Kili Summit Day - Barafu Hut to Stella Point and Uhuru Peak (Feb 14, 2014)

Jambo,

We roused out of bed at 10:30 pm and it was dark and freezing cold. I put on every layer of clothing (6 layers) I had and my heavy gloves with liner. We drank some hot tea and John, our guide, put us in the order he wanted us in going to the top Rahm, Palani, then me, followed by Narayanan(b/w myself and Narayanan he doesn’t care about the order). In addition to Rahm, Palani, Narayanan and I, we had John, Husseini (assistant guide).

At midnight our group was fully assembled and at 11:55 pm with our headlamps on we began the accent to the top of Kilimanjaro. It is hard to put into words what it was like to begin this final ascent in the dark and freezing cold, other than to say it was surreal. We had been walking for five days, pushing ourselves to the limit to reach the summit, and now we were actually doing it.

As we climbed up the mountain over the prior several days it was always in the back of my mind-- will I make it; can I really do this; do I really want to do anything that is this friggin hard? Couple those doubts and negative feelings with the almost giddy excitement over having made it this far and actually being within striking distance of making it to the top, and you get some idea of the myriad of emotions the moment had for me. Well hopefully you get the point that there is a lot of stuff going through your head as you are lined up and waiting to start the final ascent of mythical, magical and majestic Mount Kilimanjaro.

It was cold. I do not mean the kind of cold that requires putting on a heavy coat and mittens. No this was the kind of cold that required every piece of clothing you brought with you to have a chance of fighting off. It was a cold that cut through you like a knife with a wind of at least 20 mph that pushed the cold into the marrow. So cold was one of the enemies that had to be defeated to conquer the mountain.

Another enemy to be defeated was altitude. Because of the atmospheric pressure we were only able to process 50 percent of the available oxygen. While the drugs we were all taking helped (except Palani), it was still hard to breathe.

Yet another enemy was fatigue. We had been climbing for five days and had only slept a few hours since making it to camp. We were all tired and had sore legs.

To combat these enemies John mapped out a strategy of keeping us moving. He modified the "pole pole" strategy of the past five days just a little and moved us more quickly than I anticipated.

We walked single file in silence up the slope, primarily on a path of crushed quartzite that glittered when struck by the lights of our headlamps. The steep path of quartzite was punctuated by stretches of scrambling over large boulders that took even more energy to climb over than the steep path.

Although there was a half moon it was low on the horizon and it was pretty dark. You could see the outline of path ahead by the headlamps of groups of climbers who had left even earlier than we had. The scene was ghostlike but beautiful. The lights of those farther up the trail extending for what seemed like miles; miles that we were going to have to climb.

In the night sky, the planet Mars was plainly visible and as red and striking as I have ever seen it. It shone like a beacon in front of us, beckoning toward the summit. The Milky Way, plainly visible above us, looked like a picture from the Hubble Telescope.

Behind us and to our left we began to see flashes of lightening as a storm apparently raged over the lower slopes of the mountain. If it reached us before we reached the summit we would have to contend not only with the cold and wind, but with snow. We pushed on through the night.

The very steep path cut back and forth across the face of the mountain in a series of switchbacks as we climbed steadily toward the peak that was not yet visible in the dark, but which drew each hiker to it.

At this point all I could do was put one foot in front of the other, counting out my steps and breathing best I could. I stayed immediately behind Palani, sometimes just a few inches off his left shoulder using him as a partial shield against the biting headwind. My Heavy gloves proved to be lightweights, and my fingers were freezing inside them. From the substantial litter of discarded hand-warmers that appeared along the trail, I realized there was one more item I should have put on inside my gloves.

Our pace was faster than those who left before us and we came upon a group of six or seven hikers who were going very slowly. I thought that we would stay behind them and continue at their speed, but that is not what John had in mind. He cut a path off to the side of the trail to overtake them. This meant walking even faster than before for several hundred feet on "virgin" surface of quartzite that gave way with each step, making walking twice as hard. By the time we overtook them, I was literally gasping for breath. Although I had hopes that after passing them we would slow the pace, or take a rest, this was not part of John’s plan of attack...we kept on going.

