Kilimanjaro

Our big adventure to Tanzania.  The first leg was Mount Kilimanjaro.  Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa, one of the 7 summits, and the tallest free standing mountain in the world.  It was myself, JR Brockman, Lance and Andy McAdams, and Lance's friend Shane.  After a 27 hour journey we landed in Moshi, Tanzania and took a BUMPY shuttle ride (what's known as an African massage) to our hotel.  The next morning the adventure started.  There are many different routes up the mountain and we took the Lemosho route, which is the longest route but one of the more scenic.

Day 1:
Breakfast at the hotel and a four hour, dusty, bumpy ride to the trailhead with our four guides, Bruce, Thomas, Nicholas and Adam.  After two stops to blow out the air filter on the car we stopped to pick up our porters inside the park and set off.  Between guides, porters, and cooks we had a support staff of 20 people.  We started hiking at about 7,000 feet and the first day was an easy climb to about 11,000 feet through what started out as rainforest.  The guides set the pace and it was SLOW going.  We learned our first Swahili phrase - "pole pole", which means "slow, slow".  We would hear that hundreds of times a day.  We arrived at our first camp, Miti Mkubwa.  There we witnessed the production that was the porters setting up camp.  Each camp has multiple groups and they can get somewhat crowded.  The trails and camps were very dusty,  and we would be covered in dust for most of the trip.  Dinner was served and we learned that we would be eating A LOT of food each day - cucumber soup, vegys, potatos, ginger beef for dinner that night.  Then off to bed early.

Staring out

Rainforest

Porters at work - it's quite a production

Camp Miti Mkubwa

Dining tent

Our bathroom

Day 2:
With keeping extra hydrated and taking diuretics, there were usually multiple cold bathroom trips in the middle of the night.  Woke up at sunrise and had breakfast - porridge (the daily porridge that we would grow to seriously dislike by the end of the trip), fruit, eggs, toast.  We hiked to about 11,000 feet, leaving the rainforest and hiking through heather and moorland.  We would frequently be passed by porters carrying massive loads, usually balanced on their heads and/or shoulders.  The porters are restricted to carrying 20kg of weight, but it was obvious they were carrying MUCH more than that.  We saw some monkeys but not much else wildlife.  The summit was covered in clouds and we hadn't yet had a view of what we were up against.  We arrived at Shira 1 camp, ate a late lunch and rested.  At dinner we answered Trivial Pursuit questions but once it got dark and cold we were ready for bed.  The stars were phenomenal. 

Woke up to a view of the mountain

Mid-hike snack - we're clearly roughing it.

Heading out for the days hike

Day 3:
Woke up and watched the sunrise over the mountain - beautiful!  Some interesting terrain on this hike, walking along some bigger rocks and small cliffs.  We hiked up to about 13,7000 feet, skipping Shira 2 camp and arriving at Moir Hut.  We were the only group at that campsite and the solitude was nice.  The whole hike we had great views of the peak.  Had lunch at Moir Hut camp, more ginger beef, chicken wings, noodles - delicious.  I learned that there were re-stocking porters who would hike up the different camps to re-stock supplies.  We rested then had an acclimatization hike up a nearby ridge.  There were multiple rest and snack stops, and of course lots of "pole pole".  At the top of the ridge we kept going to a fun rock tower where we found dozens and dozens of cairns people had built.  Then back down and dinner of potato stew - food seemed to taste better each day.  Again the stars were amazing.

The hut at Moir Hut

On the acclimatizaiton hike - we hiked to the top of the rock tower.

Day 4:
We were supposed to come up with a team name, and we toyed with Kilimanjarbros, but decided that was too long and kind of lame.  We ended up using "Team Raha" at the suggestion of our guides.  We never really figured out what it meant, but loosely translated means "Team Awesome", but in somewhat of a vulgar tone.  For the rest of the trip the guides would shout out "Team!"  and we would all respond with an enthusiastic "Raha!"  It always got a big laugh from any porters that were nearby.   Little did we know that we would undergo this small ritual about 14,000 times per day for the rest of the trip. 

We then passed into the alpine desert climate.  Vegetation was minimal and at times it felt like we were on the moon.  At this point we were high above the clouds.  We hiked up to Lava Tower and took a side trip to scramble to the top.  This was fun scrambling and well worth the extra effort.  Most groups skip the tower to conserve energy, but we were glad we did it.

Lava Tower

Near the top

The trail in the background

Top of Lava Tower at 15,500 feet.  Mount Meru in the background

With one of our guides

This was a day of hiking up and down through several different climate zones.  W saw some different vegetation and even waterfalls.  We hiked back down to 13,00 feet to Camp Barranco, where about five different routes meet up.  The one consistency of the different areas is that it was always dusty.  It was really impossible to keep clean, even with them bringing us a bowl of hot water every morning to wash off with.  We arrived early at Camp Barranco, which was one of the more crowded camps, and rested in the afternoon. 

