Mount Kilimanjaro

While I was in Tanzania, I was without internet service. I couldn't keep a blog and so my experiences were kept in a journal. But, on a very long flight back to the US, I decided to write a little bit about my experience climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Mount Kilimanjaro
July 24-29th, 2011
Summit: 7:55 am on July 28th
Marangu Route

Uhuru Peak 5895 meters
Stella Point 5740 meters
Gillman’s Point 5681 meters

Kibo Hut
Horombo Hut
Mandara Hut

Summit
Alpine Desert
Heather and Moorland
Rain Forest
Cultivation


The Kili climb all started on Sunday, the 24th, with our group of ten anxious and excited people. We all piled into our van and sent our duffel bags in a different van full of African men and luggage. We rented some necessary gear at the bottom, signed up in the departure book and started on our journey that started with the rain forest. We were all feeling pretty confident knowing that we had avoided alcohol for a few days and were all prepared with adequate clothes…then we looked over at a group of middle-aged Austrian men that had bottles of Hennessey in their day packs and were smoking while wearing ‘breathe right’ strips…not to mention the multiple men in the group hiking in crocs. We were so confused.

The first day was only about a two-hour hike, which was broken up by a lunch break. It was hot and sticky with slippery mud coating the rocks under our still beautiful hiking boots. It only took us about fifteen minutes into the climb to stop and remove many unnecessary layers. Regardless of this day being the easiest day of the six-day hike, it was an uphill climb that burned our quads and we were so happy to see our first huts. The first night we stayed at Mandara and our “huts” turned out to be small cabins. We had bunk beds and thin mattresses to cushion our sleeping bags. We even had a bathroom to use with an actual toilet! What luxury. Monkeys were in the trees and we thought they were so cute until it was about 3 am and we had to go outside to use the restroom (which turned into stepping about 3 feet outside of your cabin and using the “natural choo”…choo is “latrine” in swahili). In the middle of the night the cute little monkeys make noises like small dinosaurs…it didn’t take long for the girls to get used to “going” in the grass. The altitude medication that we were on made us need to use the restroom very frequently along and the obscene amounts of water we were consuming. Each afternoon we had teatime that consisted of ‘drinking chocolate’, tea, coffee and popcorn or cookies. Lunches were packed for us and were the strangest combination of foods…usually with an orange, banana, juice, chicken, muffin and samosa. Dinners were hot and delicious. They usually consisted of a carb—noodles or rice—a soup, meat and vegetables. We were always so hungry so anything edible would be great.

The second day we used our walking poles and gaiters because we were going to be hiking through the “heather and moorland” zone. It was green but much more open to the sky than the rain forest. We could see for miles and it was fairly warm outside. This day was about a 5-6 hour hike and there were plenty of rocks to slip on so stepping carefully was necessary, as always. We had a rather long hike this day so at the times that it wasn’t completely uphill, we were able to play category games and go down the line with favorite things such as favorite drinks or movies. Talking helped pass the time but there was a good 2 hours that we could barely breathe from hiking up such a steep portion of the mountain. By lunchtime on this day, we were all covered in dirt. We had completely given up on any sort of hand hygiene when eating and a little bit of purell just turned the dirt into mud…it’s easy to get used to these things on Kilimanjaro. At all of the lunch stops there was a choo (bathroom) but they were easily the most repulsive things we had ever experienced and the raunchiness only got more extreme as we made it up the mountain. After 6 hours of hiking, many sketchy bridges and a trachea full of dirt…we made it to the Horombo Huts. The altitude of these huts is 3720 meters and you look down onto the clouds. A lot of kids in our group started to lose their appetites at this altitude and the many symptoms of altitude sickness were only starting to begin. We stayed the night at Horombo and had a great dinner after a long day of hiking. We spent our evening playing cards, joking around in our hut and taking turns using the choo. As the sun goes down each night, the mountain gets very cold and so leaving the hut to use the bathroom (which over the days means taking one step out of your hut and going right there) gets to be more of a task. But, it sure is amazing to look up at the bright, abundant stars each night that you swear you can touch if you tried.

On the third day we woke up to a warm bowl of water on our step for washing (like every morning) which is usually a lost cause due to the dirt buildup on our bodies from the past month. This day was our acclimation day. We had breakfast and started a day hike up to Zebra rock that we were told would only take about two hours. Tanzanians have no sense of time…so about 3 hours later we are still hiking and tired as can be. We see Zebra rock and can look beyond it for what seems to be miles. Mount Kilimanjaro has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. But, as always, we never stop when we’re beat. Our guides take us up on TOP of Zebra Rock. All any of us can think about is how the heck we would ever climb back down seeing that nearly all of us nearly broke our faces trying to maneuver ourselves up the side of the rock. We did some exploring when we finally reached the top and I climbed up on a rock that I nearly lost my leg trying to get off of later. We took a different path down but it was a steep dirt path with plenty of small, rolling rocks below our boots trying to take our feet out from under us with every step. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing what we do best on the mountain—playing cards and using the choo. On this evening, our guides came to speak with us at dinner explaining what the fourth day would entail. We anticipated a terribly long hike (another 6 hours) but what we were most terrified about was what would come at about 11 pm on the fourth day.

