Kilimanjaro Climb attempt.
We had to meet with the other climbers at the offices of Tropical Trails, our tour company, for 7am……We actually turned up a bit later as we’d mis-calculated our timings this morning but nobody seemed that bothered.
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The Objective !
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The climbing team assembled outside the offices of Tropical Trails.
We, along with Olaf, a Dutch chap we’d met on the campsite, were introduced to Rebecca, a British lady working as a Doctor in the Congo for “Doctors without borders”, a charity organisation. After some preliminary arranging we were loaded up into a Toyota Land-cruiser whilst the majority of our equipment was to be shortly found bouncing along in a trailer behind us.
Within a few hours we were at the entrance to the Machame trail, our chosen route up-It is the hardest you can make without climbing equipment. Whilst our guide was registering us into the park and paying the exorbitant fees, we were collecting the additional equipment we’d rented, namely walking poles, a down jacket for the final ascent, and some gaters. The rental price was expensive and the general quality of the equipment was between acceptable to poor.
My poles were of a different length and one kept collapsing under any real force, the jacket looked like a donation from an American who chose his ski wardrobe in the 80’s…and it definitely wasn’t down. 
The gaters were in good condition but not big enough to fit around my calves properly !. Johns gear was better but overall not really good enough for the money paid.
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Our entrance to the Machame route.
Kitted up we were given our packed lunch for the day and we set off at an incredibly slow pace, something we’d read about but hadn’t anticipated as being so slow. It was a bit like a funeral march but with making smaller strides. After the initial oddness of walking this way subsided, I was really pleased we weren’t going to be racing…
…and not long after…and even more pleased as the steepness of the track increased considerably at points and it was hot.
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The early stages of our trek.
The track was actually well made for the first half of today’s trek and each step was bordered with a wooden plank, which if not feeling very authentic for a mountain ascent, was an easier introduction to our climb. We stopped for lunch just off the path and resumed to a rougher track which was largely made of mud and rocks, still stepped but slightly harder to walk on. The whole days walk was about 7 hours in the end and during that time we were supposed to have walked about 17km and ascended approximately 1200m. It was quite tiring but not exhausting, never-the-less we were pleased to see our camp site and spent about an hour or so relaxing in our tents before tea/coffee/hot chocolate were ready, which was then shortly followed by dinner. By about 7:30 everybody was pretty well ready for bed and whilst I tried to introduce a water-shed type ruling John, Phil and I had used in Peru, it fell on deaf-ears and everybody was soon sliding off to bed.
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Our first camping point.
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Our first dinner together. John and Rebecca look like they've inhaled something before the photo...see tin of powder in front of Rebecca !
We’d been advised to wear a hat in bed as it was likely to get very cold. The down sleeping bags we had rented were really really thick and looked more like they would be more suitable for igloo cavity insulation in Iceland. By about 10 o’clock I think John and I had taken our hats off and had had to open the sleeping bags up as we were too hot. Breakfast was due for 7:30 so we needed to be up for about 7ish…..that obviously meant we had about 12 hours sleep. I don’t think any of us slept for the entire time but we did all get plenty of rest. Breakfast consisted of porridge, eggs & a spicy frankfurter-type sausage, along with some toast and plenty of hot drinks. Today we were heading for Shira caves at 3878m, a further ascent of 878m.
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An idea of some of the distances involved.
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The first 3 hours or so were all in a straight line going straight up the side of the mountain. This was harder than yesterday and the pace we’d been walking at yesterday was reduced to an even slower pace. I personally found it encouraging to see the peak of Kili’ (as known to its friends and foes alike) much closer than the previous day, non-the-less, it was steep and hard work. We got to Shira caves fairly early, around 2 ish, did a few photos, got a drink and then headed up (voluntarily) to the Shira registration point and back to our camp site. This took a further hour or so. We had dinner and retired to bed early again-we’d been forewarned that the following day was going to be long and fairly tough.
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Some of the many faces of Kili.
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The problem with the Dutch is that they think the games they play in The Netherlands as children can be played in other countries as Adults. Oh ! the simplicity of trying to fly on the flat !......
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......needless to say that John and I helped him out with his technique !!
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John surveys his new horizons....unfortunately the mountain "was behind him !!"
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Rebecca with Mt Meru, that she'd climbed the previous week
:cockeye , in the background.
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Shira camp site.
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Shira caves later that day.
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John at Shira Hut.
