Calm before the storm - preparing to summit
Midnight-6 am, Barafu Base Camp - 15,180 ft.
We march slowly into the inky darkness, winding through piles of rocks and slate. This Martian landscape envelops us in desolate silence. Soon, the flat trail ascends into steep, rocky cliffs.
The first six hours are a delirious blur where hypothermia and fatigue cloud my thoughts, and I fight to keep awareness. I have only energy enough to walk one step, then rest one step to catch my breath. Now I understand the sagacity of the locals’ advice to walk “pole pole” - which is a slow and steady pace that prevents sweating (and hypothermia from cooling body temperature) and keeps nausea in check.
Barafu Base Camp - 15,180 ft.
I glance up and gasp in awe at the millions of twinkling constellations, and the beautiful twinkling lights of the neighboring city of Moshi. After a few hours, however, I am too chilled, sleepy, breathless, and nauseous to fully enjoy the view. The higher we climb, the more I want to lie down and sleep!
Julius reminds us to wriggle our fingers and toes to prevent freezing. In the darkness before dawn, pee and energy bar breaks punctuate the monotony. At every break, a flurry of activity from the guides ensue. They help us drink water (so we don’t have to remove gloves), eat energy bars, warm our hands, and carry our packs. I use up all my power of concentration and will to open a backpack and take out a Balance Bar, so that Julius ends up having to unwrap it. Forcing down bites of the frozen bar, I fight back waves of nausea. I feel as if I’m stuck in a slow-motion movie where my body is a dead weight preventing movement.
With every step, I struggle with the nausea rising from my stomach, constantly teetering on the brink of gagging and vomiting. This feeling quickly becomes the norm. Because of my excessive shivering and weariness, Julius puts on a fleece hat in addition to my own and carries my camera. Elius helps me out of one layer of fleece and into a windproof, snowboarding jacket (this was key as the many layers of fleece was making me sweat but not preventing the wind from blowing through). In between bouts of fatigue, I remember seeing a thin orange, red strip appear against the dark, midnight blue. At this elevation, we are level with the rising sun.
6-8 am, Stella Point - 18,958 ft.
Remy carries my daypack and warms my hands with his, finally putting them into my pockets. As my hands tingle and gain sensation, I get a second wind! Miraculously, the nausea and lethargy disappear, my eyelids open wide and I feel my consciousness sharpen.
With the first light of dawn and newfound energy, I become cognizant of the group for the first time. Richard, Kathleen, and Stephen are in front with Julius, while Remy and I follow slowly. Guided and often times supported by Elius, Anand struggles fiercely to keep up one step behind.
I continue to climb with a pole pole pace and a rest in between each step, a must to avoid impending nausea. After a brutal 2,000 foot ascent up mountains of scree (loose, sandy, gravel-like volcanic rock sediments), we reach Stella Point at 18,958 feet! I’m in pretty bad shape again, as my earlier burst of energy has fizzled out under the intense morning sun. Nausea and a throbbing headache return with full force, and a strange, powerful delirium consumes.
Resting on a rock, I blindly grope for sunglasses and ingest a few squirts of Gu (energy gel). This simple task leaves me utterly exhausted and panting. After a short rest, my extremities become cold and numb, slight hypothermia sets in, and I am once again battling the urge to lie down and sleep.
8-9:30 am, Summit 19,453 ft.
The stretch between Stella Point and Uhuru Peak (summit), although not as steep, is nothing short of torture.
We cross several ridges that all look deceptively like ‘summits’ from afar. Each time I think it’s over, there’s another ridge in the distance. Everyone is ahead of me. We pass the windy ridge of Kibo crater and a huge glacier to our left, and at this point, I get my third wind! Pushing expectantly towards the wooden sign and fluttering flags that mark the summit, Elius firmly holding Anand’s hand, while Anand appears half asleep as he’s almost dragged up the mountain.
The veins in my head pulsate and throb convulsively under the scorching sun. I hear muffled cheering through the thick fog of disorientation. Julius shakes my hand and places my camera at my feet as I sink down, delirious, on the summit!
