August - Kilimanjaro

Summit Height:

5895m

What?
Kilimanjaro - The Highest Mountain in Africa

When?
19th - 26th August 2010

Where?
Tanzania

Who?
Summit photo with: Toby, Barney, Ali C, Andrew & Jacob 
Also in group: Gary, Adam, Jesse, Shelly & Maddy
Guides: Moses, Elli, Francis, Freemani, George, Nelson & Zaidi

Why?
Because it's there

How?
This trip had been planned, booked and eagerly awaited since December 2009.  After countless trips to outdoor pursuits shops to buy just the right gear, many days of training on British mountains, trips to the doctors for altitude sickness pills and vaccinations, insurance and a Tanzanian Visa applications, the date came to depart to Tanzania, meet my fellow hikers and start the 8 day walk to the summit of Africa's highest mountain.

To say I was a little nervous before I went would be a huge understatement.   Although I felt physically prepared for the 8 days of walking, I knew all too well that if I got struck with altitude sickness (something that no amount of training can prepare your body for) then all the planning and preparation would go out the window and I'd have no choice but to come back down before reaching the summit.  I'd chosen to walk the Lemosho Route, which gives maximum time for acclimatisation and therefore increases the chance of success.  It's also one of the most picturesque and quietest routes up the mountain, with most of the early walking days going by without encountering any other groups.

I walked in a group with 11 fellow hikers, 7 guides and many porters.  When you spend time on a mountain together, friendships are formed very quickly indeed.  It is very clear to me now (and I don't apologise for the cliche) that this was the most incredible and wonderful experience of my life, because of the physical challenge, the breathtaking views (all day every day), the adventure of staying on the mountain and the friendships I formed whilst I was there.  Needless to say, not amount of words or photos can do this trip justice, and it would take me days to write a full account of the trip, so all I have attempted to do here is give an overview of each day along with a few of my favourite photos.

Day 1

The first day was straight forward from a walking perspective.  It started with a rather adventurous 4x4 ride from the coffee plantation where we were staying to the starting point at 2250m.  A couple of hours of walking through Forest bought us to our first camp.  The group spent the evening getting to know each other a little better, and getting used to some of the 'challenges' of life on the mountain, such as 'interesting' toilet rituals, which became (in retrospect) a strangely regular topic of conversation.

 Camp 1 : Big Tree Camp, 2750m

Day 2
This was a relatively long walking day that took us up to a height of 3500m and onto the Shira plateau.  Today was the first time I started to realise the sorts of effects that less oxygen can have on your body, and although I didn't suffer from any headaches at this stage, I did feel out of breath if I tried complete quite simple tasks too quickly.  'Pole Pole' (slowly slowly) was the key to everything!  This day bought with it, for me, one of the most incredible memories of the trip; the first view of the snow capped summit.  The Shira plateau is vast, and his it's own mini peaks and valleys  The plateau itself is above the clouds, between 3000m & 4000m high, but once you are in the middle of plateau if gives the impression that you are on ground level looking the mountain ahead of you. 

The photos at this stage of the journey give the impression that we are walking towards Kilimanjaro, but in fact we are already on the massive mountain and just heading towards the summit along the 3-4000m high plateau!  It's not until you reach the edges of the plateau and look down onto the clouds that you are reminded how high you are.

  Camp 2 : Shira 1, 3500m

Day 3 & 4
The next couple of days were acclimatisation days.  We walked towards the summit along the Shira Plateau,  taking detours up two 'mini summit', Cathedral and Lava Tower.  There detours gave us some of the greatest views of the whole trip, and the scramble up Lava Tower was one of my highlights.  By the time we reached our camp on day 4 the summit, which 2 days earlier had been hazy and distant, was now very much upon us.  It felt close enough to run up that night, but we still had 3 more days before summit night.

Camp 3: Shira 2, 3845m

 

 Camp 4: Barranco Camp, 3960m

Days 5 & 6

Day 5 started with a climb up the Barranco or 'Breakfast' Wall, a near vertical cliff face that involved a little bit of scrambling and a lot of energy (extra porridge needed that morning for breakfast!).  After Barranco we spent the following two days walking 'around' to the other side of the main summit, with views of a very close looking summit on one side and clouds below us on the other.  My main memory of these two days was of how quickly the weather could change ("like a chameleon", as George the guide put it), with it being calm and clear on minute, to freezing cold and windy the next. 

The view from our final campsite was, for me, the best view of the whole journey, looking out onto Mawenzi

Camp 5: Karanga Camp, 4035m

Camp 6: Barafu Camp, 4640m

Day 7 - Summit Day

The hardest physical challenge of my life. From about 5500m onwards my body just stopped working! No matter how much I breathed in I couldn't get the air that I needed, and my legs and arms just wouldn't co-operate when my brain tried to tell them what to do.  Sometimes I would stop and sit on a rock, but within seconds the cold would penetrate through every layer on my clothing and I would need to move on just to keep warm.  Slow and painful is how I would describe the progress; and the 7 hours in the dark (as we set off at midnight) seemed to go on forever. 

Then, the sun came up, and within an hour we were there!  In the photos of me at the summit I have a frozen eye lash...  I like to think that it was a tear of joy, but it may have been relief!  Either way the 15 minutes I spent on the summit with the friends that I had made on the journey will stay with me forever, as will the wonderful words we shared with each other (thank you Ali C!).  I know I can't do the feelings or emotions any justice, so I'm going to stop trying.

 The Summit, 5895m

The rest of summit day and the day after involved relentless and painful decent and ended with much celebration and beer, but no amount of celebration back on ground level could match the feeling we got when we saw the famous sign post and realise... We'd made it.

Camp 7: Millennium Camp, 3790m

PS. If anybody is interested in doing it themselves, the travel company I used was Exodus, and the guides, porters etc all worked for African Walking Company.  I can't fault either organisations at all!