Up again at about 7 and off again for 8. The weather started off very nice, beautiful blue skies and bright sunshine. The walk was steep again and came at us and came at us. I slowed a bit today and the group had to wait a few mins for me to catch up with them for lunch. Eventually we got to our highest point for the day at 4,600m at Lava tower where the weather dramatically changed and had us being hailed upon whilst we sat to eat our packed lunch. Olaf and I had both felt a little sick and dizzy at 4,600m and I personally took this as a warning that I was likely to suffer from altitude sickness if I went higher. (Something I later found to be a good call for me.)
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Lava tower.
Our lunch seemed to be a general invite to some of the local mice to share judging by the amount of scurrying activity that went on after we sat down. We were all tired and that left us particularly susceptible to feeling the cold. Fortunately, our guide, Samual, and assistant guide, Filbert, were carrying hot tea which we all gratefully received. Even with our extra layers and waterproof clothing on it was still too cold to sit around in the relative protection of a rock formation, and so we were soon off walking again. This time though we were descending to tonight’s campsite at Barranco which is at 3900m. The pace was very fast and we were almost trotting. Ordinarily I would have found descending like this quite easy but the surface was rocky and twisting, and I was tired and so it wasn’t that easy to keep trotting at this pace. John slightly twisted his “accident” leg and slowed slightly to protect it and I slowed a bit too with Olaf as we were concerned at falling or twisting an ankle too.
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The descent from Lava tower.
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We arrived at Barranco at about 3 or 4 and fell into our tents for a needed rest. Not many minutes later we were drinking tea and eating dinner and soon backing bed again ! We knew the following day was going to be even tougher and I for one went to bed a little anxious as to how it would be. Basically we had to trek for about 7 hours during the day, take a rest of an hour or so, followed by dinner, and bed followed by dinner almost immediately as we were to be up again at 23:00 to leave at 00:00 for the final ascent in the dark.
The first park of todays climb was a semi-clamber as we were climbing up a steep-ish rock face for the first 2 or so hours. The porters, who normally seemed to be able to climb anything found this a bit harder too. This was then followed by an undulating trek for the rest of the day. Downhill, across a relatively flat plain, back up a steepish hill, down again and then finally up a steep climb to our highest campsite at 4,600m-Barafu camp.
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Part of the steep scramble for our first part of the day.
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...and a well deserved rest at the top.
We had been advised to prepare everything we needed for the final ascent before bed as it was still light and our heads were fairly clear. We all felt tired and sloped off into our tents to prepare, and get some rest. Tea and dinner shortly followed, and we went to bed at about 5-6 o’clock.
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Our final camping point at 4600m.
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High on Altitude me thinks.
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Views from our final camping point.
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23:00 came and our alarms went off. Shortly after Edward, our trusty man also called by to see that we were awake. We were given watery porridge in our tents(which I was grateful for not having to get up for.) We got kitted up, head torches on and got together ready for the final ascent.
John and I had done some basic mathematics to determine that the final ascent couldn’t be that bad as the track was supposed to be 13km and we were only ascending 1200m, which should mean that the gradient would be kind to us. Ahem, we were wrong…It was pretty well steep from the moment we started…and Samual was set on getting to the top in his timing…(i.e. not necessarily ours.)…which meant that we actually over-took a group of Swiss climbers (who looked more able than us) about 30-40 mins into the climb. Their pace for me was reasonable, something I could keep up with but Samuals semi-blistering pace rendered me too tired to keep up within a few minutes. He looked at me almost angrily as if I was doing it on purpose…”what is the problem Mike?” ..”I’m tired”…to which he responded that I “had to ignore the pain in my legs”. That wasn’t helpful as I was genuinely tired. I couldn’t keep up and within a few more minutes the group were pulling away from me. Fortunately, Filbert, stayed with me. We plodded on for a while but I was still finding it hard. Finally he offered to carry my day-sack which weighed about 4-5kg. For most of the next hour we didn’t stop and we were both pleased with my performance and were optimistic that I might still make it to the summit.
What John and I had interpreted as a nice easy ascension traversing the mountain turned out to be far from the truth. The traversing was very narrow and only enough not to make it a straight up the mountain walk. Very hard and over very inconsiderately placed rocks !. This took my second wind burst out of me and I started really feeling it again and started to wonder if I would have enough energy, even if I made it to the summit, to descend.
