As explained in my last post, my cousin Scotty came to East Africa to visit this past summer. The morning after arriving in Dar, the two of us drove up to the city of Moshi in the north of Tanzania. Scotty and I had planned a six day hike attempting to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, which at 19,341 feet, is the highest point in Africa and the world’s tallest freestanding mountain (not within a range).
Guides are required on the mountain, so we met our guide Joseph that night and discussed all the logistics. We hired quite a staff to go up the mountain with us. Joseph was our main guide, and he brought with him one assistant guide (who would lead if one of us needed to come down), one cook, and three porters. This sounds extreme, I know, but is actually the norm for climbing a mountain of this height and difficulty.
Pole pole, meaning slowly slowly, was our mantra going up the mountain. Joseph did a superb job setting a snail’s pace as we ascended. This crawling speed allowed us to save energy and helped to offset the likelihood of altitude sickness, which is the number one reason people don’t make it to the summit.
There are four major routes up the mountain, and we took Marangu, which is the most traveled. The benefit of Marangu is that it is the shortest trail, able to be completed in six days. The route which we took does happen to have one nice advantage over the others: huts. Though I do enjoy camping, Kili has a very unreliable weather pattern and nothing sounds more miserable to me than being cold and wet, having my equipment wet, and having to continue the climb.
We hiked upwards with the excitement and anticipation that fills the stomach on the first day of any big adventure. This day was spent hiking through forest terrain. The path was one of dirt and clay under a canopy of trees and lush vegetation. After about five hours, we arrived at our first camp, which was at an elevation of 8,857 feet. Upon our arrival we entered the ‘clouds’. It was densely foggy, damp, and cold. I pulled out my base layer clothes and hat and pushed away fleeting thoughts about how much colder it would get.
Dinner consisted of similar things each night we were on the trail. We always had rice and fresh fruits accompanied by some cooked veggies, chapatti (which is like a tortilla but with much more oil), and a meaty dish with thick sauce, a bit heavier than stew.
The next morning we set off at daybreak. The first half of the day we hiked through the clouds. The terrain was beautiful, with flora that thrived in the wet, cold environment. Without warning, we finally broke through the top of the clouds and were met with a completely different scene. Gone was the moisture so thick it weighed you down; gone was the dark eeriness that conjured up images of scary movie scenes; gone was the feeling of emptiness and isolation. In its place the sun shone brightly and the blue sky spread open. Small desert-looking plants took the place of shrubs; orange and red colored rocks covered the ground in every direction.
FAR off in the distance the summit of the mountain was slightly visible. As we stopped for a lunch break I suddenly started to feel a bit ill. I had no appetite and the thought of eating made me nauseous. Seeing how far away the summit was and knowing that I was supposed to get there made the uneasiness all the more real.
We finally reached Horombo Huts which sit at 12,205 feet. I stumbled into our hut and collapsed onto the sleeping pad. My head was spinning, pulse was racing, stomach was nauseous, and all strength was gone. I hoped and prayed that this really wasn’t already altitude sickness setting in. I was only on day two of a six day excursion and still had over 7,000 feet to climb. I did NOT pay so much money just to be carried down the mountain this early. Plus, if my male cousin can do it then I can do it too!
I wanted desperately to nap but all of the information that I read about altitude sickness taught me that its effects are more potent during sleeping hours when breathing slows. Unsteadily I hoisted myself up and outside. As I walked around the camp it was impossible not to marvel at its splendor. The summit was now clearly visible, jutting majestically into the heavens. The camp sat just above the clouds, so looking out as far as I could see were the tops of puffy cotton ball clouds that reminded me of a bed just waiting to be jumped on. A short time later dinner was called. I sat at the table having a stare down with the food placed in front of me. After a long, drawn out, and unspoken battle I finally conceded and ate a bit of food, knowing that I needed to eat no matter how I felt. Of course, as soon as we walked outside I became vehemently sick, cursing the food I had just tried so hard to eat.
Day Three is meant to be a day of acclimating to the altitude in preparation for the next day’s summit. I woke up feeling horrible still but made up my mind that I’d continue. We hiked up 1,000 feet to a place called Zebra Rocks then hiked back down to our huts.
We got up on the morning of Day Four and set off. Since it was alpine desert we were hiking through, the scenery soon became dull and I struggled to refocus my thoughts. The surface was rocky and barren, windy and cold. The only thing that there was to look at was the massive mountain looming in front of me, intimidating and daring me to conquer her.
