kilimanjaro

So, Africa. 

It's different. Rocky and I arrived in Moshi a day ahead of everyone else. We hung out at the hotel as long as we could. Which was about 3 hours. Then caught a local bus (a 7 seater van which could at any moment be holding 1-50 people), paid 2 cents each and headed into town. Well we thought. Turns out we were going out of town. 

Moshi tourism is limited strictly to the mountain and we were obviously quite different than everyone else. While we were on our round about bus ride, a woman holding a baby got on board and sat opposite us. I then entered the most epic staring contest of my life. The baby won. I surrendered defeat in admiration after the 6 month old went a solid 10 minutes with a wide eyed, non blinking, look of sheer terror plastered on his face. 

We bought our usual knick-knacks (we buy a Christmas tree ornament whenever we travels some place new. It's almost always a key chain) and maybe a giant wooden giraffe mask. I tried some delicious street corn. We debated grabbing a bus back to the hotel but as it was rush hour, they were packed. Packed. Like people's heads and limbs sticking out the window. We opted to continue our training and walk.

The view of the mountain from our hotel.

Checking out the mountain.

Day 1: We loaded up our bus (side note:this was at least 3x as large as a city bus and with half the people) and headed up to the gate. On the way our guides stopped to buy a lot of raw beef from a stall on the side of the road, assumably for us to eat during the week. This only mildly alarmed us.

Julie at the Machame gate.

It takes a while to register a group so we spent some time here. I started talking to a German group and as parting I told them I would see them at the top. The politely told me they probably wouldn't but didn't elaborate. We then made it our goal to beat them to the summit. We lost them after day 3. As I found out later from the local guides that Germans are renowned to be the toughest climbers. I assume they bypassed the camps and summited three days early while walking on their hands.

You will notice a large amount of pictures from the first day. A small amount from the second and then a blank gap until summit morning. I did pack my camera everyday in my day pack but after I got above 12,000 feet, all I had energy to do was drink water and eat candy bars. Apparently when you boil me down to my basic nature--water and candy bars is all remains.

The Machame Gate (our starting point) is lower than 6,000 feet so we started out in a dense rain forest. Each day the terrain changed. You, as the reader, have no way to experience this as my photo record is faulty. There is an object lesson in that.

We made it to our first camp! And so did the 700 other people we were camping with that night.

A little higher up. Sam spent the trip desperately searching for a cell signal.

We went above the clouds on the second day. As my mountaineering career is limited to Timpanogos and Baldy, this was new to me. Though not entirely unfamiliar. We generally spend about 80 hours above the clouds a year flying back and forth between the US and Thailand. After my first few ill fated flights, I now develop flu-like symptoms every time I board an airplane.

I'm still not sure if I was feeling the effects of altitude or if being above the clouds triggered my fear of being stuck in an airplane with a deranged toddler.

My brother, Sam, who climbs other mountains says Kilimanjaro is more of a luxury trek.

He said this like it was a bad thing.

Everyday you were responsible for taking in your pack every thing you might need for the day, food, water, rain clothes, extra layer etc. Then everything else (up to 30 pounds) was carried up by the porters. They would take down your tent, the dining tent, the toilet tent (yes we had a toilet, and it was fantastic) and take the same trail you did and arrive a the next camp early enough to set it all up.

They were incredible.

Higher up. Look at us being tired and taking a break with our tiny packs. Then check out the porters in the background. It was quite humbling to be constantly getting passed by someone's who's load was 4xs yours.

When we started out walking at the gate our pace was so slow. Painfully slow. 

But after we got about 15,000 feet we were using the same pace and I was always ready for a break.

The third day we went up to 15,000 feet and then went back down and slept at 13,000. Rocky started getting light headed at 15 and never really recovered. He started taking diamox and it helped a little but he was still pretty sick. That was probably the last time he ate food. 

                                           

On day 5 we went up to high camp at 15,000 to spend the night before we summited and he vomited on the trail. At this point he was subsisting entirely on a diet of fruit leather and trolli eggs. We arrived at high camp early, around noon and spent the afternoon thinking about that night. We would wake up around midnight and hike for 8-10 hours until we reached the summit. 

No one felt great but everyone felt a lot better than Rocky. In true Rocky fashion he told me, if someone had to be sick he was glad it was him. At that point we were all unsure whether he would be coming up with us. He rested a lot, ate three trolli eggs, drank the water that I kept stuffing down his throat and when we woke up at 11:30 he said he was going to come. 

It was completely black as we started. You could see the headlamps of other groups winding up the mountain, but you had no way to judge how much longer you had. We were stopping to take breaks every hour and after the first two hours, I put my watch on my outside layer so I could mentally count down to the breaks.

This was my first experience with high altitude and it was not a pleasant feeling. Your muscles don't feel tired or worn out--I was never sore or physically tired during the trip--you just feel bad. It's the closest thing to morning sickness I have experienced. You feel sick, you know you will feel better if you eat but you can't think of anything that sounds good and 99% of food makes you want to gag.

On summit day we were told that every break we needed to consume 150-200 calories. Originally I thought this was a dream come true. I had 7 candy bars left, I would just eat one at each break. By the third break I couldn't barely stomach my Reese's Peanut Butter cups and a few hours later I was gagging on my Butterfinger bites.

At hour 5 the sun started coming up, it started to warm up and we could try to gage where we were on the mountain. They told us we had 600 more feet until we made it to Stella's Point, which was only a few hundred feet from the top, and we would have one more break. I was both dreading the stop, having to stomach more food and try to get into a rhythm again and desperately looking forward to sitting down and doing nothing. After we had been hiking and hour and a half, the guides pointed to a spot 10 feet ahead of us. I assumed we would be taking a break finally, but as we came over the crest of the mountain we were at Stella's.

And twenty minutes later, the summit.

I don't have an actual group photo as the one on my camera was taken with another group in front of us, but we loved hiking with everyone in our group. We had 11 people and I was related to all of them--either through blood or through marriage.

It was an incredible experience. We are both grateful for the opportunity to climb.

 I'm 1/7 of the way done with the seven summits. And I think that's where I will remain.