The wind then came up and it started to get very cold, and despite putting my down(rolleyes) jacket on, I started to get cold. We continued for a while further-by now it was about 3 or 4 o’clock and I weighed up all the facts, not least of which was that I was in no way enjoying the experience at all. That combined with my increasing concerns for having enough energy led me to ask Filbert to take me back down. He didn’t accept my request to start with, and despite eating a few energy bars and giving me further pep talks, was unable to coax more sustainable energy into my legs or enthusiasm into me. The net result was that we started to descend at about 4 o’clock.
As we headed down I was actually amazed to see how far I had actually managed to climb. It was very steep and rocky. At one point I sat down to rest as I’d almost fallen over on a few occasions and Filbert warned me not to close my eyes- I didn’t quite hear him in time, and when I did, wondered why. The reason was soon apparent-I closed them for less than a second and I was almost in a deep sleep-very bizarre !!
We carried on and I fell over a few times, a combination of exhaustion and terrain. The further we descended the more sure I was that I’d made the right decision. The descent took about 2 and half hours in the end and I couldn’t believe how hard I was finding it. Eventually we got back to our campsite and after un-zipping my tent door, virtually fell into the tent. It then took me a further 10 mins to get undressed as it was just too much effort. I slowly fell to sleep as the sun was now rising and the tent was very light inside. (How bizarre that this need should be reversed!)
About an hour later I heard Rebecca return on her own. I was even too tired to call out to her. An hour or so after that John returned. The first thing I noticed as I opened my eyes was that everything was really cloudy which was a bit disconcerting. I put it down to exhaustion and hoped my normal eyesight would return. After discovering that John had made it to the summit I congratulated him, and whilst he accepted my congratulations, didn’t seem anywhere near pleased. He then told me of his story for the night. We’ve agreed to tell our own stories for this night so I’ll let him tell you in his own words.( My sight did return to normal about 5 or 6 hours later.)
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Our man Filbert ! ... and saving grace for the trek.
……….From where I split off with Mike, we continued at a the pace set earlier. It seemed hard but sustainable. The calf muscles were screaming due to walking at the steep angle but the lungs, although working, were far from jumping out of my chest. Although fairly cold I was able to remove my hat and a layer. This made it easier to move and gave me something to put on when we stopped as the body temperature went into freefall when we did! We reached around 4800m when we saw Olaf had dropped behind. We waited for him to find out he had had an upset stomach. He didn’t look great but continued on only stop a couple of hundred metres later to be sick. This carried on for about 5 times before Rebecca asked Samual if she and I should join another group to allow him to look after Olaf and allow us to continue moving as we were getting extremely cold waiting. Samual said that this was not possible and so we waited and Olaf’s breaks to be ill became more frequent. After 20 minutes Samual told us to go ahead and summit without him and Olaf.
Given the state Olaf was in we assumed he would take him back. We looked ahead in the dark and cold see the torch lights of another group about 50m above us. We decided to catch them as soon as possible as the track was very hard to find and as we really didn’t want to get lost or go over an edge! So we set off at a fast pace, well it was a normal walking pace but we were now over 5000m up and after a while my lungs really didn’t like me any more and were fighting to get out. We caught the Swiss group Mike mentioned earlier and walked with them for a little while until we found another group resting. I asked to stop and we waited with them until they were ready to leave and continued with them before we met the Swiss group resting. We decided to wait with them and recover some more (Well more me than Rebecca) We tagged onto the back of the group. We only had about 600m left to climb until we reached Stellar Point which was the end of the tough assent. Looking up we could see top (this was where the black stopped and the stars begain!) so the end was in site or so I thought… The rock under foot was loose shale and steep, my camelbak water pipe had frozen solid… No more water for me…. It took 3 hrs to make Stellar Point and was unbelievable tough. The physical side wasn’t horrendous, but the psylogical side to keep walking for so long to get a relatively short distance took its toll and when we finally made it to Stellar point it was quite an emotional moment. We took 20 minutes to re-group before heading off for the summit. 2km to walk but only 80m to climb.
As we were ready to leave, Samual and Olaf appeared. Olaf was in a real state and barely knew where he was let alone respond to us. We were both shocked that Sanmual hadn’t taken him down!
Rebecca headed off with the Swiss group as she was getting very cold. I waited around with Olaf to give him some support to the top! The walk to the summit was not a hard walk but was tougher than it should have been due to the extra mental effort I had to put in to make it to Stellar Point. The views were good but unfortunalty my Camera didn’t work (Argghh) Olaf and I made it at 6:40 and after photos at the summit with Rebecca as well, we started our descent down. Olaf was barely walking in a straight line so I decided to stay with him and Samual whilst Rebecca went ahead to help here from freezing to death and warn Filbert in the camp of the state of Olaf.