I was sick and not eating, but for the first half of the day the hike was relatively easy because the trail wasn’t at much of an incline. After lunch we started our assent up a rocky and dusty path. By this time I had expended most of my energy and I was not a happy camper. Grumpy and feeling horrible, I got in some sort of a zone where I blocked out everything around me and kept trudging up the mountain.
At 3:30 that afternoon we arrived at Kibo and were at an elevation of 15,430 feet. We were instructed to lie down and get some sleep from 4:00 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. when we would get up and begin to prepare for the summit climb. At this point Scotty started to have a headache, which is another sign of altitude sickness. We both laid down but neither of us could sleep. People were coming and going in and out of our room, talking, and making noise. I was also fearful to fall asleep because I didn’t want to become even sicker than I already was. Knowing that in just a few short hours I’d be attempting to push myself farther than I ever have before put a knot in my stomach and I do admit I was quite nervous.
After tossing and turning, growing more frustrated by the hour, 9:30 finally arrived. Scotty and I got up and they had dinner for us. This was the moment I was dreading. I knew that I had 16 straight hours of hiking ahead of me and that I would need all of the energy I could eat. I psyched myself up and ate as much as I could, hoping I wouldn’t get sick.
The plan was that we would leave our current location, Kibo, at 11:00 p.m. and make it to the summit around 6:30 a.m. We would then be back down at Kibo around 11:00 a.m. for lunch. We would eat and then descend all the way down to the huts we stayed at on the first night. This would end up being 7,135 feet up and 10,500 feet down before we got a proper night’s sleep. I can’t run a mile on flat land and think I’m going to die after just 30 minutes on the elliptical at the gym. I am a driven women when it comes to challenges of the mental realm, but when it involves physical exertion I tend to cave quite quickly. Why in the world did I think that this would be a good idea?
Joseph, our assistant guide, Scotty, and I set off at 11:00 p.m. in the blackest dark I have ever experienced. We were told that the next five hours were the most difficult of the entire trail and I did everything I could to mentally prepare myself for it. For the first little while (I had no watch and no sense of time) I did my best to focus on work. It was the one thing I could think about to distract myself from the task at hand. What went well in my classroom last year? How do I want to teach math better? How can my transition time be smoother? These were the thoughts as I lumbered up the highest point in Africa in the middle of the night.
The first five hours of the climb is up a gravely path whose steepness is so intense that instead of going straight up, it zigzags back and forth about every thirty feet. There was very little moon that night and the stars were covered by clouds. The only light given was from my headlamp. I vividly remember looking straight up and the only thing I could see were the bouncing dots of other’s headlamps so high above me that I had to look again and make sure they weren’t stars. “I have to go all the way up there?!” I thought, horrified, realizing that more of the little bit of gumption and determination left in me had just escaped. “Note to self: don’t look up!” I thought. I guess the darkness isn’t so bad; maybe I don’t want to see what’s left to come.
The next hour of the climb is but a forgotten nightmare. My mind and body were on autopilot as I lumbered up the mountain, one painstaking step at a time. Finally we got to a small cave where we were to take a four minute rest before continuing on. As soon as I stopped walking, a wave of nausea swept over me, whipping through my body like a sudden dust storm on the prairie. Yet again became violently sick. This time, however, mere vomiting was not the only way my body wanted to rebel…. I hope no one ever has to experience getting sick like that while on the side of a freezing cold mountain, with no light, and multiple layers of clothing to peel off as quickly as possible.
When I crawled back to the cave, ready to begin my four minutes of much anticipated rest, Joseph, who had somehow suddenly turned into a harsh dictator, declared that since I was back we needed to continue the trek. “What about my four minutes? The last four minutes of my life were anything but a break!” This was no longer a voluntary jaunt up a little hill; it had quickly become a death march up a mountain and I was a captive prisoner.
At 6:00 a.m. when we should have been reaching the summit we instead finally made it to Gilman’s Point, which is the marker for another hours’ hike to the summit. Having expelled all of the food from my body and depleting all of the energy I possessed, I collapsed against a rock and mumbled that I could make it no further. Our cruel, unyielding task master once again made a sudden transition this time becoming the tender, encouraging guide I had previously known him to be. Finding and opening the Cliff Bar that I had in my backpack, he handed it to me and helped me sit up. Unfortunately, I had not remembered to move the Cliff Bar into my jacket before the assent and it was frozen solid. I threw it down in disgust, wanting nothing more than to devour it.