After walking continuously for nearly two hours, we did stop to take a rest and have some hot tea. While the tea tasted good, and helped warm and hydrate us, stopping for even a little while allowed the cold gain the upper hand in our struggle to make it to the top. As my hands went literally numb and the exposed portion of my face burned raw, I understood what John was doing; we had to keep moving or the cold would likely win the battle.

It turned out to be our last stop. After that we walked on and on going up the slope at the newly defined pace of "pole, pole" and a little more. It was if I was in a self induced trance. I tried to make each step the same as the last, put one foot in front of the other, breathe with a steady rhythm of three deep breathes in, followed by a long exhale to remove the carbon dioxide, and to keep up with Rahm and Palani. We did this for hours. It was strange that at some times it would seem that I could not take another step and then at others it was not be so bad and I knew I could do this. The key was just to keep your feet moving one in front of the other.

About an hour after our tea break we came upon a very large group of hikers. There were at least 20 of them and they were going very slowly. As before John determined that what you cannot go through, you can go around. Once again we were off the trail at a quickened pace designed to overtake the larger but slower group. The group was so big and spread out that it took several minutes to overtake them. By the time we did my legs were feeling rubbery, my heart was pounding, and I was gasping for air.

Once again there was no stop to rest. The cold by this point was mind numbing and despite our pace and the exertion of energy, my legs and arms started getting very cold. I could no longer feel my index finger on my right hand- which was facing the wind that just kept getting stronger.

After passing the large group we resumed our prior pace and fell into the rhythm of step-breathe, step-breathe, step- breathe. It was at about this point that the hoses on my camel pack began to freeze so that before long I were essentially out of water for the last portion of the ascent. Luckily had a bottle of water inside my backbag. Time essentially ceased to exist and I purposefully did not ask Narayanan about the time fearing it would indicate we still had hours more to go in the estimated six hour climb to the top. If that were the case I just did not want to know. The only thing that mattered was to follow behind Rahm and Palani and keep taking steps. As long as they could do it, I knew I could do it.

Just about the time that I thought there is no way we could keep this up, John informed us that we were about 15 minutes from Stella Point. It was then that I realized we had been climbing for just over four and a half hours. It was at that point that I really believed I could make it to the top. We pushed on and about 20 minutes later came to Stella Point. Stella Point is so-named because it was thought by the first guy to the Summit, Stella, to be the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro. When Stella got there in the late 1800's, he claimed victory and went home only later to learn that the highest point of Kilimanjaro was Uhuru Peak. Stella came back later and made it all the way to Uhuru, which is approximately 500 feet higher up than Stella Point.

Infused with new energy by knowing we had made the summit, we were determined not to repeat Mr Stella's error and pressed on to Uhuru Peak-the true summit of Kili. The treck from Stella to Uhuru is about an hour. Although the guide books indicated that this would be the hardest part of the ascent, I did not find that to be the case. Knowing the top was in reach seemed to spur us on, and the last hour seemed the shortest.

We continued on, again at the same pace. It was still dark as the moon had disappeared behind the summit at least an hour earlier. As the first barely perceptible glow of the rising sun began to show behind us, I saw in the distance the very feint outline of the sign making Uhuru Peak. It was only hundreds of yards in front of us and it was unbelievable....it was a moment of pure joy which words really cannot express.

The last hundred or so yards to the peak passed in a daze. There was hugging and shouting for joy, and high fives and fist bumps and general euphoria just knowing that we had made it. Officially it was 6:25 am. The sun was just beginning to rise behind us and the eastern sky was bathed in reddish golden light. It was incredibly, stunningly beautiful. John’s planned assault on the summit worked to perfection. We arrived six hours after we started, precisely at sunrise. It was much better live than can ever be told. I was literally dancing in a free flow style.

We took photos of our group, documenting the achievement. It was too cold to take very many. John estimated the temperature to be minus 15 Celsius. So with frozen fingers and elated hearts after about 20 minutes at the peak, we turned around, faced the rising sun and began our decent from the highest point on the continent of Africa and our journey home. The decent turned out to be very harsh due to adverse weather conditions.

It was a one long day with 15+ hours of walking up and down. Of course, it was an amazing feeling thou'. Same day we descended to Mweka hut 3080m from Barafu hut 4640m.