The descent was fairly easy as it was loose shale and you could slide down on the heels of your boots. As the air became thicker as you descended you did not run out of breath either. For Olaf the air didn’t thicken up quick enough and he was ill several times on the way down. We made it down together for most of the way…. Although I lost them for about 20 mins as I stopped to put some sun cream on and the clouds came in. I ended up on a different track for a while….About half a km from camp Filbert and two porters turned up to help Olaf over the last section which was very rocky. We made it to camp and Olf collapsed in his tent. I had a quick chat with Rebecca about Olafs condition before falling into my tent and chatting with Mike for a while.
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John still manages a smile at the summit point.
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Olaf still suffering from altitude sickness.
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Rebecca with a Swiss friend she'd made when climbing Mt Meru.
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The views from the top.
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The actual plan was that we would all get about an hours rest after the descent before descending further still to a camp at around 3800m. Yes, you read that correctly-you ascend and descend the summit, which takes about 8 hours, get less than an hours rest and then descend for a further 3 hours-and all that on not much sleep the previous afternoon.
Olaf’s sickness though meant we had a bit more time-namely the whole hour ! We were soon being given tea and food and ushered to get ready again. We were very quickly descending again and we all wanted this leg of the journey to be over with as soon as possible as we were just too tired to enjoy or endure much more. The trek wasn’t too hard but was mentally and physically numbingly painful . Olaf and I had decided not to make too much of a mission out of this point and so started to take a few photos and had a few chats with Filbert. John, Rebecca & Samual headed off once or twice and waited for us but finally just headed off for the next campsite. Finally we were all at the campsite and pleased to have stopped walking again and be down form the altitude. A large bowl of pop-corn was presented to us and we devoured it very quickly. Today was the last night we would all be camping together and a natural point to discuss tipping for our team. Each of us had 3 porters and collectively we had 2 guides and 1 cook.
We had been told by the office that a tip was a tip, not a right, and so we approached their own guidelines given to us with that in mind. Had we tipped in accordance for their recommendations based on a larger group, we would have each put in approximalory $150. This was too much for John and I. Their guide book also said that the normal tip resulted in a contribution of between $85 & $100 per guest. John and I felt $100 was sufficient and let Olaf and Rebecca know our feelings-They felt differently and so we agreed to tip as we felt appropriate. We named each person or group on an envelope and each put in as we desired.
The following morning we thanked everybody and presented them with our tip and set off.
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Our last breakfast together.
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Our support group, Sammual, Filbert, the cook and porters.
I happened to ask Samual if everybody was happy with our tip. For the next hour he told Olaf and I that they weren’t happy and continued at some length about it. Olaf was upset as he had tipped about $150 and had done it with an honest heart. Samual argument was that the “guide book said”, mine was that the guidebook also said “$85-$100”. I don’t think he really heard that.
The net result was that as everybody learned of Samulas reaction, they ended up being angry. frustrated and disappointed.
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Some of the forest mist we saw as we neared the end of our descent.
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One of the indigenous plants before budding.
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After budding.
We finally got to the last point where the summiteers get to record their time, along with those of us that attempt the climb. We all just wanted to go.
As we left to be re-joined with our truck we were swarmed by loads of touts with all different sorts of T-shirts and African artefacts. Africans aren’t very good at understanding NO. Sometimes you can make a joke with them and sometimes you just get annoyed. We all felt both emotions. Finally we returned to the truck and to Arusha(the town where we were staying and started from.)
Grace, who sold us the trip came out to excitedly greet us but we weren’t in the mood. We started to drink a coffee prepared for us and looked at the Customer satisfaction form but just wanted to leave…and so we did and headed for the local campsite bar. There we lightened up a bit and downloaded all the photos and exchanged them too, all whilst Rebecca, Olaf & John drank their Kilimanjaro beers. Me being the non-summiter, had to settle for a Tusker(another local beer.)…which is actually a nicer beer!
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The summiters enjoy their hard earned beers,
,although John looks a bit like he's still trying to remember what beer is !
After the trip was over I sent a complaint e-mail to Tropical Trails as this was likely to be a once in a life-time trip which cost over $1000. It turned out that there were a number of things that could have been said or done to lessen the burden of the final ascent and given me additional hope to complete it that weren’t discussed. They apologised and assured me that follow up action had taken place.
Ultimately for me, I was never completely confident I would make the summit but now I doubt I ever will.
