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| Mt. Kilimanjaro from my Hotel in Moshi |
From a distance, Kili (as we 'locals' affectionately call it), looks beautiful and peaceful. However, as we all know, appearances can be deceiving, and Kili deceives! While its scenery is most definitely spectacularly beautiful, its slopes are also surprisingly brutal and unforgiving.
Not only is Kili the highest mountain in Africa, but it is also the highest freestanding mountain in the world. Perhaps Kili's greatest allure is the fact that it doesn't require any technical climbing skill to scale, promising any "reasonably fit" person a chance of reaching its peak. Being a "reasonably fit" person intrigued by the idea of standing on the top of Africa, I signed on for a 6 day trek up the Machame route. I choose this route because it was regarded as the most scenic, with the best natural acclimatization, and boasted the highest success rate. What I gave less consideration was its reputation for being the most challenging route...in retrospect, this could be why it's called the "Whiskey Route"as opposed to the more genteel Marangu "Coca-Cola Route"...more than one climber has probably wished for a shot of liquid courage to finish!
Day 1: Machame Gate (1840m) to Machame Hut (2980m)
Hike: 9kms
Altitude Change: +1140m
Zone II: Lush Forest
I arrived in Moshi at the base of Kili in the afternoon and was quickly ferried off by the trekking company to arrange the rental of my hiking gear. I had arrived in Tanzania grossly underprepared for this monumental undertaking with basically shirts, pants, and running shoes to my name. With Kili's climate zones ranging from forest to arctic, I needed to be outfitted in everything from hiking boots to rain gear to warm underwear to a massively poofy winter coat and a babushka-esque winter hat. Once so outfitted, I had the chance to meet my fellow climber, Jessie, over a quick dinner at our hotel. We carbo-loaded on pizza and made each other pretty nervous about our chances of reaching the peak.
A good night's sleep left us ready to tackle Kili and determined to get each other to the top no matter what. Anticipating warm weather, I optimistically wore shorts.
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| Ready to Go! |
Our nerves were a bit rattled by the enormous warning signs posted at the entrance to the trail, but noting that we had only to be physically fit were reassured. Jessie had been running for an hour every morning during her volunteer stay in Kenya, and I had been waking up at the crack of dawn every day to do Shawn T's Insanity exercise DVDs. We were set.
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| Warning Signs at Trail Head |
The trail was steep from the first step, but tended to to have built-in plateaus every so often that made it bearable. Before too long, it started to rain, but thanks to deep forest cover, we didn't get soaked. It got cold very fast, however, as soon as we stopped to rest, so we didn't rest much. Instead, we dug in and huffed and puffed as we began to feel the first effects of reduced oxygen. We felt rather ridiculous breathing as hard as we were.
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| Guide Paul & I |
After 5 hrs of hiking uphill, I was exhausted, and my legs were tight and wobbly. I got out of my wet clothes as quickly as possible in a futile attempt to get warm and keep my legs from cramping. I was fascinated by the blond, hairy moss growing on the trees, but was less enamored with my first encounter with the longdrop toilets (aka, outhouses a la Turkish) at the campsite. Blech. Thankfully, dinner was delicious and multi-course (zucchini soup, beef curry), and we were encouraged to eat and eat a lot to replenish our energy. We were in bed by 8pm, lulled to sleep listening to a soccer match on the porters' radio. Sleep was fitfull as the damp and chill seeped into our tents.
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| First Night Lodging |
Day 2: Machame Hut (2980m) to Shira Hut (3840m)
Hike: 7kms
Altitude Change: +890m
Zone III: Heather and Moorland
Yesterday was clearly the beginner's course. The mountain greeted us this morning with an unrelenting uphill climb. My first tentative steps in the morning were quite stiff, but remarkably I wasn't sore. Somehow I had mostly recovered from the exhaustion of the day before. Perhaps it was seeing the snow glinting off the mountain's peak in the first rays of the morning sun that spurred me onward and upward.
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| First Climb of the Day |
The ascent was steep and stair-like. It was characterized by scrambling over rocks with treacherous footing en route to scenic overlooks.
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| Porter & Paul |
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| High Altitude Rest Stop |
The most remarkable portion of the climb entailed inching along a rockface without handholds. This porter balancing a load on his head made it look deceptively easy.
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| Precarious Footing |
Jessie's climb offers a better perspective on the hiker's experience. Yikes!
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| Jessie Scaling Rockface |
It took only 4 hours to reach our camp. Higher up on the mountain, the fog swirled around the campsite, constantly revealing and obscuring the landscape. I nearly got stranded in an outhouse....the camp was there when I went in....and not there when I came out...I had only the echoey voices of the porters to guide me back. We were now at an altitude where oxygen deprivation could kick in, and I definitely had a faint headache, but nothing worse than I might expect after getting very little sleep and then walking for hours on end. Having learned our lesson from the night before, Jessie moved into my tent for double the body heat, and we both slept better.
