Kilimanjaro Expedition 2012: Day 6- Day of Days

So much for going to bed early to catch some sleep. My mind was super active playing through scenarios. My usual tried and tested method of plugging my ears with music didn't work either. Before I knew it, I could hear the voices of the students who were leaving an hour before the rest of us, getting ready to leave. Oh well, I figured that I would get up earlier to wish them well and see them off. 

Getting out of the tent is always a rather painful affair because of the cold. After hanging around a little, a couple of the other students started coming out of their tents because they couldn't sleep either. More students soon started coming out from their tents and we were soon huddled in the dining tent for hot drinks and biscuits for snacks. Paul was going through everyone's packs to check on the weight, and he was really strict about the amount that we were bringing along. 

As expected, the wind was blowing and I've got my down jacket, fleece and merino base layers on, but I was surprised that my hands and toes weren't feeling the bite of the cold.. yet. I had liners and outer shell gloves, and liner and merino wool socks on. At midnight, it was time to go: the longest day had begun. 

The first part was easy enough, scrambling a little over the boulders which marked the entrance/exit to the camp, but soon, the long climb up the mountain of scree began. We were really fortunate that the expected blustery wind didn't kick up, and in fact, we felt a little warm from the exertion. Unlike other days, we were taking breaks every half hour, and on a day like this, it was especially important for us to keep our breaks to no more than 5 minutes. In fact, in that 5 minutes, we could actually feel the cold and our energy getting sapped. 


My plan for summit day was pretty much the same strategy for the past couple of days: keep my head down, keep moving one foot ahead of the other with as little effort as possible, and keep my eyes on my heart monitor while monitoring my breathing. Knowing well that it was an estimated 7 hours up, I tried not to keep track of time so as not to concern myself with potentially demoralising thoughts like "how much longer to go?". When I decided to sneak a peek at my watch, I was pleasantly surprised to see what we were halfway through the expected 7 hour journey up the mountain, and I was still feeling good. Apart from the lack of blustering wind (hence no worries about windchill), there was no snow despite the fact that the rainy season had just started. However, the water in our bladder had frozen despite blowing the liquid in the tube back into the bladder. Thankfully, the water in our Nalgene didn't freeze, and that kept us going, and I was thankful for the oat biscuits that I popped to keep my energy level up.


We soon came to the toughest part of the climb, where the scree was so deep that a third of my trekking pole sank in and I punched my trekking poles into the ground just to get better support. Each step we took, we lost our footing and slipped down lower. It wasn't just a physically challenging time, but also one that tested us mentally, and it soon took a toll on many of the students as they started to fall behind and the group started to separate. Soon, it was just me and 2 other students, with our guide, Joseph.


To encourage the group, Joseph pointed out some lights along the horizon and told us that it was Stella Point, a major landmark for us as it would mark the end of the steepest portion of the climb. When we crested Stella Point, we were so happy because I knew that the summit was at most an hour away. By this time, we could see that the sky was starting to get lit up from the rising sun. It actually energised us and we found the energy to walk faster, only to have Joseph call out to us "Pole Pole!". Oops! Let's not throw caution to the wind although we have only less than 200 metres of altitude to go. 

Sunrise, as seen from Stella Point

As we trudged closer, we started passing the first trekkers that we'd seen all night. The good thing about climbing during that time of the year, was that there was hardly anyone else. In fact, we were the only group on the summit trek (on the Machame Route) that night. We passed a pair of trekkers who called out to us, encouraging us to push on as it was just a bit more to go. At 6.45am, we were arrived at the summit. After months of training, mentally preparing for the possibility that I might not make it to the summit, the support and encouragement from Kat and many of my friends.. all of that emotion came flooding into me and I admit that I teared up at the summit. I had done it. Although I was feeling better than I'd expected all the way up, I just could not believe that after months of preparation, after all the worrying, I was finally at the roof of Africa.

At last!