Mike
We had to meet with the other climbers at the offices of Tropical Trails, our tour company, for 7am……We actually turned up a bit later as we’d mis-calculated our timings this morning but nobody seemed that bothered.
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The Objective !
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The climbing team assembled outside the offices of Tropical Trails.
We, along with Olaf, a Dutch chap we’d met on the campsite, were introduced to Rebecca, a British lady working as a Doctor in the Congo for “Doctors without borders”, a charity organisation. After some preliminary arranging we were loaded up into a Toyota Land-cruiser whilst the majority of our equipment was to be shortly found bouncing along in a trailer behind us.
Within a few hours we were at the entrance to the Machame trail, our chosen route up-It is the hardest you can make without climbing equipment. Whilst our guide was registering us into the park and paying the exorbitant fees, we were collecting the additional equipment we’d rented, namely walking poles, a down jacket for the final ascent, and some gaters. The rental price was expensive and the general quality of the equipment was between acceptable to poor.
My poles were of a different length and one kept collapsing under any real force, the jacket looked like a donation from an American who chose his ski wardrobe in the 80’s…and it definitely wasn’t down. The gaters were in good condition but not big enough to fit around my calves properly !. Johns gear was better but overall not really good enough for the money paid.<IMG SRC="http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL784/4062504/13535008/207909376.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosting by PictureTrail.com">
Our entrance to the Machame route.
Kitted up we were given our packed lunch for the day and we set off at an incredibly slow pace, something we’d read about but hadn’t anticipated as being so slow. It was a bit like a funeral march but with making smaller strides. After the initial oddness of walking this way subsided, I was really pleased we weren’t going to be racing…
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The early stages of our trek.
The track was actually well made for the first half of today’s trek and each step was bordered with a wooden plank, which if not feeling very authentic for a mountain ascent, was an easier introduction to our climb. We stopped for lunch just off the path and resumed to a rougher track which was largely made of mud and rocks, still stepped but slightly harder to walk on. The whole days walk was about 7 hours in the end and during that time we were supposed to have walked about 17km and ascended approximately 1200m. It was quite tiring but not exhausting, never-the-less we were pleased to see our camp site and spent about an hour or so relaxing in our tents before tea/coffee/hot chocolate were ready, which was then shortly followed by dinner. By about 7:30 everybody was pretty well ready for bed and whilst I tried to introduce a water-shed type ruling John, Phil and I had used in Peru, it fell on deaf-ears and everybody was soon sliding off to bed.
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Our first camping point.
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Our first dinner together. John and Rebecca look like they've inhaled something before the photo...see tin of powder in front of Rebecca !
We’d been advised to wear a hat in bed as it was likely to get very cold. The down sleeping bags we had rented were really really thick and looked more like they would be more suitable for igloo cavity insulation in Iceland. By about 10 o’clock I think John and I had taken our hats off and had had to open the sleeping bags up as we were too hot. Breakfast was due for 7:30 so we needed to be up for about 7ish…..that obviously meant we had about 12 hours sleep. I don’t think any of us slept for the entire time but we did all get plenty of rest. Breakfast consisted of porridge, eggs & a spicy frankfurter-type sausage, along with some toast and plenty of hot drinks. Today we were heading for Shira caves at 3878m, a further ascent of 878m.
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An idea of some of the distances involved.
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The first 3 hours or so were all in a straight line going straight up the side of the mountain. This was harder than yesterday and the pace we’d been walking at yesterday was reduced to an even slower pace. I personally found it encouraging to see the peak of Kili’ (as known to its friends and foes alike) much closer than the previous day, non-the-less, it was steep and hard work. We got to Shira caves fairly early, around 2 ish, did a few photos, got a drink and then headed up (voluntarily) to the Shira registration point and back to our camp site. This took a further hour or so. We had dinner and retired to bed early again-we’d been forewarned that the following day was going to be long and fairly tough.
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Some of the many faces of Kili.
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The problem with the Dutch is that they think the games they play in The Netherlands as children can be played in other countries as Adults. Oh ! the simplicity of trying to fly on the flat !......
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......needless to say that John and I helped him out with his technique !!
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John surveys his new horizons....unfortunately the mountain "was behind him !!"
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Rebecca with Mt Meru, that she'd climbed the previous week
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Shira camp site.
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Shira caves later that day.
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John at Shira Hut.
