16th September - The Attempt on the Summit

After a fretful 4 hours lying huddled in my sleeping bag, I was invited to get my gear together by Clemence. Fortunately, I had been doing little else all day so after a quick faff where they checked me over I was given the go-ahead by Freddy. It turned out that it was only myself and Freddy heading up the hill- I imagine Clemence was left behind to keep an eye on the camp.

Anyway, my fears of an icy wall of rock proved groundless – the sky was absolutely clear revealing an astounding number of stars. The Milky Way, the Seven Sisters, Orion you name it, and it was there. The rocks had lost their watery coating (it being a high altitude desert and all) so the only problem remaining was bumbling blindly in the dark with only my 0.01W Maglite to help. In comparison to some of the gear that others were packing I felt positively Dark Ages. (Excuse the pun). With a fresh pair of batteries in the torch I strode forth with Freddy and promptly joined a queue.

The entire camp, less porters, was going up the hill at the same time. Roughly 60 experienced walkers, all wearing full on cold weather gear, were forming a torch lit procession in honour of Kilimanjaro. It was quite beautiful to see, actually, were it not for the fact that they were all going at a much slower pace than me. Now it’s all well and good saying “Slowly, slowly” but these guys were preventing me from getting into the necessary rhythm which needed a higher pace. Fortunately, Freddy (who also felt that the pace was too slow) spied a secondary parallel track and we were able to “speed” away. To give you some idea of the pace, imagine walking as slowly as you ca while still making progress. That’s about 1-2mph and it is tedious in the extreme. Or rather it would be if it were physically possible to go faster than that without keeling over from lack of oxygen.

So there I was carefully plodding up the hill, feeling a bit anxious about: not seeing the trail clearly; overheating in my 3-4 layer setup and keeping a close eye for the effects of altitude sickness. And then it struck me – I was going to be doing this for 6 hours. How does one occupy one’s mind in the darkness plodding up a mountain? I’ll tell you – you stare at the ground and watch where you’re placing your feet. That’s it. No deep philosophical thoughts, no bright insights into spirituality – just an endless series of rocks to clamber over, or shuffle past. And it’s at this point when your mind is numbed that the altitude starts to make itself known. The most obvious symptom is the lack of breath.

No big deal, we’ve all been out of breath at some point in our lives. But not for 6 hours. In order to keep in breath, you have to develop rigid breathing patterns. The one that worked well for me was the Hiawatha Cadence. Breathe in on the first two syllables, breathe out on the second two. Easy enough to start with and if the terrain is constant, but then everything changes. Instead of a gently inclining series of S-bends, suddenly you’re faced with a head-on “line of steepest slope” assault on scree. Forget Hi-a-fucking-watha now all that comes is a series of gasps. Then comes the dizziness, you trip over a rock, slip sideways, desperately stick out a pole and, having saved yourself from a nasty fall, try to get your breath back. And then the batteries in your headlamp fail. Yes folks Ever Ready Super Duracell Turbo Ultra Powor (for Men) batteries give 1 hour of life at 5000m at –4C.

Fortunately, Freddy had a couple of torches and I was able to follow along behind snatching occasional glimpses of the terrain. He did his best but having your torch is a must. I did have some spare batteries but I wasn’t confident about their life so I decided to wait until the final push before breaking them out. That, and the finger numbing cold.

I have no idea how long we were walking for but Freddy pointed out a little white sign: the halfway point. At this stage I was exhausted, cold at the toes and fingers and seriously worried about these dizzy spells. The fact that we were only halfway nearly finished me off. Luckily, I had a large bag of Kendall Mint Cake to hand and we chomped great chunks of it down. The amount I ate would have lifted me to the top of Ben Nevis with nary a deep breath, here it gave us enough energy to make the next 150m. I cannot emphasise enough just how deep the fatigue is that grips you on this isolated trail. Far above is the enticing pile of rocks that is Stella Point, the gateway to Kilimanjaro Crater and Uhuru Point – the highest point in Africa. Every step you take leads you closer to that magical place.

Only problem was that they never got any closer.

Far above us we could see the twinkling lights of a strong group, but they never seemed to get closer either. I’d like to say that as the sky lightened in the East that Stella Point revealed herself and we strode mightily onto the path that encircles the Crater. What actually happened was a long trudge up a sand and shale bank in total darkness. Then Freddy announced “Welcome to Stella Point” and fished out some tea.

As far as I was concerned I had climbed Kilimanjaro and there was the mere formality of setting boot on rock at Uhuru Point, a level easy stroll a few hundred metres away. Not quite. Nothing is easy at 5800m and Kilimanjaro has a nasty habit of presenting hills and then opening these hills into more and higher ones until you’re forced to simply accept that any hill is going to be 3 times higher and further away than advertised.

So I strolled, with Freddy, down the path to Uhuru Point. Well it wasn’t the first hill, or the second or event the third. By the time I finally saw Uhuru Point (obvious given the number of walkers milling about on it) I was at breaking point. As I made the final approach I whispered the mantra that I had recited every day since arriving on the mountain:

“Kilimanjaro, I humble myself before you,
Grant me permission to proceed.”

And then I stood on Uhuru Point and watched the sun rise on my 35th birthday.

There wasn’t much time for hanging about up there. Freddy was overjoyed that I had made it (much kudos for him with the other guides I expect) and pointed out a few of the spectacular sights. Glaciers glittering in the first light of day, Mount Meru moving out through a sea of clouds, the enormous Crater Bowl. Outstanding.

So there I was at the top – I’d made it. The culmination of a long series of months preparing for this moment. To be honest I was too tired to feel anything. Well, certainly relief that I had made it but nothing more.

And then it was time to make the descent. At this point I was drained both physically and mentally (no longer a cliche for me) and now I had to reverse that whole climb. Fortunately, Freddy had a handy route for rapid descent: a 1.2 vertical kilometre (vkm) continuous scree run. Let me tell you, scree-running is fun. It’s a bit like skiing, and up until now my scree-runs had been limited to about 200m. Now I was about to embark on a 1200m vertical descent over tiny stones, at altitude, and not at 100%. Needless to say, I fell over a few times, had to rest a few times and generally didn’t make the most of it. After dropping the height, my legs were knackered, particularly my knees. Freddy lead me back into camp, but on the way I was so dog-tired that I slipped on some gravel and cut my hand. Fortunately, Freddy was on hand to guide me over the rocks once he realised how tired I was.

At camp I just sipped by blackcurrant juice, the flaked out in my tent, still wearing all my gear from the night before. An hour or so later Clemence woke me up with a bowl of soup and the instructions that we were to break camp in half an hour and begin the descent to Mweka Camp from Barafu. Mweka is at about 3100m, Barafu at 4600m. So another descent of 1.5vkm came about.

By this stage my knees where shot, even with a support bandage. Add to this my 2 hours sleep and you can pretty much guarantee that I didn’t savour the walk in the manner it which it should have been. Both Clemence and Freddy showed great patience and understanding as I griped my way down the route. And it was all downhill. Every step caused my knees to hurt and soon I was getting worried that the right one would give out completely. Thankfully, my poles came to the rescue and it is only thanks to them that I made it to the camp instead of a mountain rescue hut.

Once at camp I just mooched about fiddling with my kit until it got dark and then I just flaked out.