Day 5:
Up at sunrise, more porridge for breakfast (along with eggs, toast, fruit and more), and started the hike up the breakfast wall.  This is a steep ascent up about 1,000 feet with scrambling named for the fact that you work off your breakfast climbing to the top.  We were all feeling pretty good and decided to skip the next camp and summit a day earlier than planned.  We stopped at Karangu Camp to have lunch (chicken crepes), rested a bit then off to Barafu base camp.  We were now in the summit zone, our final climate zone.  This was the final camp at over 15,000 feet and it was jam packed with tents.  There are typically hundreds of people camped there and they put up tents wherever they will fit. 

The breakfast wall

On our way to Karafu Camp

Barafu Base Camp

We arrived early afternoon and rested up.  We tried to nap but it's hard at 15,000 feet.  The tents were right on top of each other and there was a lot of noise and hubub, making any peace and quiet impossible.  We had an early dinner then tried to get to sleep early to rest of our midnight leaving time.  The Ambien helped but it was still hard to sleep.  I got about 3 hours then woke up for the final push.


Day 6:  Summit Day
Woke up, had a snack, and put on all the layers of clothes that I had.  Luckily I had rented some thick expedition mittens at the hotel, or my hands would have frozen with my thin gloves.  We set off at midnight under a half moon, so there wasn't much light.  We started up and looking ahead could see multiple small pockets of lights - the groups in front of us.  They looked like they were up in the sky because the trail was STEEP!  We went up about 4,000 feet in 4 KM!  It's probably good that it was dark so we couldn't see how steep it really was.  Luckily it wasn't that crowded and we could go at our own pace, which turned out to be very, very slow.  Lots of "pole pole" and "Team...Raha!"  There was a clear sky with beautiful stars.  We stopped about every 40 minutes for a quick rest and snack.  We passed several groups and some people struggling, but we trodded along.  There wasn't a lot of talk and the higher we hiked the more the temperature dropped.  There were frequent "Team..."  with less and less enthusiastic "Raha"s.  We really just wanted them to stop doing it. 

Not a lot of pictures of the ascent - it was too cold and eventually my camera froze up.  This was expected and I had a spare battery inside my jacket for the summit.

The final push to the top of the crater was the toughest part, and we were pretty exhausted by that time.  Lance was struggling with the altitude but we were getting close.  We got to the rim of the crater, to what is called Stella Point.  Many people turn around there and claim they reached the summit, but it isn't the highest point.  We rested there a bit as the sun began to come up.  All of the sudden the crater, sea of clouds below us, and the glacier all came into view.  It was quite stunning.  The crater is enormous and we had to hike around to the other side.  The glacier was to one side and the crater the other.  We were getting close to the summit and Andy thought he would run to the end.  This lasted about 15 meters before he gave up.  I felt pretty good with the altitude and finally reached the top!  Now the sun was up and it was a beautiful clear morning.  It took us about 6 1/2 hours to summit and it was quite cold at the top.  Temperature was about 0 degrees fahrenheit, without the wind chill.  Luckily the wind wasn't too strong and we had a beautiful morning to be on the summit.  We all made it to the top, although I don't think Lance remembers too much about being up there.

Uhuru Peak.  19,341 feet.  Tallest point in Africa.

We spent about 20 minutes at the top, taking pictures and enjoying the views.  I was loving the rush of being that high and having made it to the top.  At that moment I was higher than anyone else on the entire continent!  There weren't many other people on the summit with a few groups arriving and leaving while we were there.  We didn't want to stay up too long and started heading down.

Our guide Nick

The glacier is melting fast and it is predicted that it will completely gone in 3-4 years. 

Team Raha!

The route down is different than up, which makes it nice for traffic.  This was mostly steep, dusty trails and for much of the time we could dirt ski/skate down.  I quickly shed layers as the sun rose higher, my Camelbak thawed, and the hike down was uneventful. 

Approaching Barafu Camp

We made it back to basecamp in about 2 hours and rested there for about 3 hours.  I tried to sleep but there was too much going on in the camp.  We then hiked down another 5,000 feet to our last camp, Mweka Camp.  Much of the hike was in the clouds and the landscape was eerie. 

 




At Mweka camp we rested, had our popcorn snack, then our final dinner.  We enjoyed relaxing and were ready for this to be our last night camping.  Seven days without a shower and covered in dust wears on you.

 One final popcorn snack

Day 7:
Easy hike out to Mweka Gate and we reached the end of the hike.  After a short bus ride back to the hotel I had one of the best showers of my life.  It's amazing the amount of dirt your body can hold. 

Our head guide, Bruce

That night at the hotel we had our final meeting with the guides where they gave us our certificates and sang a traditional song for each of us.  They really seemed like they were having as much fun as we were.  There were more loud "Team...Raha"s. and we listened to one final fairly incomprehensible speech from Bruce.  The we parted ways.

This was truly a phenomenal experience and one I will never forget.   All of that and we still had a safari to look forward to!