The Roof of Africa

We made it! On the fifth day of our hike we made it to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. At 19,340 ft, it is the highest point in Africa! Here are some highlights:

Day 1: We were picked up by Duncan and James, our guide, at L'Oasis Lodge after a nice breakfast. At the tour company office, we picked up four more guys who would be traveling with us - Nemis (our chef), John, Six, and Ibrah (porters). We thought we had quite a group for just the two of us!

We first stopped at the main gate for registration and then carried on to the Rongai route trailhead. We were in the car for about 3 hours and after traveling over numerous dirt roads with the windows open, we were already filthy. At the trailhead at the Nale Moru village we were met by five more porters! We would have a team of ten go up the mountain with us!

After a packed lunch of chicken, a muffin, chocolate, fruit, and potato chips, we began our journey starting at approximately 6, 397 ft. We passed by a small farm and a boy, no more than two ran out after us. Apparently he liked me since he ran directly to me and attached himself to my leg. The kid looked like he had never seen a bath but was just as happy as can be. James spoke to the boy in Swahili and seemed to be telling him that he was coming with us. After his mother took him back we continued into a pine forest, which gradually turned into a rain forest where we saw a Colobus Monkey!

At the slow pace and with constant reminders to drink water from James we made it to our first camp at about 8, 530 ft. The porters had all the tents set up by the time we got there and very shortly after our arrival we had tea and popcorn.

Day 2: Day 2 took us from the first Caves camp to Kikelewa Cave, which is at approximately 11,811 ft. The hike went smoothly again. The evening got cold and then some rain rolled in for about an hour. It was just enough to wet the ground and leave us with frost on our tent in the morning. We didn't sleep very well on night two, particularly with a pack of wild dogs roaming around our campsite and attacking some poor screeching creature.

Day 3: On day 3 we gained about another 2,500 feet, bringing us to 14,206 feet at Mawenzi Tarn Camp. Upon arrival, Simon and I made the decision to ask if we could skip our acclimatization day, which was supposed to be Day 4. We both felt that another night with little sleep would be more of a problem for us than the altitude. Up to day 3, we were still feeling okay as far as the altitude goes thanks to James keeping our pace quite slow. James questioned our decision but said we would do whatever we wanted and so on Day 4, instead of staying another night at Mawenzi, we headed to Kibo Hut.

Day 4. We set off to Kibo Hut, which is the final stop before summit. Kibo Hut is at approximately 15,419 feet. Since all of the routes lead to Kibo Hut, this was the busiest camp site we had been at. All of the other sites had no more than one other group. At Kibo there were tourists and porters all over the place...some had just come down and some, like us, were ready to go up. We had lunch and tried to get some sleep before dinner. Unfortunately the howling wind made sleep quite difficult.

At dinner, we had to make the decision as to whether or not we'd bring a porter with us to the summit. If we didn't bring someone else and one of us was forced to go back down, we'd both have to go since the guide could not leave either of us alone. We were confident that we would make it and decided that it would be just the three of us. After dinner, we went back to bed to try to get a few winks before starting our final ascent at midnight. Simon managed to sleep a little. I did not at all.

Day 5. At 11:30 pm, Ibrah (a porter) woke us for tea and biscuits. By midnight we started up the mountain. This was the most physically and mentally challenging thing I have ever done. It took 7 hours and a lot of encouragement to make it to the summit (19,340 ft). I was wearing two long sleeved thermal tops, two t-shirts, a fleece jacket, a windbreaker, and a down jacket and was still cold. After taking our photos at the summit we quickly began back down. I was ready to go immediately as the altitude, and lack of food and water (the camelbak froze) had worn me down. It was a very long 3 hours down, but not nearly as long as the 7 hours up. When we made it back to sleep we had a few hours of rest before beginning another 4 hour hike to the next camp below.

Day 6 - After a good night of rest I was re-energized and ready for the 5 hour walk to Marangu gate. It was nice to take a different route down and see another side of the mountain. Covered in dirt and with aching feet, we finally finished.