The climb - day by day in chronological order

Each day is a link.  After you have read a day, click on the back button on your browser and then choose the next day.

Sept 11 - the climb begins

Sept 12 - the climb to the Shira Plateau

Sept 13 - Hiking across the Shira Plateau and up to Moir Camp

Sept 14 - to Baranco Camp via the Lava Tower

Sept 15 - up the Baranco Wall to Karanga

Sept 16 - Karanga, Decisions and Porters

Sept 17 - the climb to Barafu, base camp

Sept 18 - Summit Day

Sept 19 - the descent to Mweka Camp

Sept 20 - descending to Moshi

Sept 20 - descending to Moshi

We awoke and were pleased with the warm temperatures at this elevation.  It was our final day on the mountain and we broke camp for the last time. 

Before we hit the trail the guides and porters had promised to thank us and say good-bye with some Swahili songs.  Our guides and porters plus the crew that had been supporting the three Americans joined forces and put on a great show.  It was another example of the beauty of Africa.  There were roughly 40 guys on the side of a mountain without so much as a drum to accompany them.  Yet the performance they gave was something that none of us will ever forget.  You can watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km5WP7T_XAY

After saying our good-byes to the porters, we started our descent.  It was a comfortable walk on an "African sidewalk", made of packed earth.  The rain forest was lusher and greener on this side of the mountain compared to our first day, since we were on the wet side of the mountain.








We arrived at Mweka Gate after a three hour hike.  We waved good-bye to the porters who climbed onto the truck that would take them down to Moshi.  We posed for our final picture in front of the Tusker vehicle that would return us to our hotel in Moshi for our first shower in 10 days.

Sept 19 - the Descent to Mweka Camp

We all slept really well as a result of our exhaustion from the previous day.  We would be starting our descent at Barafu in the high alpine desert, and descend down to and through the heath and moorland to the edge of the rain forest where Mweka was located.  We were all feeling very good as a result of the good night's sleep plus the extra oxygen that we were beathing with each step.

We had been descending for about 1.5 hours when we saw the evacuation stretcher beside the trail.  It is a stretcher fastened to a mountain bike wheel.  The guides use this to evacuate climbers suffering from severe altitude sickness.  We were all happy not to have had the need to use it!

  

  

As we descended the temperature got warmer and warmer and the trail got dustier and dustier.  We arrived in Mweka after 4 hours on the trail.  We had a hot lunch, cleaned up and enjoyed the afternoon.  We decided to visit Albert, our cook, in his tent as he prepared dinner.  He had done an amazing job of preparing hot delicious meals with very little equipment on the side of a mountain at high elevations.  The photos show the beauty of the African people.  Africa has all of the problems that we read about.  However, Africans as individuals are wonderful people.  We will all miss hearing the early chatter in Swahili, which we heard as we awakened every morning.  Check out these pictures of Albert and his team.  There was no need to ask them to smile.

Our dinner that evening would be our last evening meal with the guides.  We had a great discussion about our climb, all of which was positive.  However, two points were special:

1. Paula and David made it to the summit in spite of never receiving their luggage.  In the experience of our guides, they had NEVER seen this happen.  Usually it is too much of a motivational setback to make it to the summit if your luggage never arrives.  Paula and David did an amazing job of not letting these negative thoughts deter them.
2. We had a climb with three Mamas and they all got along.  In Africa, women are referred to as Mama once they have children.  The guides have seen many climbs with three Mamas.  Usually, the stress of the climb leads to that old saying, "two's company, three's a crowd".  However, our three Mamas got along from the first day until the last. 

Sept 18 - Summit Day

The guides awakened us at 4 AM. Most of us did not need a wake up call. We had gone to bed at 8 PM, were anticipating the excitement of Summit Day and were sleeping at 15,200 ft. This made sleep difficult, but safe to say to say we all got at least a few hours of off and on sleep. After a hot breakfast, we started climbing shortly after 5 30.


At this hour it was still dark so we climbed with our head lamps. When we raised our heads, we could see a line of climbers like a string of faint lights well ahead of us. Many groups start their summit day at midnight, so these people were 5 – 6 hours in front of us. We chose to climb during the daylight.

There were essentially three parts to the climb: a rocky pitch of 1,000 ft that started shortly after Barafu Camp; 2,500 ft up a scree field to Stella Point, the lip of the caldera; and finally, a 600 ft climb to the summit.

We got a real treat when we looked to our right shortly after daybreak. There was Mount Mawenzi, Kilimanjaro’s other peak, not nearly as high at 16,900 ft. The most famous Kilimanjaro peak, Kibo, was the one we were attempting today. The two peaks are linked by a saddleback that was lightly covered in morning mist. It was an awe inspiring sight.

We climbed the first pitch rather quickly and then faced the scree field. The dictionary defines scree as “an accumulation of loose stones or rocky debris lying on a slope or at the base of a cliff”. On Kilmanjaro, the scree contained a lot of dust as well. On some parts of the mountain it was more than a meter deep. When you climb through a scree field the old adage of “two steps forward, one step back” is a very accurate description of the experience. After a short break, we started and quickly realized that the 2,500 ft climb to Stella Point would be the toughest part of the day.

We finally arrived at Stella Point shortly before noon after a long, slow climb. The altitude combined with the dust was taking its toll. Dani was using her puffer to control her asthma. Henry, who was not able to take Diamox because of the side effects, was coughing a lot. Was it a return of childhood asthma after 42 years, dust, or the early stages of pulmonary edema? He asked the guides to test his oxygen level. The result was 77%. Any result over 70% means that you are not in danger, so thankfully it was just dust. We stopped for a lunch break, before the final push to the summit.

We started the final climb to the summit. We were now climbing on the lip of the caldera towards the peak which we could see in the distance. The climbing was actually a lot easier than the scree field. We were looking down on the glaciers, the snows of Kilimanjaro made so famous by Hemingway.

We continued slowly but surely to the summit. The glaciers were on our left. Kombe, our head guide, told us that they were 25% smaller that his first summit 20 years ago. We passed a group of 3 Americans plus their guides and porters, whom we had gotten to know, on the way back down from the summit so we knew we must be close.

We lifted our heads and there it was, the famous sign that every climber dreams of reaching. A few more steps and at 1 PM local time we did it. It was an emotional moment for all of us. Within minutes of reaching the summit, the clouds cleared and allowing the sun to raise the temperature. There were hugs, and photos, and calls to family and friends from Hans’ satellite phone. This is one of those times when a picture is worth a thousand words so please enjoy the summit photos that we’ve uploaded.

We started our descent after about 45 minutes on the summit. We were quickly back at Stella point when a snow storm started. This was the same time that we had to tackle the scree field again, this time on the way down. The best way to descend in a scree field is to “ski”. You don’t really ski continuously like on snow. Each step is 5 – 6 ft and then your heel digs in and you take another step. If you let yourself go and maintain your balance with your trekking poles it’s actually a lot of fun. However, if you don’t have the confidence to let yourself go and fight the scree it can be a long painful descent. Our team were all good “skiers” and the heavy snow added to the “skiing”experience.

We were almost to the bottom of the scree field when we saw Amani climbing towards us.  Amani was our waiter.  He had served us three meals a day for over a week so we had gotten to know him quite well.  He had hiked up the mountain with a large thermos of hot tea.  We went to a sheltered spot and really enjoyed his treat.

We returned to Barafu after another hour.  We had spent almost 11 hours in total and were all very tired.  We cleaned up, had a hot dinner and most of us were sound asleep before 8 PM.