descended.
Air JAYS
Appropriately named, the designer
and innovator of the 877 steps up the Kwahu Mountain at Obo, Mr Eric Tinkorang,
who is also the owner of the Jay’s Lodge where the flight of steps is located
at Obo-Kwahu, told the Daily Graphic that he decided to name the flight of
stairs Air JAYS because “there is a feeling of lightness when you get up there
as if you are in the air.”
Many guests at the festivities,
especially those who lodged at the Jay’s Lodge, had a great adventure going up
on the mountain.
Mr Tinkorang, who has lived in
France for over 20 years as a network systems engineer, said the idea of a
stairway to the top of the mountain came to him as an inspiration, and as he
explored the possibility of constructing it, everyone thought that he was crazy
to even come up with that thought.
A crazy man
“When I went up there I had an
inspiration. I thought ok, no one had conquered the slopes yet. I was going to
be the crazy guy to do that the first time,” he reminisced.
He nevertheless, pursued his dream
and came up with a design that would not destroy the topography as he had
promised the chiefs. This was translated into the wooden steps up the steep
slope with the assistance of seven other local persons.
“I fell in love with Obo because it
is the only town on the Kwahu Ridge cast in the valley, so I thought wow, this
could be the ideal place,” he recounted.
He was, however, faced with high
cost even with the initial lodge structures because of the undulating land, the
difficulty in carrying materials up the Kwahu Ridge, expensive labour cost and
the humid nature of Obo, which required special attention.
After it was all done and his French
Caribbean wife from Martinique got to see it for the first time, she also
thought the husband was too daring. “You are a crazy man but I love you,” she
told her husband.
The first such project in Ghana and
probably the world, Mr Tinkorang has also added to the steps, the first-ever
commercialised zip line up a slope and also the first-ever unique canopy
walkway on a mountain.
It thus makes it a three-in-one
tourist attraction on the Kwahu Mountain and specifically at Obo, which took
six months to construct.
Very difficult project
But constructing the 877 steps, 200
metres long zip line and 75 metres canopy walkway did not come easy. After the
designs had been approved by the relevant authorities, it was left with making
it all real.
Mr Tinkorang said the team settled
for Denya wood, a hard tropical wood used for rail sleepers because of its
ability to withstand rot, termites and other insects, and last for over 600
years.
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| Going up the long flight of steps |
The challenge with using the wood
referred to as Iron wood in Australia and Greenheart wood in England is that
due to its density it is not every nail that can be used on it but special
tough nails.
The sheer weight of the wood also
made carrying it uphill a huge challenge, Mr Tinkorang stated. Nonetheless,
they were able to step by step manually clear up the path of big trees, carry
the wood uphill and construct the steps.
He narrated that on one occasion
when they were trying to fell a 60ft tree to make way for the steps, a huge
snake dropped on the neck of the one using a Dorma chainsaw machine, and he
quickly had to throw away the machine or else it would have accidentally
wounded him.
He said the most difficult part was
constructing the zip line, as they had to manually carry a 40ft long pole with
a thick girth of 10 millimeters and a weight of 800 kgs up and also position it
correctly in a hole that had been dug for it.
“I had to stay in bed for three days
after we had erected the pole for the zip line,” he said
High cost of project
The entire project, including the
lodge infrastructure, cost about US$1.2 million, Mr Tinkorang said. He is being
partnered by a friend who has taken 20 per cent of the cost, Nana Darkwa, an
eminent Kwahu businessman.
A cost of GH¢5 was spent on each of
the steps transported up the slope, while a total of GH¢50,000 was spent just
paving way and cutting big trees in the way.
Importation of the zip line set from
France also cost GH¢300,000 and about GH¢90,000 was spent on wages and salaries
for the workers on the project excluding the wood carriers.
Writer’s email: edmund.asante@graphic.com.gh
This
story was first published by the Daily Graphic on April 4, 2016
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