There was another pair of trekkers who reached the summit before we did, and one of them was obviously very tired and was resting in front of the summit sign. We were in no hurry as we had planned to wait for the rest of the group to catch up, so I called Kathy on the satellite phone to let her know that I had reached the summit (she was waiting for my call) and then called my boss to let him know that we'd arrived. Joseph was concerned about the exposure and so he started to hurry us. We took our summit photos, and then proceeded to make our way down the mountain. We made a slight detour to the see the glacier, but my student and I quickly realised it wasn't the best idea because the volcanic ash was really soft and deep, so it took a lot of energy to negotiate the slope. We decided quickly that we'd seen enough and decided that we should preserve our energy for the descent.


As we approached Stella Point, we met the first of our group that were making their way to the summit, and we offered them all the encouragement and when we stood at the edge, we were daunted by what we saw: an impossibly long way down back to camp, covered with loose scree. What we had gone through in those 7 hours finally struck us, and honestly, if it was daylight, we might've gotten demoralised going up, seeing how much further we had. I decided to ski/run down the slopes and quickly realised it wasn't gonna be easy as my knee started to hurt and for the first time since the trek started, I was really starting to feel the fatigue. In fact, the two students with me were also struggling hard as well. Come to think about it, it was the longest day for us, after 7 hours of climbing, we now have to drag our weary bodies back to camp. We used all kinds of strategies, like skiing down and then taking breaks, to walking down slowly before taking a break. Either way, we were physically and mentally exhausted, and we fell plenty of times when the scree under our feet gave way. 

It's a long way down to the glacier

Looking down the endless slope of scree

We finally arrived at a point where the landscape flattened out somewhat and when we turned a corner, we were confronted by another deep valley before we could actually reach the camp. That dealt another blow to us psychologically. The sun by now was blasting down on us. Well, there really wasn't any other choice but to just do what I'd been doing for the past week, that is to keep moving one foot ahead of the other. It felt so alone in the totally barren and desolate landscape, devoid of vegetation. The ground beneath our feet soon from scree to broken slabs of slate, and walking over them felt like I was walking over broken pieces of floor tiles. It honestly felt like an eternity and I just couldn't see where the camp was until I caught sight of the ranger's hut. After negotiating a few of the boulders, I realised that I was approaching camp, and as I walked into camp at about past 11am, some of the porters who didn't follow us to the summit came up to shake my hand, and after a drink from the kitchen helper, I throw my pack into my tent and collapsed on my mat to rest. However, I could hardly fall asleep because the sun was blasting down on my tent and turned it into a greenhouse, so even though we were high up on the mountain, it felt REALLY hot. 


I managed to catch some sleep and got most of my packing done, and welcomed the rest of the larger group back into camp as they staggered in. Almost everyone had made it up the summit, with the immense help of the guides and porters, and even those who didn't make it, came back with an great sense of satisfaction knowing that they've done the best they could. We grabbed a late lunch and at about 3pm, we started to make our way down to Mweka Camp (3100m). Yup, the day was definitely not over yet, and after spending a good part of the week inching almost 4000m to acclimatise, we would descend about 1500metres in 4 hours.


Kilimanjaro was the reverse of Mt Kinabalu for me, where I had suffered during the ascent but breezed down the descent. My right knee was in total agony on the descent down Kilimanjaro because it was hurting so much when I bent it, and it came to a point when it was starting to lock up. I was massively grateful as I staggered into camp at about 6.30pm. Eighteen and a half hours after our day started, the day has finally ended. We were surrounded by the lush greenery once more, and I was so grateful to climb into my tent. As I was wiping myself with the wipe wets, I thought to myself "one more day" as my knee throbbed with pain. Off to dinner for one final dinner by the candlelight, one final briefing for the following day. Many of us had thought that it would be warmer after descending 1500 metres, but we were wrong as we started dashing back for our fleece, gloves and even down jackets. After dinner, no one really hung around much as fatigue really kicked in and by 8pm, I was already in my sleeping bag and fast asleep.


Here are the final numbers:
Total time: 18hour30minutes
Max Heart Rate: 155bpm
Average Heart Rate: 131bpm
Total calories burnt: 12150 calories