Summit Day

The first pitch from Barafu camp. Looks short right? I thought so too, but this part takes 45 min to 1 hour.

This account was surprisingly hard to write, given how eventful it was.  I look back on it now, and realize that altitude reduces your capacity to think and feel.  I think it affected my memories as well, they are softer, fuzzier, and simpler than normal.  It’s like looking at the mountain from far away, the general shape is clear, and even some of the route is visible, but there’s no detail.  In fact, I think the pictures that I took are actually filling in my memory; they are what come to mind first when I try to think of details.

Summit day is long.  There’s just no way around that when you have to climb more than 1200m at high altitude.  Most people also try to make it up to the top for sunrise, which happens year round at about 6:30am.  As such, most groups start hiking from Barafu camp at 11pm or midnight.  It’s pretty brutal, especially given that most people get into camp at 4-5pm the evening before after a full day’s hike.  William and I decided to leave at 1am, because we knew we’d be going faster than average.

Stars and Headlamps

I woke up with a splitting headache.  Yeah I know, great start.  I did what I could: I popped some Advil and hoped for the best.  We started up the mountain, and the stars were incredible.  The moon had set, so it was just us and stars.  We could also see all of the headlamps of the other hikers bobbing in front of us, and they looked like stars as well.  Combined with my altitude delirium, it was really beautiful.  Luckily, as we got moving my headache started to fade.  It was pretty cold, probably about freezing when we started from camp.

After my Shasta experience when all of my water had frozen solid, I had decided to sleep with one of my water bottles in my sleeping bag to warm it up.  This turned out to be a great decision, as I had water all the way up the mountain.  The threads kept freezing, but eventually I just left it partially unscrewed.

So there we were, moving fast up a mountain that I could barely see.  However, from what I could see, it didn’t look that far to the top.  Oh, are looks deceiving, this mountain was just so much bigger than the brain can process.  We topped the first ridge, it looked like the top was just over the next ridge.  Then we topped the second, and there the summit was, just over the next hump.  Then we reached the third ridge, then the fourth.  Yeah, you get the point.  All of this time, the air was getting thinner, and exhaustion was creeping into my body.  Exhaustion of the kind that you can only get above 16,000ft.  I’ve been higher than 16,000ft twice now, and I’m convinced that I have NEVER been exhausted below 16,000ft, I have merely been tired.  True exhaustion is when it hurts to merely put one foot in front of the other, when you can’t imagine taking another step, when you think it’s impossible move another inch.  So, you don’t think.  You just do.  You clear your head of thoughts, or you think about the stars, your warm tent, the summit, anything but the loose scree underfoot.  You focus on your guide’s back, and pretend he’s not actually moving.  You forget that you have legs, even a body at all.  You simply exist.

Sunrise over Mawenzi Peak from Stella Point.

William turned out to be somewhat hardcore.  He had kept saying to me, that he’s hadn’t had a client who failed to reach the summit since 2004, and that we couldn’t fail. We’d been hiking for about 1.5 hours straight since camp, and I thought it would be a good time to take a short break, get some water, and a bite to eat.  So I asked, “tunaweza simama hapa?” (can we stop here).  William turns to me, and says, “Gregory, are you SERIOUS?  Are you SERIOUS about getting to the top? Because it seems to me that you are not serious.”  I got a nice little lecture there on the side of the mountain on my physical fortitude but mental weakness.  In retrospect, it’s pretty funny.  Then, I was confused and tired, and wondering, what is going on?  So, we pressed on.  And on.  And on.  4 hours after we left camp, he finally turns to me, and says, “from here, I know we can make it, so you can rest.”  I gratefully sat down, munched on a sandwich, and grabbed some water.

The legendary snows of Kilimanjaro

As you might imagine after hiking up a mountain for 4 straight hours at extreme altitude, I was pretty exhausted at this point, and he told me we had two hours left.  “How was I going to make it for another two hours?” I thought.  It was bitterly cold, probably somewhere around 15oF, and my body had long since stopped generating heat.  Just then, I noticed a little color in the sky, the dawn was breaking.  Maybe, just maybe, the summit was within reach.  We pressed on, and there was Stella Point, our arrival point on the rim of the crater.  We reached it at about 6am, just as the brilliant colors of the dawn broke on the mountain.  From Stella Point, I could also finally see the summit on the far side of the crater, far away, but not too far.  Hope also dawned on me.

Walking around the crater rim

We walked along the crater, slowly, and with frequent breaks.  The air was just as thin as I remembered, and the climb up had used up most of my reserves.  I was having trouble moving more than about 25 yards at a time.  My headache had come back, along with some nausea.  I was hallucinating as well, and the glaciers danced in my eyes, like they were alive.  It was trippy, and not altogether pleasant.  At this point, there were a number of other hikers, some being supported by their guides, and others walking under their own power.  That walk around the crater seemed interminable as we walked by 40 foot tall walls of ice, scrambled over rocks, and avoided the precipice down into the crater on our right.  But finally, there it was: the sign at the top of Uhuru peak, the roof of Africa.  At this point, I couldn’t feel my toes from the cold, and my legs were numb with exhaustion. I wish I’d had the energy to celebrate.  All I managed was to think, “this is pretty cool,” and even that was an effort. But we were at the top, the highest point in all of Africa, the top of the world’s highest freestanding mountain on land, the point from which you can see more of the Earth’s surface than any other.  A successful day’s work, mission: accomplished.

At the top!

The view from the top.

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