My life can now be divided in to two parts, before summit day and after summit day - a 30 hour period that Damo aptly describes as the most physically demanding thing he has ever done.
The most appropriate way to describe the differing approach that Damo and I had to climbing Kilimanjaro and the associated risks is perhaps to say that I was far closer to the strenuous-walk-in- the-park-altitude-sickness-what-is-that? end of the spectrum whilst Damo was closer to the somewhat-dangerous-necessary-preparation-altitude-sickness-can-kill end of the spectrum.
After the series of stuff ups which characterised our safari trip we were still a little nervous, arriving at the gate in to the Kilimanjaro National Park. Accompanying us were our guide and assistant guide, cook and waiter, and five porters. The outside of the gate surrounded by porters - Mad Max style, waiting to be let in to carry things for the mzungu. Already a little alarmed by the number of people in our party, we requested that the guide try and keep down the number to as small as possible. To whit, I told the guide that would carry my own backpack. (Most people just carry a small day pack, whilst their porters are loaded up with their larger pack carried on their head or shoulders and the porter's own much smaller pack carried on their back) The guide and assistant guide went off to weigh my pack (supposedly porters are limited to carrying 25kg - but some packs we saw them carrying looked much heavier than that) When they came back they told me my pack weighed 20 kilos, and I had to insist that I would carry it - after a while they gave in and I began to wonder what I was in for.
Eventually everything was divided between the porters, weighed and reweighed and the guide told us that we would be nine - guide, assistant guide, cook, waiter, porter for the the guide, and four extra porters. Feeling much like Livingstone or Stanley, we looked around to see which porter had a chair to carry us on his back up the mountain. The guide told us that because I was carrying my own bag we were to be one less than usual.
After lunch - already breaking our own rule by being served to us separately from the rest of our group, we paid the eye wateringly large sum of money and headed off in the early afternoon sun.
The first day of walking only lasted four or so hours, as we rose from the starting point of 1800metres up to our camp at 3000 metres. The walk was through beautiful, tropical rainforest, thick enough to block our the strongest of sunlight. Abundant rubber vines hung down from the dense canopy, as we tramped along in the warm and humid shade. We chatted to a few other attempters on the way, everybody looking far more geared up and knowing what they were doing much more than we did. We spotted a chameleon on a tree just by the path, and we so mesmerised that we stood watching it claw it's way up a tree for half and hour - which provided a good respite from the constant upward walking we were doing.
In what seemed not that much time at all we reached camp, signed the officious looking register to show that we had made it and proceeded to set up camp. We were camping just above the line of rainforest, looking back down on where we had come. After getting changed from my sweat ridden clothes, doing a bit of stretching and a general wander around we were served up tea, Milo, popcorn and roasted peanuts. Damo was so excited by the sight of Milo that he economised the water part and simply directed the spoon from the tin straight in to his mouth. Dinner was served not much later, on a Masai blanket on the ground - unlike some other groups we didn't have a separate tent for eating, nor tables and chair - I will never forget the continuously infuriating sight of seeing poor porters carrying a table big enough for six people on his back up the mountain. However, we began to realise, after a couple of bowls of soup, multiple servings of rice and sauce, steamed vegetables and fruit for dessert - enough that we made ourselves sick with the amount that we ate, that we may end up actually putting on weight during the walk.
The next three days run together, about four or five hours walking each day, with incredible views of the changes in scenery as we went higher. >From the 3000 metres of the first nights camp we headed up to 3840 metres at Shira Camp, through moorland, devoid of the tall trees like the rainforest, and instead populated by small bushes. The camp was on a plateau, giving us excellent views of nearby Mt Meru, and behind us the looming Uhuru Peak. From Shira we headed to Barranco Camp at 3950 metres, but we elected to go via the Lava Tower, which is at a princely height of 4600 metres. We stopped to have lunch at the Tower, a large rock outcrop which juts vertically towards the sky, and the sudden changes in temperature, from warming sunlight to frigid, howling winds was a little disconcerting. We headed back down, to the relative warmth of camp, perched on the edge of deep river valley, facing an almost vertical rock wall 400 metres high, which we were to climb the next day. That evening Damo was struck down by an altitude caused headache, and lost his appetite. I was still feeling fine, if a little tired, but managed to chomp my way through the again bountiful dinner serving.