Up again at about 7 and off again for 8. The weather started off very nice, beautiful blue skies and bright sunshine. The walk was steep again and came at us and came at us. I slowed a bit today and the group had to wait a few mins for me to catch up with them for lunch. Eventually we got to our highest point for the day at 4,600m at Lava tower where the weather dramatically changed and had us being hailed upon whilst we sat to eat our packed lunch. Olaf and I had both felt a little sick and dizzy at 4,600m and I personally took this as a warning that I was likely to suffer from altitude sickness if I went higher. (Something I later found to be a good call for me.)
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Lava tower.
Our lunch seemed to be a general invite to some of the local mice to share judging by the amount of scurrying activity that went on after we sat down. We were all tired and that left us particularly susceptible to feeling the cold. Fortunately, our guide, Samual, and assistant guide, Filbert, were carrying hot tea which we all gratefully received. Even with our extra layers and waterproof clothing on it was still too cold to sit around in the relative protection of a rock formation, and so we were soon off walking again. This time though we were descending to tonight’s campsite at Barranco which is at 3900m. The pace was very fast and we were almost trotting. Ordinarily I would have found descending like this quite easy but the surface was rocky and twisting, and I was tired and so it wasn’t that easy to keep trotting at this pace. John slightly twisted his “accident” leg and slowed slightly to protect it and I slowed a bit too with Olaf as we were concerned at falling or twisting an ankle too.
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The descent from Lava tower.
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We arrived at Barranco at about 3 or 4 and fell into our tents for a needed rest. Not many minutes later we were drinking tea and eating dinner and soon backing bed again ! We knew the following day was going to be even tougher and I for one went to bed a little anxious as to how it would be. Basically we had to trek for about 7 hours during the day, take a rest of an hour or so, followed by dinner, and bed followed by dinner almost immediately as we were to be up again at 23:00 to leave at 00:00 for the final ascent in the dark.
The first park of todays climb was a semi-clamber as we were climbing up a steep-ish rock face for the first 2 or so hours. The porters, who normally seemed to be able to climb anything found this a bit harder too. This was then followed by an undulating trek for the rest of the day. Downhill, across a relatively flat plain, back up a steepish hill, down again and then finally up a steep climb to our highest campsite at 4,600m-Barafu camp.
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Part of the steep scramble for our first part of the day.
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...and a well deserved rest at the top.
We had been advised to prepare everything we needed for the final ascent before bed as it was still light and our heads were fairly clear. We all felt tired and sloped off into our tents to prepare, and get some rest. Tea and dinner shortly followed, and we went to bed at about 5-6 o’clock.
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Our final camping point at 4600m.
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High on Altitude me thinks.
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Views from our final camping point.
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23:00 came and our alarms went off. Shortly after Edward, our trusty man also called by to see that we were awake. We were given watery porridge in our tents(which I was grateful for not having to get up for.) We got kitted up, head torches on and got together ready for the final ascent.
John and I had done some basic mathematics to determine that the final ascent couldn’t be that bad as the track was supposed to be 13km and we were only ascending 1200m, which should mean that the gradient would be kind to us. Ahem, we were wrong…It was pretty well steep from the moment we started…and Samual was set on getting to the top in his timing…(i.e. not necessarily ours.)…which meant that we actually over-took a group of Swiss climbers (who looked more able than us) about 30-40 mins into the climb. Their pace for me was reasonable, something I could keep up with but Samuals semi-blistering pace rendered me too tired to keep up within a few minutes. He looked at me almost angrily as if I was doing it on purpose…”what is the problem Mike?” ..”I’m tired”…to which he responded that I “had to ignore the pain in my legs”. That wasn’t helpful as I was genuinely tired. I couldn’t keep up and within a few more minutes the group were pulling away from me. Fortunately, Filbert, stayed with me. We plodded on for a while but I was still finding it hard. Finally he offered to carry my day-sack which weighed about 4-5kg. For most of the next hour we didn’t stop and we were both pleased with my performance and were optimistic that I might still make it to the summit.
What John and I had interpreted as a nice easy ascension traversing the mountain turned out to be far from the truth. The traversing was very narrow and only enough not to make it a straight up the mountain walk. Very hard and over very inconsiderately placed rocks !. This took my second wind burst out of me and I started really feeling it again and started to wonder if I would have enough energy, even if I made it to the summit, to descend.
