Kilimanjarito

Day 1 of the Mt. Kilimanjaro climb started at the park gate -- a shaded little office like a carnival ride ticket booth at the start of the path. I started with my guide Philip while my porters waited behind in a line to get the packs they carried weighed. No one was supposed to carry more than 20 kilos, including their own gear. Unlike Meru, however, there weren't weigh stations at any camp, so these porters might have been overloaded after the entrance. Compared with what I had just finished on Meru, the climb of the first day was a gentle stroll in the forest. The highlight was seeing monkeys up close. First, the shiny blue monkeys darting across the trail in front of me, and later, the bushy black and white colobus monkeys leaping between the trees. I followed Philip's example and took the walk slowly in order to get used to the altitude. I felt like Mom could have been behind me, bugging me not to drag my feet in the dirt. The camp was like a little village, made up of lots of A-frame cabins for the tourists and larger ones for the guides and porters. The cabins were divided into two small rooms with four mats each. Since my hike was at the end of the season, just before the long rains, there weren't big crowds at the camp, so I got a room all to myself. Normally, though, those cabins fill up and then hikers take the large loft above the mess hut. During snack time, I talked to the other hikers who were on the same 6-day schedule as me; they were from all over the Western world.
I was up early the next day to see the colors just past sunrise. I watched the camp wake up while waiting for breakfast. The whole Kili walk, breakfast was uggi, a thin cornmeal porridge, a fried egg, and some fruit. I left about 30 minutes before most of the others, so the first 3 hours were very quiet. Trees no longer grew along the trail, just short shrubs. I had views of both Mawenzi, the false peak, and Uhuru, the true peak. Fires started by a careless smoker a few years cleared the views around me, making way for seussical flowers. I made it to Horombo Huts at 12,000ft just before the rains started. I watched rain and then small ice pellets bounce against the ground while I downed hot chocolate and fresh popcorn inside the dining hut.
Climbing up 15 minutes above camp, I watched a quiet sunrise--only me and white-necked ravens hopping amongst the cairns of sunrise rock. Philip and I walked to Zebra rocks (black and white stripes as you might imagine) and then on to the saddle between Kibo and Mawenzi. The point of this rest day was to get a bit more accustomed to the altitude. I didn't feel sick to begin with--this was still lower than I had climbed on Meru, but I was certainly less irritable the second day at Horombo. I shared a Tanzanian lunch with Philip. I am now quite the expert at rolling those balls of ugali (stiff porridge) in my hand and using the play-do ball to scoop up food. I pushed my dinner around that night without eating much--another symptom of altitude sickness, so I sat rather glumly in the dinner hut drinking hot ginger and honey. But then a group of Spaniards on their way down the mountain sat next to me and I forgot myself and my worries and was comforted by their familiar exclamations and accents, their infrequent questions for me. Various guides and porters said hi to me as I started to walk out the door. They all knew my name. Some recognized me from Meru while others I had spoken to during the slow day at the lower huts. I had a step up on Kiswahili from most tourists with what Alena taught me, so I think the guides remembered who I was because I asked Habari za leo instead of just saying Jambo. Then I stopped to talk with my new Slovenian friends Anze and Mirjana before finally leaving the dining room. And so I was rather a reluctant social butterfly that evening even as I had intended to be a recluse and shut myself away to rest and read Allende.
From Horombo I left for the last camp with clear skies. We crossed a ridge and all of a sudden the plant life melted away and all that was left was rocks, arranged in designs and initials by thousands of previous hikers. The walk took five hours even though the distances were short and the path good. I trudged along, not wanting to get sick if I could prevent it. At Kibo I napped away the afternoon like everyone else. Kibo is no village like the other hut sites--there are just a few buildings there, all made of cold stone rather than the more insulating layers of wood. I shared a room with 10 bunks with 6 other hikers (it was 7 until one guy had to be taken down because of AMS). I was irritable and not very hungry at dinner again. I saw that a few other people weren't feeling great, but I was too focused on myself and my pain to notice much. Kibo huts are at 14,500. I felt better when Philip turned on the light in our bunk room and woke the whole lot of us at 11. I drank some tea and packed cookies in my pocket and started the walk at 10 minutes to 12. I threw up early on, after only a half hour of walking. I had been feeling nauseous the whole way until then. People passed me up and I struggled to keep walking. There were groups of people above and below me on the switchbacks. The night was clear and the moon was full. I didn't even need to switch on my headlamp. I could see the lights hovering above me getting further away. I made no progress, it seemed, as the lights below me got closer and closer. I was so tired that I wanted to sit down and sleep right there in the snow. My eyes were unfocused as I trudged upward, kicking my toes (under 3 layers of socks) into the snow. I could barely enjoy the snow sparkling in the moonlight or the midnight brightness of Mawenzi peak. I didn't want to keep walking. I was so tired, so cold. In my head I practiced what I would say to family and friends when I got back and had to say I didn't make the top. My toes hurt from the cold so that running down the mountain and back into my sleeping bag seemed like the only option. It was Philip who kept me going. He rubbed my back my shoulders my arms my chest my head to warm me up and keep me sane and moving. He caught me when my balance gave way and I started to sway sideways whenever I stopped. I was worried about being sick again, wondering why I had ever decided this was a good idea, wondering how I would manage a winter in Wisconsin if I couldn't handle this. I stumbled up to Gillman's point, the last one up there as far as I could see. The light was just starting in the east. After Gillman's I knew I could make the rest, but that didn't energize me much. I tried to eat the cookies I had packed hours earlier in my pocket, but they had all crumbled. Spurred on by the sunrise, the glaciers, but mostly by the guides and other hikers I knew who encouraged me as they passed me on their way down, I threw myself down at the top of the almost 20,000 ft Kilimanjaro at 7.15am. Most of the other hikers that day had already gone down, so the peak was pleasant and calm. I took the requisite rubber ducky photos with the sign announcing my (dubious) success and downed a pineapple energy drink (a nice frozen slushy after the brisk morning stroll). When I started to walk down I lost the burst of energy and good feeling I didn't even know I had had. My head started to hurt, as it should at 19,000 or 18,000 and I couldn't slide down the scree fast enough. I tore off my boots and climbed back into my sleeping bag for an hour of rest before continuing the walk down. I walked back with Anze and Mirjana through the rain to Horombo at a fast pace. That night I wrote in my journal that I had to remember how tough this climb was so that I wouldn't be tempted to climb it again out of some misplaced nostalgia. So there it is. No--I would not recommend climbing Kili. Go to some local, shorter mountains instead. Am I glad I did it? Well... I'm certainly glad to say that I made it to the top. I can't say that I'm proud though - I didn't make the peak because I tried harder, because I was more worthy. My body reacted negatively to altitude, to be sure, but I didn't have to head down the mountain because of it. And all those people who walked back down to Kibo at 4am or 5am without reaching Uhuru... they still climbed the mountain just like I did. This will reassure my mom: the process of climbing to a peak, of having that as the goal of a hike and labeling any height short of the peak a failure is not the way to walk. I want to enjoy the journey, and since I know I cannot help but be swept up in a race to the top, I would rather not participate in such walks in the first place.