I’ll save you the suspense – WE MADE IT! Technically 5 of the 6 of us made it to Uhuru Peak (the tippy-top), but the other one made it all the way to Stella Point which is on the crater rim and probably only 30-45 minutes from Uhuru before she suffered temporary altitude blindness and was quickly turned around by our amazing guide. So, congratulations to all of us.
We did the Marangu Route and there seemed to be much less snow than was even on the mountain one week ago.
Day 1: Marangu to Mandara Hut. After a bit of a slow start due to credit card machine malfunctions at the gate we started off through the beautiful forest. We were all a bit nervous and it felt good to get moving. Lunch was served to us in style trail-side and we made it Mandara Hut in about 4 hours. Due to the late start, our group was sort of separated into different huts, so Elizabeth and I were bunked with two very large, tattooed German men (and you know I have nothing against tattoos, just trying to provide a visual). They turned out to be very light on English, but they were both very nice and polite. (They were doing a 5 day climb, so we ran into them again on our way up to Kibo (their way down). Their advice: “Drink, piss, drink, piss”.) After we settled in, we went for a short hike up to Maundi Crater. This was our pattern for the rest of the trip. Get to the hut and then hike up a bit further for acclimatization then come back down to eat and sleep. Monkeys (blue and colobus) were calling all around the huts. We had our first of several glorious sunrises above the clouds.
Meet the ladies: Charlotte, Trine, Elizabeth, Carolynn, me, and Christine.
Day 2 and 3 we did a 6 hour hike to Horombo Huts where we spent two nights to again aid with acclimatization. Horombo had a bit more buzz to it since both uphill and downhill climbers stop here as well as tenters from other routes. At Horombo all six of us got to stay in our own little hut. Here we also got our first glimpse of the Senecio Kilimanjari….very cool, Dr. Suess looking trees. Most of us did an afternoon walk through the senecio forest and then on our day 2 we did a hike up to Zebra Rocks (~13,500 feet/4100m). More beautiful sunrises and views of both Kibo and Mawenzi peaks (two of the three different eruptions of Kilimanjaro). I was getting used to getting woken up and having coffee brought to me in bed. When I came home, I told Ashlyn that I’d love her just a little bit more if she brought me coffee in bed every morning. Bedtimes were early and we had lots of time to read…sleep was starting to get a little elusive above 12,000 feet.
Day 4 – Almost 6 hour hike to Kibo Hut. The final stopover before our summit attempt that evening. We got to Kibo for lunch and then were told to rest and try to sleep from 2-4:30 when we’d be woken up for an early dinner. We were now at 15,500 feet. I think we all slept a little and then had a light dinner (digestion was also getting a little challenging). Back to sleep/rest from about 6:30-10:30pm when we were woken up for the trek to the top of Africa. Again I think we all slept a little bit. It was very cold and we started a very steep climb from Kibo Hut to Gilman’s Point (the top of the mountain and edge of the crater, but not THE top). Godson had us lined up single file in an order that maybe meant something to him. I was the last of the 6 of us…not sure what that means. This is when the altitude really started to hit everyone. We literally shuffled our feet for about 6 hours. Godson (our guide) wouldn’t let us sit down, so if we needed a rest we just leaned on our poles for a few breaths and then started shuffling again (Godson wasn’t being mean by doing this, but said that people got sick when they stopped and the more we moved the better acclimatization would be as well). We made it to Gilman’s point at 5:30 am. It was dark, cold and very windy.
Tired, but motivated we knew we only had about an hour and a half to Uhuru Peak. We were all hoping that the sunrise would bring us renewed warmth and strength. While it certainly was nice to watch the sun rise it didn’t seem to bring much warmth. The ridge walk was definitely much easier than the trudge we’d been doing for the previous 6 hours.
Mt. Meru looks much smaller from up here.
As soon as the sun came up you could see the (new) sign at Uhuru Peak across the ridge. Just motivation enough to keep going. Then…finally…at 7:10am WE MADE IT!!!
5,895 meters / 19,341 feet high.
Africa’s highest point and the world’s highest freestanding mountain.
As good as that felt, we certainly didn’t want to linger long. It was cold (~10 degrees F) with really high winds, and we really weren’t feeling that great. Here we had my least favorite part of the entire week: two hours of volcanic ash scree skiing. You could see Kibo hut below, but I was tired and this straight down was really messing with my toes (this has been the hardest part of my recovery…blisters on top of my toes and I’m pretty sure I’ll lose at least a few toenails). But, wow, what views we had from the top.
Look left: Kenya. On the right: Tanzania
We all made it back safely to Kibo Hut a little after 10am. We had a short break to pack up and then we still had another 3 hour hike back to Horombo huts for the night.
Although we were all looking forward to an early bed and a good night’s sleep back at Horombo, a few of us still had a little trouble falling asleep. Despite having come down from 19k feet and having been awake for over 20 hours (not to mention that the previous night’s sleep was only a couple of hours), we were still at over 12k feet. We also had a 5:30 am wake-up for the last day’s walk/hike to the gate. We had to go another 27km/16 miles down.
We had an amazing crew supporting us and it would have been a much harder week without them. 1 guide, 2 assistant guides, 1 camp manager, 1 cook, and 12 porters (yes, 17 in total). Our camp manager and 2 porters also accompanied us to the summit so that there was one support person for each of us to the top. Asanteni!
When are you coming to climb?
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