The wind then came up and it started to get very cold, and despite putting my down(rolleyes) jacket on, I started to get cold. We continued for a while further-by now it was about 3 or 4 o’clock and I weighed up all the facts, not least of which was that I was in no way enjoying the experience at all. That combined with my increasing concerns for having enough energy led me to ask Filbert to take me back down. He didn’t accept my request to start with, and despite eating a few energy bars and giving me further pep talks, was unable to coax more sustainable energy into my legs or enthusiasm into me. The net result was that we started to descend at about 4 o’clock.
As we headed down I was actually amazed to see how far I had actually managed to climb. It was very steep and rocky. At one point I sat down to rest as I’d almost fallen over on a few occasions and Filbert warned me not to close my eyes- I didn’t quite hear him in time, and when I did, wondered why. The reason was soon apparent-I closed them for less than a second and I was almost in a deep sleep-very bizarre !!
We carried on and I fell over a few times, a combination of exhaustion and terrain. The further we descended the more sure I was that I’d made the right decision. The descent took about 2 and half hours in the end and I couldn’t believe how hard I was finding it. Eventually we got back to our campsite and after un-zipping my tent door, virtually fell into the tent. It then took me a further 10 mins to get undressed as it was just too much effort. I slowly fell to sleep as the sun was now rising and the tent was very light inside. (How bizarre that this need should be reversed!)
About an hour later I heard Rebecca return on her own. I was even too tired to call out to her. An hour or so after that John returned. The first thing I noticed as I opened my eyes was that everything was really cloudy which was a bit disconcerting. I put it down to exhaustion and hoped my normal eyesight would return. After discovering that John had made it to the summit I congratulated him, and whilst he accepted my congratulations, didn’t seem anywhere near pleased. He then told me of his story for the night. We’ve agreed to tell our own stories for this night so I’ll let him tell you in his own words.( My sight did return to normal about 5 or 6 hours later.)
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Our man Filbert ! ... and saving grace for the trek.
……….From where I split off with Mike, we continued at a the pace set earlier. It seemed hard but sustainable. The calf muscles were screaming due to walking at the steep angle but the lungs, although working, were far from jumping out of my chest. Although fairly cold I was able to remove my hat and a layer. This made it easier to move and gave me something to put on when we stopped as the body temperature went into freefall when we did! We reached around 4800m when we saw Olaf had dropped behind. We waited for him to find out he had had an upset stomach. He didn’t look great but continued on only stop a couple of hundred metres later to be sick. This carried on for about 5 times before Rebecca asked Samual if she and I should join another group to allow him to look after Olaf and allow us to continue moving as we were getting extremely cold waiting. Samual said that this was not possible and so we waited and Olaf’s breaks to be ill became more frequent. After 20 minutes Samual told us to go ahead and summit without him and Olaf.
Given the state Olaf was in we assumed he would take him back. We looked ahead in the dark and cold see the torch lights of another group about 50m above us. We decided to catch them as soon as possible as the track was very hard to find and as we really didn’t want to get lost or go over an edge! So we set off at a fast pace, well it was a normal walking pace but we were now over 5000m up and after a while my lungs really didn’t like me any more and were fighting to get out. We caught the Swiss group Mike mentioned earlier and walked with them for a little while until we found another group resting. I asked to stop and we waited with them until they were ready to leave and continued with them before we met the Swiss group resting. We decided to wait with them and recover some more (Well more me than Rebecca) We tagged onto the back of the group. We only had about 600m left to climb until we reached Stellar Point which was the end of the tough assent. Looking up we could see top (this was where the black stopped and the stars begain!) so the end was in site or so I thought… The rock under foot was loose shale and steep, my camelbak water pipe had frozen solid… No more water for me…. It took 3 hrs to make Stellar Point and was unbelievable tough. The physical side wasn’t horrendous, but the psylogical side to keep walking for so long to get a relatively short distance took its toll and when we finally made it to Stellar point it was quite an emotional moment. We took 20 minutes to re-group before heading off for the summit. 2km to walk but only 80m to climb.
As we were ready to leave, Samual and Olaf appeared. Olaf was in a real state and barely knew where he was let alone respond to us. We were both shocked that Sanmual hadn’t taken him down!
Rebecca headed off with the Swiss group as she was getting very cold. I waited around with Olaf to give him some support to the top! The walk to the summit was not a hard walk but was tougher than it should have been due to the extra mental effort I had to put in to make it to Stellar Point. The views were good but unfortunalty my Camera didn’t work (Argghh) Olaf and I made it at 6:40 and after photos at the summit with Rebecca as well, we started our descent down. Olaf was barely walking in a straight line so I decided to stay with him and Samual whilst Rebecca went ahead to help here from freezing to death and warn Filbert in the camp of the state of Olaf.