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| Believe it or not...there's a mountain behind the fog! |
Day 3: Shira Hut (3840m) to Barranco Hut (3950m)
Hike: 10kms
Altitude Change: +110m
The morning dawned crisp and clear, and we enjoyed the warmth of the sun as we appreciated the gorgeous view of the summit.
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| Morning Sun with View to Peak...what the fog had hidden! |
Before too long, the crystal clear sky was all but forgotten as my view degraded into this...fog, rocks, and more fog. And this miserable view came with even more miserable rain and cold.
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| Rain Gear Breaks Out in Earnest |
Having lived in Minnesota for 5 years, I thought I knew cold. Well, I'm here to tell you now that I was wrong. Negative windchill is nothing to compared to this frozen wet. I paused only briefly to have my picture taken in front of the scenic Lava Tower, the day's high altitude mark and where many hikers first begin to feel the serious effects of altitude sickness - severe headaches and nausea.
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| Lava Tower with Soaked Kathryn |
After hours of scrambling up and over wet and slippery boulders, we finally arrived at camp. We could barely make the tent out in the fog, but raced toward it with the speed of a thirsty man crawling toward a desert oasis. By this time, I couldn't feel or move my hands and frantically pinwheeled them around my head trying to get the blood back into them. I also had a terrible headache and felt nauseous and was becoming afraid the altitude was finally getting to me. I had only started taking my altitude medication that morning and thought maybe I had started too late. I forced myself to eat dinner and went to bed promptly at 6:45pm, bundled in multiple layers: long-sleeved t-shirt, long underwear, fleece, winter coat, hat, gloves, two layers of pants, and two pairs of socks. And the damp sleeping bag was still chilly.
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| Wet & Frozen Kathryn |
Day 4: Barranco Hut (3950m) to Barafu Hut (4600m)
Hike: 8kms
Altitude Change: +650m
Zone IV: Alpine Desert
Having gone to sleep in a fog wonderland, imagine my surprise upon awakening to discover that our tents were actually sidled up against this gorge. One misstep in that fog would have been quite a doozy.
I was thrilled to discover that not only was my headache gone, but I also had an appetite. I probably felt so awful the day before simply because we hadn't eaten all day in our mad shuffle to get to the campsite and out of the rain. Remembering the wet horror of the day before, I smartly decided to wear sandwich bags over my socks and repackage everything in my backpack in plastic bags. This time I was really ready for whatever Kili had in store for me.
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| Canyon Immediately Adjacent to Tent |
My hubris was short-lived. Almost immediately, I found myself hugging the Barranco Wall as we climbed almost straight up what was, essentially, a rock wall. I don't like heights, and I like the idea of falling from them even less. I was less than thrilled. Nonetheless, I still had the presence of mind to capture Jessie's experience on film. Terrifying. The picture doesn't do it justice.
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| The Wall: Kiss the Rock if You Want to Live |
But, since I couldn't go down, I went up and crested the wall just in time for the rain to start. And today's rain put yesterday's to shame. The scenery became increasingly desolate and gloomy until we were walking across nothing but a neverending sea of shale. We shuffled as fast as we could, one foot, two feet, stop, breathe, one foot, two feet, stop, breathe. The only thing we could hear was the sound of our labored breathing. To only be able to stop and rest!
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| Rainy Shalescape |
Alas, my extra fortifications against the rain were for naught. I was drenched to the core and stung by the piercing hail. Unfortunately, our first-time porter got altitude sickness and was delayed getting to camp. After hiking for 5 hrs, we waited almost 4 more to get our "dry" things. Thankfully, the camp rangers let us hang out in their yurt and gave us tea and blankets. Once reunited with our belongings, we quickly ate dinner and settled into bed at 7pm. Damp and cold everything and high altitude heartburn made sleeping almost impossible, so we tossed and turned until our 11pm wake-up call for the summit ascent.
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| Wet & Frozen Kathryn Take 2 |
Day 5: Barafu Hut (4600m) to Uhuru Peak (5895m) to Millennium Camp (3730m)
Hike: 19kms
Altitude Change: +1295m; -2105m
Zone V: Arctic
Lying in bed, we had been listening to the familiar sound of rain falling against our tent and had prepared ourselves for another day of being wet. Instead, we were greeted by a winter wonderland of lazily falling snow.
We donned every piece of clothing that we owned that could be called "dry," flipped on our headlamps, and tottered out of camp at 12:30am. Looking ahead and up, I could see nothing but black and a series of headlamps snaking ever upward.