Throughout these three days the clouds obscuring the mountain would clear every evening around sunset, then the moon would shine down on the peak, with the snow white glaciers glittering under the moon. The clear skies would also reveal an incredible array of stars, each competing with each other to be the brightest - twinkling away in the sky. A couple of hours later the clouds would return and hide the mountain again. During frequent night time visits to the toilet (we were urged to consume endless amounts of water to reduce the effects of altitude) the clouds would clear and the mountain would rear over us, a sight which usually greeted us in the morning, as we sat shivering waiting for the sun's rays to reach our camp-site and begin warming us up.
After first three days, both of us were feeling fairly confident, to the point that I suggested to Damo that the whole lark was a walk in the park. Despite the daily questions from the guides, and the suggestions that I lighten my load, I continued to carry my backpack with all the gear. The fourth day of walking, to Barafu Camp at 4600 metres, involved scrambling up the wall up to the plateau, and then a long gently inclined walk across the plateau and finally up to our camp site. The walk was punctuated by our only warm lunch - the porters and cook had walked ahead of us and cooked up a beautiful veggie stew, which immediately extinguished any thoughts of tiredness. We had eight hours before we had to get up and finish the job - setting out at midnight. Looking up at the peak was a little daunting, so I avoided that, and we wandered around camp chatting to other hikers. At around six dinner was served, but I had lost my appetite - I managed to eat a couple of spoonfuls of pasta but that was all I could take. Both Damo and I had slight headaches, and we could feel the cold closing in, we both retired to the tent and tried to get a little sleep before we were to set out. I had a terrible six hours - I woke suddenly a number of times thinking that I was going to suffocate - I was sleeping in a balaclava inside the closed sleeping bag. I was paranoid of suffocating, and thrashed around, trying to tear myself out of the sleeping bag and remove the balaclava. Not long after I had done so, I began to cool down and then feel the cold, so I would rug up again, fall in to a fitful sleep and then suddenly jolt awake with the same paranoid delusions.
On our way down from the summit the next day we asked our guides what they thought when they first saw us, and when I insisted on carrying my own pack ? They replied that at the beginning they rated us an even chance of making it to the top - we looked relatively fit and despite not having climbed mountains before if we took it slow we could make it. When I said that I would carry my own pack, and kept on doing so for the whole four days, the guides said - "We thought you were not going to make it, 90% sure that you wouldn't make it." At midnight when I insisted that I was wearing my Dunlop Volleys up to the summit they thought I was just plain crazy, and at some point I would have to turn around and go back down because I would be too cold.
Summit day
Eventually midnight rolled around and it was cold, cold outside, with a wind whipping at the tent. We scrambled about in the tent like contortionists, getting on the series of layers of clothes which we hoped were going to keep us warm. Our waiter brought us tea and biscuits, which we ate in the tent, forcing them down despite our lack of appetite. Damo had to ruin our otherwise flawless inside tent contortionsby spilling tea on my mattress. When we finally made it out of the tent, I decided to myself that I was going to go with the Volleys, and when I told the guides I registered the look of mild panic, bemusement and head shaking on both their faces - we had discussed the matter during the afternoon and they thought by delaying the matter I would have changed my mind, but I was not to be deterred by a mere 5900 metres !! Finally we set off at 12.30, a little late, lacking a little enthusiasm, but full of hope. The moon was out providing a decent amount of light and plenty of shadow. We were four in a row, under the light of our head torches, doing that particular slow trance one foot-next foot walk that mountains demand, tramping through camp, and then starting on the steep hill. I made my first mistake by looking up, and saw the gaggle of head torches stretching far too far up in to the distance to give me any comfort.
At this point, very near the beginning of what was to be a further six hours of slogging our way pretty much straight up, I was completely buggered. I felt physically very tired, and my mind had already started in on me, questioning why I wanted to get to the top, ridiculing the ego driven desire for bragging rights a successful summit would provide, reassuring me that I had seen all there was to see, comforting me that it wasn't all about reaching the peak and taunting me that I was in no shape to take on this particular leviathan. I began to feel a little unsteady on my feet, but tried to focus on my plodding feet hoping this would extinguish those nagging thoughts.
