Mt. Kilimanjaro - To the Summit and Beyond

At midnight we were promptly awoken from a less than satisfying sleep. Having never started a trek in the middle of the night, I didn’t know what to expect. We decided not to be proud and allowed Simon and one of the porters, Mysothiri, to carry our day packs. Of course my pride ended with my camera, which I carried myself. After quickly weaving through camp, we bumped smack into the back end of a line of lights. Faint head lamps serpentined up the mountain as the hikers plodded along the switchbacks. Distressingly, one by one hikers stopped dead in their tracks. Before the sun cracked the horizon their bodies were filled with exhaustion, their hearts filled with despair and their eyes filled with frozen tears.

I watched the GPS altimeter mark our progress as we rose from 4,545m / 15,000’ to 5,150m / 17,000’. I was still feeling pretty good, but that wouldn’t last. Like participating in a marathon, you just don’t feel good from 20-26 miles no matter your fitness level. At over 17,000’ you’re not going to feel like jumping for joy. We marked our progress by 75 vertical meters / 250’ at a time. It was slow, painfully slow, but better than my ascent with Matt on the Inca Trail.

We reached the peak, and it was cold beyond my wildest imagination. It was easily the most frigid I have ever felt. I thought the peak of Kala Pattar (Everest Base Camp Trek) was bad until this. Still the sky was starting to illuminate with a myriad of shapes forming in the distance.

Now, if you are thinking descending would be a simple task, you would be wrong. We had to drop 1,200 vertical meters / 4,000’ on a steep trail covered with loose ankle-twisting shale. I ignorantly expected we would simply head back down the path we came up. I was wrong, this was a different route entirely. I was never very good on the down to begin with, my knees were aged from far too many miles. They certainly were no better after hiking all night to 5,895m / 19,340’.

We made it back to the Barafu Camp parched, but that was not the end of it. We had another 1,500 vertical meters / 5,000’ to descend. So our total for the day was 1,240m / 4,100’ up and 2,760m / 9,100’ down. Now faced with taking a nap or being responsible and filtering more water, you can guess we took the nap. To my dismay, that left us with only 3/4 of a quart of water to get down.

The story continues...