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| Midnight Ascent |
My range of vision was limited to a few feet in front of me. I focused intently on the guide's feet as we inched ahead, slipping over rocks and boulders. Our pacing was ludicrous. One step. Pause...1...2...3. One step. Pause...1...2...3. Ludicrously fast. Our chests were heaving. The joke: take an arthritic, 90-year old grandma walking backwards...and go half as fast. Time almost seemed to stop. There was only that moment, this footstep and this breath. And then another. Silence engulfed us. To rest would have been divine.
Instead, what was divine was the clarity of the stars when we finally broke through the cloud cover...brilliant specks of light against a black velvet sky. Then, it was time for a cup of hot, sweet tea to steady us for the final push to the top....in time to watch the sun rise. Glorious.
As the sky filled with gorgeous shades of pink and orange over a blanket of clouds, all of the pain and misery of the past few days was forgotten. The sight was spectacular.
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| Dawn Breaking at Stella Point |
After a brief celebration, we pushed onward. That's right. We weren't done. We hadn't yet reached the official peak. What happened over the next half an hour was the slog of all slogs over roughly 200 yards. The final stretch to the peak was dotted with a long line of brightly colored ski parkas. If you looked too quickly, it would have seemed that each bright spot was stationary, but they were indeed moving. A line of slow-moving, drunk zombies was dragging itself inexorably to the unseen finish line. I actually stopped and laughed with what breath I had. To be moving so slowly while working so hard and looking so absurd just struck me as hilarious.
When I crested a ridge and actually saw the sign in the distance, I nearly broke into a sprint...I made a land speed record for all of three steps. Then, I stopped and breathed for a few minutes and finally shuffled on my way to ultimately pose with great alacrity at my destination.
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| Made it!!! |
I was quite lucky and actually felt good at the top - easily winded, but otherwise fine. Jessie developed a bad headache and felt out-of-it, but was still significantly better off than the gentleman we passed who was becoming reacquainted with his breakfast. My camera objected to the cold and altitude by insisting that it was low on battery (even though it wasn't), but I still managed to take some shots of the scenery. Looking at them now, I realize just how incredible this setting was. It was too overwhelming at the time to really take it all in.
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| Glacier |
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| Cloudscape |
After a lengthy stay of about 15 minutes, we turned around and began the trek back to Barafu camp. To muscles trained over the course of days to go uphill, downhill was an unexpected challenge. And my boots, which had been sooooo comfortable, suddenly became sooooo uncomfortable....each steep step was like a hammer to my big toes. I endured this grueling pain for about three hours, rested for about 2 in our remarkably hot-house tent, and then packed up for a quick hour downhill race in the all-too-familiar rain to our final camp. I collapsed into my sleeping bag, utterly exhausted at 7pm.
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| Unforgiving Descent |
Day 6: Millennium Camp (3730m) to Mweka Gate (1800m)
Hike: 13kms
Altitude Change: -1650m
Dawn arrived with another striking sunrise, still high above the clouds, but once again surrounded by plants and animals.
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| Final Mountain Sunrise |
Dawn also arrived with my big toes throbbing in pain and turning a lovely shade of purple. With no way to go but down and on my own two feet, I rigged together makeshift bandages of Jessie's leftover cotton face pads and bandaids. I managed to squeeze these contraptions into my running shoes since there was no way on earth I was subjecting my feet to another day in those battering ram boots.
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| Makeshift Toe Bandage |
After a final look to the mountain peak, it was down hill all the way. It stayed sunny all day, and we enjoyed the warmth even as we slipped and slid our way down the muddy trail. 5hrs and mud-caked shoes later, we emerged at the bottom to receive our official certificates for having summitted Kili.
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| Peak and Last Mountain Lodging |
Thrilled to have beaten the mountain, we were excited to return to the hotel and take a hot shower, something we had been dreaming about for days. Lucky for me, I got some hot water; unlucky for Jessie, she got none. Remember TIA? This is Africa.
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| Farewell Dinner with Jessie |
It's hard to describe the experience of climbing this mountain. Words and even pictures can't do the experience justice. It felt something like this: stand in a subzero freezer, get dressed in multiple layers of clothes soaked in ice water, put on fogged swim goggles, stand in front of a fan while someone throws darts at your exposed skin, hoist a backpack full of heavy rocks on your shoulders, have a cow sit on your chest, bang your head against the wall a few times, and get on a stairmaster set on high. Cold. Blind. Suffocating. Exhausted, but endlessly moving. It literally took just about every ounce of my mental and physical strength to push through the unrelenting physical exhaustion and discomfort. More than once, quitting seemed like a viable option.
Of course, I'm glad that I didn't quit and had the chance to stand at the top of Africa, watching the sun rise above the clouds at dawn. It seemed a fitting end to my African journey. An apt metaphor for the hard work, the frustration, and ultimately the victories that made the hard work and frustration of teaching worthwhile.
I will tell you more about the work I did at the Jue School and share my final thoughts in my next and last blog installment.
What a great adventure. Congrats. Rick Lobs
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