Being told by Damo that everyone else had turned off their headlamps and turning off mine, an almost lunar landscape revealed itself under the flat, almost contrast less light that a 1/3 moon was giving us. The moonlight was strong enough to throw a shadow, and mine obscured the path for the guide. We continued tramping along, upward ever upward. Our pace was almost tediously slow, but this meant we were never out of breath, and that our movements became almost involuntary - left foot, right root, left foot again. We were lead by a guide out front, then myself, followed by Damo and the assistant guide. Both guides were relatively quiet, only asking every now and then how we were, and whether we were alright. Every once in a while I checked that I could still feel and move my toes, and although my feet were cold, they weren't getting any worse, so my mind started looking for other outs.
Fairly early on we were passed by two separate walkers on their way down, having given up or got sick. Both were rather glum and under their layers it was hard to identify who they were, but I found myself wondering how long before I would join them.
Shortly afterwards we had our first break, and I decided it was time to pull out my secret weapon - jelly beans. Those small little bundles of sugary joy had got me through the tough parts of the Derby to Kununurra bike ride and so in my moment of desperation I turned to them again for salvation. Even the rustle of the plastic got my heart pumping and some sort of receptors in my brain started twitching. I shared around the packet, as it is always best to have everyone on the same high, but by the time we started to move off the desired effect never kicked in. We had to keep moving the to fend off the cold the guide explained. Sadly, even my secret weapon had failed, the expected sugar rush just wasn't going to happen.
>From this point onwards time began to warp, as I kept my head down focusing on keeping my feet on the path. Every now and then I stumbled a little, we were on a constant upward gradient, and despite our pace being slow and steady we were catching other groups. This meant we either had to slow down even further and have our rhythm disrupted, or try to overtake them by taking shortcuts, which usually meant a fair amount of scrambling over rocks. Combining this with my fatigue, and the dull light the moon was providing, and the fact that my eyes kept trying to take advantage of the dullness by closing for a little nap between steps, meant I began to teeter more and more frequently. Damo asked me a few times whether I was alright because my steps looked uneven, and I replied curtly, I was fine, keen to show no cracks on the outward surface. I then immediately started to think about how I wasn't going to make it. Looking up time to time, I saw the lights of people's headlights off in the distance bumping up and down, far too far off for me to feel that I would make it. I switched on my headlight on the premise that if I could see where I was going I might be a little steadier on my feet, but it was the only way I could think of to stop my eyes from closing over completely as I walked.
We stopped for another water break and I remember looking at my watch and seeing it was 2.30 in the morning and I began wondering what I was doing walking up a steep hill in the cold at that hour. When our guide replied to my question of how much further with, two and a half hours to Stellar Point, all I could do was whimper. Our guides were keen to get us moving again, explaining that if we sat for more than ten minutes we would start to freeze up. I wiggled my toes on my left foot and then on my right foot, reasoning if I could still feel them they weren't yet frozen - and maybe we could rest a little moment more.
We trudged forth because the body wouldn't do much else and the mind was yet to win the battle. I started to count my steps, telling myself that I couldn't look up until I hit 500. I then counted through 1000, 1500, 2000. We got caught behind a group of six or seven older men, and after pottering along behind them we overtook via a rock scramble and after a few near falls I began to seriously think about whether I would make it.
Once we had put enough of a gap between ourselves and the group we stopped at a group of rocks and sat down for a water break. I was too tired to get my water out of my day pack, so Damo who was seated to my immediate right leant me some of his. When I handed the bottle back to him he took a deep swig and then and immediately proceeded to vomit twice between his legs, stopping to apologise to the group of people trudging past. Damo then got up and walked past me to the left and finished off the vomiting. The vomiting seemed to do him the world of good, enlivening his spirit and spurring on to take on the next part of the climb. I sat there too tired - physically and mentally to even think about thinking about what I should say or do for Damo. The mere effort of thinking about thinking was wearing me down !! However, the guides were most supportive, saying that vomiting would make him feel better, and when Damo asked if other people who had vomited had made it to the top , they gave an encouraging answer. At this point a Canadian that we had passed earlier made his presence felt - he was also resting with us. He suggested to Damo that he act like Mark 'Chopper' Read, and harden the fuck up. This of course encouraged us no end, giving me enough energy to have a bizarre conversation with him, neither of us knowing who was asking the question or answering it.
