Kilimanjaro Trek (Rongai Route) - Day 5: Summit at Long Last!

Date: 5 July 2010

Summit: 5,895m

Altitude gained: 1,200m
Trek length: 5km ascent + 21 km descent

Walking time: 11.30hrs (6.30hrs to summit, 2.30hrs back to base then 2.30hrs to Horombo Huts)

The dream team at the summit 

Any day starting at 12am is either going to be very good or very bad and I guess this one has been a mixture of both. It's now just about 3pm and I've been up for the past 15 hours, and spent the majority of that time walking.

All trekking groups left base camp at midnight and as it's obviously complete darkness the headtorches made the whole thing look a bit like a KKK procession. I think there were probably around 100 of us in total and within a few minutes you could already tell the relative strengths of different groups: some were already visibly struggling whilst others were storming ahead. Not that this is a competition against other trekkers in any shape or form - this is a struggle against one own's fatigue, aches and pains, against the freezing cold, the wind, the lack of visibility, the moving stone scree, a fight against the mountain where everyone hopes to stand at the top and take a piece of it back with them.

My struggle started with the temperature, as my toes quickly froze over and my fingers felt cooler and cooler by the minute despite wearing two pairs of gloves. I had the opposite issue up top as I had too many layers under my thick (Michelin man style) down jacket, but couldn't face wasting any energy to remove layers. Both these issues were dwarfed by the next problem which I faced: the tube of my Camelback water pouch froze over so I was unable to drink any water. However, all this paled in comparison with what one of our group members had to deal with: Danish Mike, who was not taking any Diamox (which helps prevent the onset of altitude sickness), was repeatedly ill from 5,000m onwards. I was walking behind him for much of the night and whilst I felt like a complete zombie swaying in the night, I can only imagine how horrible he must have felt running on zero fuel.

It took us 4.5hrs to reach the crater rim at Gilman's Point (5,700m) and my memory of those hours is pretty blurred as I was pretty much functioning on auto-pilot. Long gone were the days of playing games of categories or guessing the names of celebrities. In fact, barely anyone spoke more than a few words during the entire time, such was the air thin and so low were our energy levels, and I even had to stop myself from falling asleep whilst walking at least a handful of times. The terrain helped ensure that I stayed awake - the loose foothold means that you feel like you lose about 10% of your footing with every step. The things that stand out in my mind include the watchful eye of the moon, the amazing stars, the lights of villages in the distance which looked a million miles away, the difficulty breathing, the elation at the few breaks we did have, and the warm cup of tea which our guides gave us a Gilman's Point!

Reaching Gilman's Point

Psychologically, reaching Gilman's Point in 4.5hrs gave us a real boost as we had thought we would take at least an hour longer, and we knew that the final 2 to 3 hr section - whilst still far in terms of distance - only involved a total incline of c. 200m... so after a short rest, we set off again now hoping to make it to Uhuru by sunrise. As the volcanic scree was thankfully gradually replaced with snow / ice, we started crossing trekkers already making their way back down.

The elation I felt when I first spotted the eponimous Uhuru Peak sign was very measured. I still had about 100m to go and had to maintain my concentration in order to avoid falling on the rock-like ice formations... And there was another distraction, as we approached the sign, the sun began to rise above the right side of the crater, gradually illuminating our group, the peak, the nearby glaciers and the entire horizon below. Our timing could hardly have been better and the view can only really be compared to the sort of view you might see from an airplane, 10,000m high with clouds obscuring the view below, with a stillness and a feeling of being truly on top of the world... albeith with 40% less Oxygen and frozen from top to bottom.

Glaciers by Uhuru Peak

As expected, we only remained on Uhuru for a few minutes, just enough time to take a few pictures for posterity. The descent back to the rim of the crater was the most rewarding part of the trip. As we crossed multiple groups of trekkers who looked more and more exhausted as time went on, the view was nothing short of spectacular. The huge glaciers reminded me of the Perito Moreno in Patagonia, but the fact that these were at almost 6,000m made them completely surreal and timeless.

Sliding down the mountain to Kibo

The descent back to Kibo base was by contrast extremely tough both mentally and physically on the knees and thighs. The quickest descent route is straight down throught the scree, where one literally skids down legs bent, dodging rocks and eating dust. The closest comparison I can think of physically is skiing down a boulder filled slope for 5kms where one's centre of gravity has to be super low, one's legs constantly bent and one's attention 100% focused on the slope below. My legs were so weak by this point that they almost jarred / locked a number of times, with camp only slowly appearing closer in the valley below.