Ice glaciers and a splitting headache - Kili at last!
Everyone is shaking hands and giving rounds of congratulatory hugs, but I’m so dazed and sick that all I can do is sit and try not to pass out and vomit. The throbbing is so intense that I'm afraid my head will explode. After a period of deep breathing, however, the mental fog clears, the nausea dissipates and I’m actually able to recognize the crackling of the glaciers. Ironically, more than anything else in this moment, I simply relish the feeling of not being utterly sick! I even manage to mumble something for Kathleen’s video. Albeit we all had doubts about whether or not he would make it, even Anand’s ghastly pallor has given way to a wearied but happy glow. After about forty-five minutes of hanging out at the highest point in Africa, we turn around and go back down. In nine hours, we had climbed 4,273 vertical feet.
10:15-1:30 pm, Descent
We soon discover that the descent, not the ascent, is actually the most difficult part of the trek. We are already 200% spent by the time we reach the summit, and now we had to push on and go back down! My splitting headache has wrapped itself around my head a few times now, and I’m still holding pee (and other stuff) from several hours ago.
We descend the quickest way possible, straight down the mountain. Slipping and sliding in the scree until our nostrils are black from the dust, all I can think about now is getting back to camp, but the dust and the scree and the pounding on my knees never seems to end.
It’s purely a mental battle now, as even the power gels do nothing except make me want to vomit. The trail is a tricky combination of rocky steps and scree, both of which take a painful toll on our knees. I finally reach flat ground where Julius is waiting, and sit and wait for the others. Resting on a rock with my walking poles out and my head resting on top, I pass out and fall fast asleep. When I wake up, I’m refreshed but have to pee like a mother. Unable to hold down the Diamox-urge any longer, I race down the mountain ahead of the others and squat to tinkle next to a rock in plain view of everyone coming down the mountain. “You know what, I really don’t care at this point.”
Following one of the porters back to camp, I’ve lost motor control of my legs and my knees are buckling under. It’s all I can do to stumble down the rocky ledges. I finally reach camp, grungy and exhausted but proud to have made it to the summit, and to be breathing effortlessly at 15,000 feet! Richard is sitting at the supper table, fast asleep with his head cradled in his arms. Anand, who was whisked quickly down to lower elevations with Elius’ expert guidance, had passed out immediately in his tent. I am thoroughly POOPED.
1:30-4 pm Base Camp - 15,180 ft.
One by one our bedraggled group reaches camp. Everyone is grumpy and complaining because we’re told that we still have to break camp and hike a few MORE hours to reach our next camp! We take a vote on whether to keep hiking and then rest at the new camp or sleep first and then hike afterwards. Richard and I are overruled.
While everyone sleeps for several hours, I dust out my clothing and shoes, devour a divine ‘brunch’ of soup, Chapati, and French toast with banana, and fall deeply asleep for the first time in five days. No one else seems to eat or enjoy the food as much as I do for some reason.
4-8 pm, Rau Camp - 10,230 ft.
“It’s not over yet." We pack up and hike for another four hours from Barafu to Rau, a lower elevation campsite. What starts out as a relatively easy three-hour hike (as per the lightening-pace of the guides) ends up being a never-ending five-hour hike in the dark, UGH. Because of our late start and the guides’ gross overestimation of our hiking skills, we end up walking, or rather, tripping to camp in several hours of darkness.
I’m utterly bitter because I had wanted to get an early start so we could reach camp in daylight. And now, as I had feared, we’re still hiking in the waning light of day. And of course, I forget to bring my headlamp so am left to rely on the headlamps front and back, and end up stubbing my boot on random tree roots and rocks every other step.
By the time we reach camp, everyone is getting ready for bed and the wind is already howling. I quickly slurp down supper and head for the shelter of the tent, even delaying a MUCH-needed trip to the outhouse because I just couldn’t be bothered to look for it in the dark.