As we took a few minutes to recuperate before moving on, I sat and watched the sun begin to rise. All of the sudden, as if the stage curtain had been lifted, I was able to see the beauty and majesty that surrounded me. We were finally on the ice cap of the mountain top, surrounded by rocks and boulders, with glaciers that caught the morning sunlight and sparkled like crystals. The horizon’s layers of reds, orange, yellow, and blue were like wisps from the artist’s brush. Clouds were far below, creating an ocean of white puffy cotton.
Seeing the beauty that enveloped us and knowing that the hardest part of the climb was over gave Scotty and I both the kick start we needed to continue our journey to the top. The hike from Gilman’s point to the summit was somewhat level and not too strenuous compared to what we had been doing. Finally I could look ahead and see Uhuru Point, the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the point to which I had focused all of my energy for the last four days. Gone were the feelings pain, hunger, and frustration, and in their place were excitement, anticipation, and achievement. As I walked those last few hundred feet I turned on my cell phone and called my parents. Mom answered sleepily, for it was midnight in Florida. Through the ripping wind and my labored breathing I mumbled that I had made it to the summit. The connection was rather weak and we couldn’t talk for long, but hearing Mom’s excitement was enough to help me finish those last few steps to the top.
Scotty and I looked at each other and shook our heads. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we made it” we said. The views were staggering in such a way that words cannot begin to capture. We were on top of the world, above the clouds, and looking straight into the heavens. It was 8:30 a.m. and the sun was starting to warm up the ice enough for everything to glisten in its light.
My thermometer registered the temperature at Uhuru Point -10°F plus a wind chill. I do want to put a plug in for Mountain Hardware and Patagonia, the makers of my cold weather clothes, and Keen, the manufacturer of my boots. Not once during my entire climb was my body cold except for my face and hands on occasion. Of course, the longer we stood still, the cold seeped in. The massive hike ahead of us with a descent of 10,500 feet, would take many more hours. We spent a mere 20 minutes at the top snapping some photos before turning around to make our way down the mountain.
Joseph said that the zigzag trail we came up was not the way we would go down. Instead, there was a face of the mountain that was purely sand and rocks and we would use our hiking poles to ‘sand ski’ down. Scotty had gone ahead with our assistant guide, leaving Joseph to try and convince me to dangerously slide down this dusty path. Following his instruction, I dug my heels into the sand, leaned back, and let gravity work. The problem was that I had too little energy to actually stay upright. I was deadweight and continued to fall. Occasionally there would be a large rock covered by dirt, and my boot would hit it, bringing me tumbling to the ground. I was a dusty, moody mess and could not understand why people were actually encouraged to descend the mountain this way. I finally relented and allowed Joseph to take my backpack while I leaned on him for complete support to nearly drag me down this suicide hill.
I finally arrived at Kibo, where I had rested before the assent 12 long hours before. I laid down and rested for 30 glorious minutes and tried to eat a little before continuing the journey down. Although it was a long trek, lasting another six hours, I noticed that I physically felt better with every step. By the time we arrived at camp I was dead tired but feeling good otherwise and had finally had an appetite. Once I got to lower elevations the symptoms of altitude sickness vanished more quickly than I could have imagined. After a hearty dinner Scotty and I collapsed into a comatose sleep. The next morning we only had to hike about three hours until we were off the mountain. We flew down, walking with a sense of purpose and excitement.
Day Four and Day Five had been one continuous nightmare. They were without a doubt the most physically miserable two days of my life. I felt more physical pain and emotional struggle than ever before. At the same time, a sense of accomplishment and pride filled me. As soon as we had reached the bottom I knew that all of the pain and discomfort had been worth it. I had found within the recesses of my soul, strength and stamina that I did not know I possessed. I had won the physical and mental battle put before me and had witnessed a kind of beauty only seen by few.
After my first shower in nearly a week and another good meal that night, Scotty and I slept like babies before taking a bus to Kenya early the next morning. There we met some of my friends and went on a three day safari to Masai Mara National Park, which is the Kenyan extension of the Serengeti National Park. We then went to Lake Nakuru for another day of safari before flying back to Dar.
Scotty flew home and a few short days later I started back to work, but I will never forget the moments of tears and the feeling of triumph that accompanied me on that leisurely jaunt up a little hill.
Check out the pictures!
Kili
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2609724&id=5132789&l=bd99852bec
Safari - 3 separate albums
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2615814&id=5132789&l=99aa7a89e9