Thankfully I had a mini cause for celebration as our Chief Guide, Happyson, managed to defrost my drinking tube which provided a desperately needed access to water. However, soon after arriving at camp, absolutely exhausted, I felt the downside of rapid fluid ingestion with no food to help with absorption. Within minutes of laying down in my tent, I developed an acute headache and was sick repeatedly for the next hour, intermittently being ill and falling back to sleep exhausted. Very conscious of the fact that we still had to treak down to our next camp for the night, I forced myself to snap out of my grodgy state and joined the others for a bland piece of bread and some pasta. And whilst this was supposed to have been a celebratory meal, I can safely say that it didn't look like one. We were all undoubtedly super pleased to have made it to the top, but the fatigue and aches and pains had really taken their toll!

Our subsequent walk down along the popular Marangu route gave us a real taster of the difference of the popular "Coca-Cola" route where we crossed multiple fresh faced and perfectly teether Americans, whose anxious / inquiring looks were only matched with our satisfaction with having already completed the trek!

Kilimanjaro Trek (Rongai Route) - Day 4: Heading to Kibo Base Camp

Date: 4 July 2010
Camp altitude: 4,700m
Altitude gained: 400m
Trek length: 9km

American Independence Day today and we couldn't feel much further from civilisation if we tried... actually we could, another 1,000m until we reach Uhuru Peak, the top of Kilimanjaro and the highest point in Africa! With any luck, we'll be tucking into a celebratory lunch within the next 24 hours.

It's 12.30pm and we've just done 4 hours of trekking to reach Kibo Hut at 4,700m. Throughout the morning we were facing the mountain whilst trekking: what was a small peck in the distance a few days ago has gradually increased in size and it's great to have finally reached base camp, although the steepness of the ascent awaiting us tonight is hardly making us all jump for joy.

For the first two hours, I was only wearing a thermal long-sleeved top and a wind-stopper and despite being bitterly cold I couldn't face stopping in the freezing wind to add another layer. Only once we reached a handful of isolated rocks was I able to slouch down to shield myself from the wind and add a fleece!

We also crossed the wreckage of a plane that crashed and killed all four passengers two years ago, which was just a few kilometres before reaching base camp, and definitely put things in perspective. I suppose no one has the energy to remove the wreckage or perhaps it's just left there as a reminder that nature really is king in this part of the world!

The feeling of vulnerability was accentuated by the altitude as well. My heart was pounding out of my chest in the final hour especially and every inhalation felt like a struggle. I now have a splitting headache and I'm hoping that food, rest and plenty of water will help me get back on my feet by this evening. The plan is to sleep this afternoon as we're waking up at 11.30pm to start our final ascent and hopefully reach the summit by sunrise.

It's 6.30pm now and 4.5hrs until our wake-up call for the summit climb and I write these words with the last bit of natural light seeping through the tent. I'm already wearing my thermals for the climb and the warmest pair of socks which I've been saving for tonight. The splitting headache that I had earlier has almost disappeared - the joy of popping a few paracetamols, drinking water and having a power nap. Let's hope that another 4 hours' sleep will do the trick and I'll feel as good as new by the time we start the climb.

It's difficult to explain what awaits us but from Base Camp, the incline looks super steep. The summit itself doesn't look that far as such but it's a vertical 1,000m climb which will take us 6 hours at the very least. I really hope we all make it, and ideally together. We'll be going up with our chief guide and the two assistant guides, Jonas and Julius, so that there is support if one (or more!) of us gets ill and needs to stop or descend quickly.

Without wanting to dramatise things too much, if something does happen to me, I love you all dearly! I'm pretty confident that I'll read these words feeling slightly ridiculous in 18 hours' time, having just reached the tallest peak in Africa but in the meantime, there's still a mountain to climb, so to speak!

Kilimanjaro Trek (Rongai Route) - Day 3: World Cup Fever @ 4,300m

Date: 3 July 2010
Camp altitude: 4,300m
Altitude gained: 600m
Trek length: 4km

It's just past midday and we've already set up camp for the day. Well I say we've set up camp but in reality, as every other day, the porters have marched ahead and set up our tents for us that they're all up by the time we make it in. And they're now preparing a warm lunch so that we can refuel ahead of our acclimatisation walk this afternoon. If that's not luxury then what is?!

We're now at about 4,300m and whilst there is still a fair way to go before we reach the summit, we already feel that we're close to the top of the world. The cloud line is well below us and the view is staggering. Once again, the difference in temperature has been quite incredible today - within a few minutes, the weather can suddenly turn and scorching 25C heat can turn into 5C cold with wind chill forcing us to whip out fleeces and windstoppers.

It's amazing how easily one adjusts to the trekking lifestyle: up at 6.30am, a quick "washi-washi" as the posters call our morning clean (where we use and abuse a small bucket of warm water and baby wipes to freshen up), followed by breakfast (a water-based porridge, which is so foul that we have affectionately called it 'summit medicine'), a three-hour trek, lunch, more trekking in the afternoon, followed by tea, dinner and sleep by 8.30pm!

