Mount Kilimanjaro Day 5 (Summit Day) - July 18th

July 18th, 2008:

The last few nights have been extremely cold, and at 4600 meters, last night took the cake. We all slept in our four season bags and still had to sleep with multiple layers of clothing. At 11:00pm we were awakened, had a light breakfast and tea, prepared for the cold and darkness, and then began the ascent to 5900. Our group was expanded for this leg of the trek, with Stick, Benedict, and Crespo being added in case of any emergencies. We each used a headlamp to light the path, and we were amazed to see that the other guides used no headlamp at all.

We walked single file and very slowly. Most of us had headaches. I had been taking four Ibuprofen at a time to help my headache, but even this wasn’t helping this morning. While the slow pace was great for altitude acclimatization it also made it difficult to warm up, and many of us were very cold. I, and others, listened to our I-pods to make the eight hours to the summit pass quickly, and to take our minds off headaches and other ailments. Amusingly, the guides seemed to be in good spirits, talking for the first few hours, but even they quieted down as we approached the summit. All of our water began to freeze, and camelbacks stopped working as the water in the hoses froze. Any bathroom stops were limited to a few minutes in order to stay warm.

Around 6 am a sliver of sunlight began to appear above the clouds and slowly it began to get light. It still remained cold despite the sun, with the additional problem that at these altitudes the sun is pretty strong. Despite putting on sun lotion with SPF 85, a couple of us still managed to burn their noses. At this point, everyone concentrated on their breathing and pace. Some of those in our group were not feeling well, and indeed, we witnessed one or two people being brought down the mountain as we ascended. Some of our group handed their daypacks over to the guides to carry to give them a better chance at getting to the summit. As we neared Stella point, a point approximately 1.5 hours before the summit, we all seemed to get our second wind. At Stella point we all rested for about ten minutes, warmed up with hot tea that one of the guides had brought, and then continued to the summit. When you look at Kilimanjaro from lower elevations you can see some snow, but just at the upper reaches of the mountain. In fact, the mountain is home to a permanent glacier, although some estimates project it to melt completely by 2020. The scale of this glacier is not evident until you begin to rise past Stella point. It is this point that you can see the full scale of this extinct volcano and glacier.

At 8:15, after walking across a small snowfield, we arrived at the summit. We took some pictures and celebrated briefly before Moses pushed us to continue down.

While descending we found a man, probably in his 40’s, on his knees vomiting. His guide was no where in sight and our guides began attending to him. Five minutes later we had located his guide, clearly not doing his job, and were on our way. Shortly after this encounter, one of our group members succumbed to the altitude. She had been ill on the way up, but amazingly managed to get to the summit, only to get sick soon after. After arriving back at Stella point we split the group with two guides, one of which was Moses, staying with two from our group, and the rest of us headed down immediately. Moses and Stick, after reassessing our group members health at Stella, proceeded to carry (Yes carry – Arms across their shoulders) them all the way down to approximately 4700 meters. For me, I felt the trail down was the worst part of the trek. The trail became a loose collection of fine dust, and rocks, and it was horrendous on the knees. At noon we arrived back into camp, the other two followed at 1pm. We all passed out in our tents.

The day wasn’t over though. After a lunch at 3 we began another 4-5 hour trek to descend from 4600 meters to 3100 meters. After descending to 4600, and getting a short sleep, our entire group felt much better, although we were very tired. We left later than planned from camp and began hiking down to our last camp. While the first two hours were fine, the second were terrible. Leaving camp late we were caught in the dark, descending down wet, muddy, rocks after fifteen hours of hiking and very little sleep. We celebrated as we rolled into the last camp. I even managed to buy a coke, which I was craving, at the ranger station. Dinner was served, but almost nothing was eaten, even our guide Moses admitted later he was completely exhausted after 17 hours of hiking that day. We all passed out and, not surprisingly, most of us slept well.