We trudged onwards and upwards, Damo seemingly in better shape from the vomit. Our line remained the same, our head guide in the lead, myself staggering along behind, a reinvigorated - almost spritely Damo next, and our assistant guide trailing us. The moon was still providing enough light to hike without a head torch, but I still had my on in the battle to keep my eyes open. Damo pointed out that the light was quite distracting - getting in both his way and the guides, so I moved down the back of the line and let the others tramp ahead of me.
At this point I felt I had been abandoned. I gave up counting my steps, I had reached a couple of thousand and had lost the self control to stop myself from continuously looking at the headlights in distance, seeing them so far off made me think that the ascent was endless. I thought perhaps if I sat down the others wouldn't notice and I could have a little nap and they could collect me on the way down. From the darkness above we began to hear whoops of joy, as parties ahead of us were reaching Stellar Point (5758m) they were shouting out in joy, relief or sheer lack of anything else to say. Slowly we began to get closer to the source of these cries, and I began to notice that the head lights were disappearing as people made it to the point and beyond - our guide encouraged us, only 45 minutes to go.
The last 45 minutes were a complete physical and mental trial. Early on my mind and body decided to call a truce, once I reached the point that I knew that I was at least going to make it to the Point, resistance was useless. I began to feel all of the pains that had generally been encouraging me to turn back in their individuality - my feet were freezing and it hurt to flex my toes, my ankles were lambasting me for the complete lack of support Volleys provide, my calves were screaming from all of the uphill walking, the tendons in my knees were about to go on strike, the old footy injury in my hip flexor was making me wince, the altitude had made my stomach a constant rumble, my shoulders were stiff and sore from carrying my backpack for too long and my brain desperately wanted to leave my skull and find a skull that could contain it.
Suddenly I found myself crying, overwrought with emotion. It wasn't a bawling cry, just a few tears, leading to sobs as my mind was trying to do something to kill the pain and deal with the immense frustration that is created when simply taking a step requires the mustering of all of my concentration. Luckily it was still dark and nobody could see a real man cry, but I slowed my pace a little, wiped the tears from eyes, and tried to push through the physical and mental barriers which made simply taking a step seem an impossible task. The others hadn't noticed my teetering on the edge of madness and I thought to myself that if I was to do this I was on my own.
The last twenty minutes of the climb will be etched in to my memory for a long time, the sun was slowly coming us behind the clouds bathing us in a dull light, and the whoops of joy coming from Stellar Point were becoming almost close enough to touch. The dull light removed the ability to see people ahead of us by their headlights. The crying attack returned three or four times, and I started getting all emotional. I remember having very comaradic feelings towards Damo, thinking that I couldn't have done it without him, and the bond we had forged in our insane attempt to take on the mountain.Luckily I was at the back of the line and the darkness was hiding my tears.
Finally our guide instructed us to look up, and there just in front of us, rearing straight was Stellar Point, an obelisk of rock 30 or 40 metres high, sitting on a narrow pass, where two routes up the mountain joined. As we made it to the first high point of the pass we saw the land drop away on the other side in to a deep valley which stretched from Uhuru Peak on our left across the horizon to the ridge on our far right. Beyond that ridge was a stepped glacier - a white, stairway to heaven , stark white against the dull sky. Looking back behind us we noticed we were hundreds of metres above the cloud line, the clouds lay like a carpet beneath us, ready for a giant to stride across. To the east, on the very edge of this carpet was a fiery orange haze a couple of kilometres wide, like a ring around Saturn, tongues of blood orange light piercing the clouds, as the rising sun was trying to break through the clouds.