The descent was fairly easy as it was loose shale and you could slide down on the heels of your boots. As the air became thicker as you descended you did not run out of breath either. For Olaf the air didn’t thicken up quick enough and he was ill several times on the way down. We made it down together for most of the way…. Although I lost them for about 20 mins as I stopped to put some sun cream on and the clouds came in. I ended up on a different track for a while….About half a km from camp Filbert and two porters turned up to help Olaf over the last section which was very rocky. We made it to camp and Olf collapsed in his tent. I had a quick chat with Rebecca about Olafs condition before falling into my tent and chatting with Mike for a while.
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John still manages a smile at the summit point.
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Olaf still suffering from altitude sickness.
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Rebecca with a Swiss friend she'd made when climbing Mt Meru.
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The views from the top.
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The actual plan was that we would all get about an hours rest after the descent before descending further still to a camp at around 3800m. Yes, you read that correctly-you ascend and descend the summit, which takes about 8 hours, get less than an hours rest and then descend for a further 3 hours-and all that on not much sleep the previous afternoon.
Olaf’s sickness though meant we had a bit more time-namely the whole hour ! We were soon being given tea and food and ushered to get ready again. We were very quickly descending again and we all wanted this leg of the journey to be over with as soon as possible as we were just too tired to enjoy or endure much more. The trek wasn’t too hard but was mentally and physically numbingly painful . Olaf and I had decided not to make too much of a mission out of this point and so started to take a few photos and had a few chats with Filbert. John, Rebecca & Samual headed off once or twice and waited for us but finally just headed off for the next campsite. Finally we were all at the campsite and pleased to have stopped walking again and be down form the altitude. A large bowl of pop-corn was presented to us and we devoured it very quickly. Today was the last night we would all be camping together and a natural point to discuss tipping for our team. Each of us had 3 porters and collectively we had 2 guides and 1 cook.
We had been told by the office that a tip was a tip, not a right, and so we approached their own guidelines given to us with that in mind. Had we tipped in accordance for their recommendations based on a larger group, we would have each put in approximalory $150. This was too much for John and I. Their guide book also said that the normal tip resulted in a contribution of between $85 & $100 per guest. John and I felt $100 was sufficient and let Olaf and Rebecca know our feelings-They felt differently and so we agreed to tip as we felt appropriate. We named each person or group on an envelope and each put in as we desired.
The following morning we thanked everybody and presented them with our tip and set off.
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Our last breakfast together.
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Our support group, Sammual, Filbert, the cook and porters.
I happened to ask Samual if everybody was happy with our tip. For the next hour he told Olaf and I that they weren’t happy and continued at some length about it. Olaf was upset as he had tipped about $150 and had done it with an honest heart. Samual argument was that the “guide book said”, mine was that the guidebook also said “$85-$100”. I don’t think he really heard that.
The net result was that as everybody learned of Samulas reaction, they ended up being angry. frustrated and disappointed.
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Some of the forest mist we saw as we neared the end of our descent.
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One of the indigenous plants before budding.
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After budding.
We finally got to the last point where the summiteers get to record their time, along with those of us that attempt the climb. We all just wanted to go.
As we left to be re-joined with our truck we were swarmed by loads of touts with all different sorts of T-shirts and African artefacts. Africans aren’t very good at understanding NO. Sometimes you can make a joke with them and sometimes you just get annoyed. We all felt both emotions. Finally we returned to the truck and to Arusha(the town where we were staying and started from.)
Grace, who sold us the trip came out to excitedly greet us but we weren’t in the mood. We started to drink a coffee prepared for us and looked at the Customer satisfaction form but just wanted to leave…and so we did and headed for the local campsite bar. There we lightened up a bit and downloaded all the photos and exchanged them too, all whilst Rebecca, Olaf & John drank their Kilimanjaro beers. Me being the non-summiter, had to settle for a Tusker(another local beer.)…which is actually a nicer beer!
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The summiters enjoy their hard earned beers,
,although John looks a bit like he's still trying to remember what beer is ! After the trip was over I sent a complaint e-mail to Tropical Trails as this was likely to be a once in a life-time trip which cost over $1000. It turned out that there were a number of things that could have been said or done to lessen the burden of the final ascent and given me additional hope to complete it that weren’t discussed. They apologised and assured me that follow up action had taken place.
Ultimately for me, I was never completely confident I would make the summit but now I doubt I ever will.
Mike
new road every day, new road for the new year