Despite the altitude, when we arrived at camp this afternoon an ultra-keen group of Czech trekkers were organising a mini football world-cup. I managed to squeeze in a quick kick-about with a few of the porters and gladly avoided the actual tournament because within 5 minutes I was so out of breath that I had to lie down for a 10 minute breather! I have no idea how the teams managed it... in fact some didn't. It was particularly entertaining to see a Mexican team's egos crash and fall as they all started panting within a few minutes and had to get the porters to come in as subs!

Ghana was playing against Uruguay last night in the actual World Cup and the porters were avidly following the game over the radio: proof that there is some truth in the cheezy images we've all seen of remote villagers in the middle of Africa huddling around a transistor radio! Whilst we would have liked an African nation to go further in the tournament, some smart soul in another group has been carrying a Vuvuzela up the mountain and we were told that he would make full use of it if Ghana won, so it was quite a relief that they were knocked out and we could have a decent night's sleep!

Kilimanjaro Trek (Rongai Route) - Day 2: No pain, no gain

Date: 2 July 2010
Camp altitude: 3,700m
Altitude gained: 1,000m

Trek length: 12km

I'm lying down inside my sleeping bag with thermals, a fresh pair of trekking socks, and my North Face down jacket, and I can positively say that the cold has hit us. We're at 3,700m and whilst it's only 8.30pm, we've all set off to bed (a.k.a our tents) as it was absolutely freezing in the mess tent and it's getting cooler by the minute.

We trekked from 8am to 4pm with a 1.5hr break for lunch so it's been a pretty intense day. The final section gave us a sense of what the coming days would look like - a strange landscape with charred vegetation (due to a fire which ravaged the area a few years ago), and the mist / clouds rolling up and down the mountain giving only an occasional glimpse of sunshine.

We entertained ourselves today with a number of games, including celebrity name games, and categories, where we took turns to name items from standard to purely obscure categories... We're all quite anxious about the days to come as the cold and fatigue are properly affecting our energy levels. No injuries or illnesses to report so far so we hope we can all reach the summit together!

Over and out, my fingers are too cold to write any more tonight!

Kilimanjaro Trek (Rongai Route) - Day 1: Easy Peasy

Date: 1 July 2010

Camp altitude: 2,600m

Altitude gained: 640m

Trek length: 7km

Just short of 8pm and I'm already tucked in bed - or rather in the four season sleeping bag which I've rented from Exodus (the tour operating company I'm using) - and I'm absolutely desperate for a good night's sleep.

The first day's walk was anything but strenuous, in fact it was deceptively easy: an hour walk through plantations followed by a break for a lunch in the forest, then a two-hour walk through heathland up to the campsite. Even though we were at a relatively low altitude today, the difference in air quality was definitely noticeable as I felt short of breath and generally much more exhausted than I had expected. Upon arriving at camp. we walked an additional 40 mins up tomorrow's path to acclimatise, before returning to the lower altitude of camp to sleep for the night.

There are five of us in the trekking group itself: Ryan and Heather, a Scottish couple who have spent 2 months travelling around Southern Africa; Mikael, a Danish sales manager who lives in Manchester; Tom, a biology student at Durham; and yours truly. The support team however is massive with a total of 21 individuals: 3 guides, 1 cook, 4 helping porters and 14 ordinary porters. Whilst we only carry our day packs of c. 5kg, the porters storm past us carrying c. 15-20kg of kit, including our belongings, the sleeping bags, mats, sleeping tents, mess tent, kitchen utensils, etc.

The camp itself is very basic, in fact there is no camp as such, it's just an open area where the porters have pitched our tents. The only reason why it may be called a camp is because there is a table where we have to register our names, and a toilet, which is basically a hole carved out of a wooden platform above a pit. We've already counted our blessings that Exodus provide a 'private' toilet which is basically a seat above a bucket in a separate tent-like enclosure, which is marginally better than the hole in the ground...

After tucking into an afternoon tea and a first round of cards, we ate dinner, consisting of courgette soup, spicy fish and potatoes, and a fruit salad: not quite gourmet but excellent considering the conditions.

The highlight of the day came when our Chief Guide, Happy Son, came to introduce himself after dinner (after clearly having had a few drinks), as we looked on incredulously. He found it impossible to remember anyone's names, especially struggling with Heather and Ryan. Word associations like 'Weather' for Heather and 'Bryan' Adams for Ryan didn't seem to help. Faced with the possibility that our Chief Guide was actually a drunkard, we managed not to make any sarcastic comments when Happy Son told us that his brother, called "Good Luck", had sadly died a few years earlier... I'm also not convinced he'll remember our names by the morning which is slightly worrying in light of the fact that we're practically putting our lives in his hands for the next few days...