On the fourth day we left Horombo and I can honestly say that if I knew what was ahead of me, I would have to think long and hard about my decision to go. We hiked for hours past Zebra rock, over small streams, through the alpine desert and through a ton of rain and hail. By about the fourth hour, we were starving and trying to ignore the painfully cold winds and the hail pounding on our hands, we stopped to eat our lunches that were packed away in our backpacks. It was difficult to eat considering I didn’t want my hands out of my jacket for longer than a minute but I was starving so Chris and I found a huge rock to block some of the wind and started choking some food down. After about 15 minutes, we continued the next hour and half to the Kibo Huts. At one point, we could see the campsite in the distance and that was always a good sign for us. Then we turned around to see what we just hiked through and it was completely white from the hail. Good timing, kids. For some reason, the crazy African who built Kibo found the need to build it at the top of an incredible steep hill…. This is something that nobody would want to conquer after over 5 hours of hiking uphill. We made it to Kibo, smiles smeared across all of our faces and we all celebrated with a huge, frozen group hug. It was such an accomplishment. Our bodies were aching, our feet were giving up and at this time, my respiratory system decided to die on me. I could hardly breathe and was coughing up some disgusting stuff that should never be described. We used the choo…which was literally hanging off of the cliff and was the worst one I had seen in Africa thus far. Being close to it is enough to make you vomit. By this point, most of the Austrian men were throwing up but it wasn’t unusual to see someone throwing up in the corner at Kibo. It’s all part of the experience. Kibo housed about 1/3 of the amount of people that Horombo housed…. I understood why after making the hike up there. It was a killer. I now understood why there is a certificate for just making it to Kibo as well as one for making it to Uhuru peak. The Kibo hut was one big building. We had a room for the ten of us with a table in the middle of the bunk beds. One of the kids in our group described the hut as a Russian prison or a brothel. I didn’t even notice…I was just happy to be there and to (sort of) be breathing. It was snowing, hailing and just plain freezing up at Kibo but the worst part about being there in the light was looking up at what we had to climb later. It was about 2 pm and our guide told us to rest and they would bring dinner at 5:30. We were to sleep til 10:30 pm and then at 11:00 we would get something to eat, bundle up, strap on our headlamps and start on what was about to be one of the most terrifying, yet memorable, experiences of my life.

10:30 pm came way too quickly. We all were hoping that it was all a dream and we were back at the convent with the nuns…but we weren’t. It was dark and cold and we were at a part on the 4th tallest mountain in the world where there is nowhere to go but up. So up we went. We all ate a cookie (being a dietitian I will never understand why a cookie is served right before an outrageously strenuous hike) and filed out the door. We stood in a huddle with no lights but our headlamps and the stars. We looked like Eskimos all bundled up and we tried to stay in high spirits for the first part of the climb. Masaii, our leader, was in the front followed by all of the girls and the guys were in the back. I’m assuming that this is so if the girls fall, the guys can catch us. If the boys were in front and fell, we’d be in big trouble. We had other leaders scattered in between us and they would cut in line to back someone up if they were throwing up or not walking straight. We weaved our way up the mountain at a fairly slow pace but every cell in my body was on fire. After about an hour and a half, I was feeling pretty confident. I was one of the few that weren’t dry heaving or falling every 10 feet. At some points, I knew that if I took one step to the right or left, I was off a cliff or at least a very long, unpleasant drop. There is not a single thing to protect you if you fall. Cold, hard rocks and bits of snow were all we had under our feet. At some points we had sand or gravel but that was much worse due to the ease of slipping. Over the hours we would stop periodically but only for a minute due to the chances of hypothermia or just simply passing out. At one point I laid back to catch my breath (respiratory system nearly shot at this point) and the guide propped me up and said “Don’t close your eyes. You won’t wake up.” I really hoped something was lost in translation there. During the whole hike I kept looking up onto the mountain ahead of me only to see groups of headlamps at least a hundred yards above me. I knew that we had a miserable night ahead of us. My friend Jenny had stumbled her way up the mountain for about two hours and needed to stop every 50 steps or so. We couldn’t stop and wait for her because we would lose time and the longer we were out there, the more dangerous it is. I later found out that she had passed out and fallen about 30 feet down the mountain. David, who was nearly throwing up the whole way up, went down with her. She is so lucky to not be injured. One wrong move and things can go seriously wrong on those rocks. At about 5 am we hit an outrageously steep area. We couldn’t see the full extent of it, which was good, but I was losing the drive I needed to get me up those rocks. I wasn’t even seeing the mountain anymore and I was starting to see flashes of my friends and family back home. There wasn’t a happy place I could go to. I felt completely empty. I could barely breathe and movement was not up to me anymore. My muscles were slowing shutting down and I just about gave up. Then I realized that I had two options. I could either keep going up or I could go back down. Going down was equally, if not more, horrifying because I knew what I had just climbed up. Going back down in the light was going to terrible but it would be so nice to see the whole area so I knew that I needed to keep pushing on until the sun came up. We were all tripping and falling and trying to hold each other up when we stumbled back. There wasn’t anything pleasant about the last hour of the climb to Gillman’s Point. We had about 50 yards to go of just rocks and for most of the time, our poles were in one hand and we were climbing up with our feet and our free hand just praying that our feet were on sturdy rocks. If we fell, there wouldn’t be anything to break it at this point so you better have a great grip on whatever you’re holding onto. At about 6 am I had an entirely thoughtless mind and finally I heard someone say “Congratulations! You made it to Gillman’s Point!” I have never been happier in my life. I crawled over next to some of our group and we just all sat there in silence as the sun came up over the peak in the distance. We looked down at the area of the mountain we just conquered even though clouds covered most of it. I had a glass of hot tea in my hand, the sunrise in the distance and a body (sitting at 5681 meters above sea level) that would never forgive me for what I just put it through and I could honestly say, it was totally worth it. We sat there and enjoyed the moment for about 10 minutes and then it was another two hours to Uhuru.

