Nebraska Senators Climb High for Harmony: A group summit of Mount Kilimanjaro provided lessons in perseverance, working across party lines and being open to the inspiration of unusual possibilities.

• Author: Schley, Stewart
• Position: ACCROSS THE AISLE

Six days of climbing. Steep hillside trails. One badly swollen knee. Shared toilets. A final ascent in the dark in a below-zero windchill. Oh, and a ringleader who was recovering from leukemia.

It was no easy adventure. But as the sun rose to light the frosty morning on Day Six, five Nebraska state senators had finally done it: Wound their way up the challenging 37-mile Machame Route to the top of Africa's tallest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The lawmakers representing diverse districts and dual political parties cheered and high-fived and yanked cameras from backpacks to memorialize the moment. They were literally on top of the world.

Except they weren't. Turns out they'd made it to Stella Point, one of three Kilimanjaro summit sites, at 18,885 feet. They quickly realized Uhuru Peak, Kilimanjaro's ultimate summit, at 19,340 feet, was still 45 minutes away, up a steep incline. Since 12:40 a.m., they'd been slogging in freezing temperatures, headlamps lighting the dark trail. "My legs," Sen. Dave Murman says, "felt like cement."

Still, nobody was turning back. "The hard work had been done, all that was left was putting one foot in front of the other for a few more feet," recounts Sen. Tom Brewer, a key trip instigator. "We had all come too far to stop short of the summit."

Forty-some minutes later, they were there.

'Pole Pole'

Somewhere in the story of how five legislators summitted Kilimanjaro last November is an irresistible analogy to the machinations of public policy; how getting a law enacted is not the stuff of a single brilliant burst, but a slow, unrelenting slog. "Pole pole" (pronounced "pol-ay pol-ay") is what Kilimanjaro's able guides tell their climbers, over and over. It means "slowly slowly" in Swahili. It's the only way to preserve enough energy and will to keep climbing as the trail stretches on and the oxygen supply steadily depletes. It's also a fair encapsulation of the legislative process, where turning ideas into law requires patience. "It's difficult to accomplish big things," Murman says. "And that's kind of what the mountain is."

In both settings, getting to the finish line also requires faith in your fellow traveler. On the mountain, political allegiances and geographic divides gave way to personal relationships.

"It's true: Progress really does happen at the speed of trust," says Sen. Anna Wishart, one of two Democrats on the trip and the youngest climber at 37. "Anytime you do these types of challenges...