Naturally we both began to whoop for joy, enjoying the sheer pleasure of having achieved what for so longer seemed unachievable. I opened up my lungs, felt my adrenaline begin to pump and listened to the echo as the sounds I made bounced of the nearby ridges and came shooting back. We stood still for a while, enjoying the accomplishment and the view, Damo and I constantly looking at each other in disbelief at the view that lay before us. We drank some water and I got out my last pack of jelly beans, and peered over to Uhuru Peak, which our guide instructed us was only 45 minutes a way. At this point there was a bizarre change of circumstances, suddenly I was filled with the self confidence that I was going to make it, all the pain drained away and I had to hold myself back from running to the peak. Conversely Damo simply lost it - he felt as though he could no longer go on, he wanted to sit down and rest. When the guide told him the rest of the way was flat his response was, "Look at it, no it fucking isn't, it is more uphill"
We set off before the cold set in, and Damo soon turned to me for support, I gave him y best three quarter time speech, littered with some classic clichés but that had no effect. For a while we walked an a single entity, Damo with his arm around my shoulder. After a while Damo said he wanted to sit down and have a short rest, claiming then he would be alright. I was having none of it, I steadfastly told him there was no way he was sitting down because once he sat down he would stop. He protested, but a few more harsh words and we kept pottering along leaving the rest idea behind. I tried a bit of psychology, telling him that he had all but made it, and if he stopped all the effort he had put in would have been wasted, but this didn't have much effect. Damo was getting a little delirious at this point, and although the walking was fairly flat and easy he was stumbling across the path. In the end I even confessed that I had been crying not too long ago and in so much pain I wanted to give up, which seemed to surprise him no end. Eventually we were saved by a Kiwi and Polish guy we had chatted to on the way up. They were on their way back down and provided sufficient encouragement to spur Damo on enough for us to catch a group of Spaniards we had also been chatting to for the last four days. One of them stumbled and fell in front of us, so there was a bout of communal encouragement. On of the Spaniards in particular had the been the cause of a fair amount of our sniggering as he was dressed in a bright red jump suit with blue patches on his elbows, bum and knees. Damo called out to him in his tired, almost whimpering Spanish, "Oye amigo, tu novia te has visto en este traje" (Hey mate, has your girlfriend seen you in that get up", and he continued to yell friendly abuse at them for a while. Fortunately they didn't take any offence, and we crept past them, over a small rise and there in front of us stood Uhuru Peak, in all of its 5,891 metres of glory.
We managed to stumble through the last one hundred or so metres, me pushing, pulling and prodding Damo as was required and finally there we were - the highest point of Africa. The joy was spontaneous and overwhelming, Damo and I hugged both sharing a sense of disbelief, awe and a tinge of pride in our achievement. I think all I could muster was "Fuck, we made it. Well done mate. Thanks". We then hugged our guides, and had a big group hug as they congratulated us at making it.
The rest of the ten to fifteen minutes we spent on the summit is pretty much a blur. We took the obligatory photos in front of the sign on the peak. I snapped a few photos of Damo in front of the glacier and the peak of Mt Meru sticking out of the clouds in the background. Damo got one of me in the Volleys.
The achievement reinvigorated both of us, and as we passed others on their way up we offered as much encouragement as we could. The walk back down became a little trying, we were tired and could see the camp site far below, but the path was steep through knee deep sand and shale. Eventually after a couple of hours we wandered back in to the camp site. Our crew congratulated us and we crawled in to the tent and rapidly fell asleep. An hour or so later we awoke, still tired, and both with mild headaches. We prodded at breakfast more than we ate, packed up the tent and our gear and headed down to our final camp site. Whilst the walk down was a little annoying we both still had enough energy to make it without too much difficulty, although we had a few more rest breaks than usual. Once we arrived and set up camp we slept again, ate dinner and then headed back to bed. Before we made it however we had an uncomfortable discussion with our guide about tips. Both porters and guides are paid a pittance for the work they do (between $5 and $7 a day) and they basically live off the tips they get - which helps to explain the throng at the gate looking for work. The amount the guide was suggesting was way beyond our budget so we resolved to think the matter over and deal with it in the morning.
That night we slept like babies, and in the morning the immensity of the achievement slowly began to dawn on us as we watched the sun light up the peak in a cloudless sky. The final day's walk was a gentle three hour stroll through a wispy forest - trees with what looked like spiders' webs thick as vines hanging down from the branches - perfect camoflauge for colobus monkeys. Damo managed to spot a group of them just off the trail and we watched then for twenty or minutes or so. This seemed a fitting
and perfect end to six amazing days.