The next two hours to Uhuru were just a long, drawn out waiting game. Our bodies were beaten down and it took everything inside of us to not look up and just wonder where the heck that stupid summit sign was that we’d seen all over google. Each step seemed to be harder than the last. We took a brief water break at Stella Point (5740 meters) and as we were sitting there, probably looking outrageously defeated, this 20-something Canadian guy came walking towards us and goes “only 45 more minutes guys! You can taste it now!” and let out a cheer. He was so enthusiastic and high on life that it gave us a little smile and a great amount of hope. We continued on our journey and turned around a boulder and there it was…the “Uhuru Summit” sign that we’d longed to see for many days. My friend Kate burst into tears of happiness and exhaustion. I put my arm around her and at 7:55 am, we made our way to the highest point in Africa—Uhuru Summit sitting at 19, 341 feet (5895 meters). We stayed up at the summit for about 10-15 minutes to take pictures and then it was right back down to avoid frostbite. We hiked down with huge smiles thinking that it’s literally all down hill from here. We were so wrong.

We hiked from Uhuru, glaciers on either side of us and the sun on our faces, back to Gillman’s. This hike down took us about 30 minutes versus the two hours it took to head up. I tried to take in the fact that I just made it to the summit and just really enjoy where I was. We made it to Gillman’s and it really hit us—we needed to hike DOWN the steepest area of the mountain. Since the sun was up, we could now see the terribly dangerous area of the climb. There is absolutely no room to slip and each step required a long thought process. I followed right behind the guide and he just kept saying in Swahili “pole pole” which means “slowly slowly”. We were all shaking with the fear of tripping because it would be a terrible place to fall. We were surrounded by rock and we went down about 8-14 inches with each step. We finally made it to a path of dirt and small rocks and one of the guides looked at me and goes “are you ready?” What in the world could he possibly be talking about? I just climbed a massive mountain, I’m tired, my knees are killing me…odds are, no, I’m not ready! Before I could even ask what the heck he was talking about, he grabs one of my poles and goes “let’s ski!” We just started “skiing” down the mountain…in hiking boots? This was about as graceful as it sounds. We stumbled down the mountain for about 200-250 yards. It was probably the worst thing for our knees but we were having fun so we would run and slide and just cover ourselves in dirt. It was a great day.

After about four hours, we made it back to Kibo! We drank juice on the ground and stayed out of the room because Jenny and David were still asleep. David came out later and told me that a guide brought my backpack in and said “The girl didn’t make it down”…so David had been thinking for hours that I was dead. He was happy to see me, to say the least. We all made our way into the room and I went straight to bed. We only had a few hours before we needed to make our way back to Horombo and I needed sleep. I had been coughing up blood for hours so I thought maybe a nap would help? I ended up coughing in my sleep for a few hours only waking up when one of my friends had some tea for me. Great friends to have! After this, we packed up our bags once again and made our way back through the desert to Horombo. Jenny and I joked and talked the whole way down and we bought snickers and beer at Horombo. It was a celebration! We ate a much-deserved dinner and crashed. The next morning, our guides all sang to us a song in Swahili about Kilimanjaro. I had no idea what they were saying but it was a happy moment in my life!

On the 6th day, we finished our descending hike back to the entrance gate. Between the altitude and my respiratory infection, I could barely breathe. Every once in awhile I would black out and fall over so by the time I made it to Mandara, I was completely black because of my four face plants into the dirt. Jenny was covered as well so we probably looked so pathetic. The last two hours of the hike were through the rain forest and this was terrifying because of the wet, muddy rocks. Jenny and I tried to distract ourselves with conversation but the pain in our legs and the longing desire to see that gate were hard to ignore. A couple hours later we heard a car horn and that only meant one thing—it was just around the corner! The day hikers gave us the strangest looks as we made our way to the gates but we didn’t care. We took a “victory” picture, signed ourselves out of the mountain and enjoyed a cheeseburger at the bottom. That was it, it was over! We had survived six of the most physically and emotionally draining days of our lives…but with huge smiles across our faces.