Warning: this post may contain an extreme number of adjectives to convey strong, once-in-a-lifetime-style emotions.
WE JUST CLIMBED KILI. I refer to my party-mix of Australian Swedish and Japanese rafikis (Justine, Axel and Kenta); myself; two guides; a cook; nine porters; and Mount Kilimanjaro: all 5895 metres of it. The four mzungus summitted Uhuru Peak at 6.10am on Thursday 3rd July 2014, just as the sun burst above the clouds.
From afar, Kili poses as the quintessential snow-capped knoll. With verdant rainforest at the base, heather in the lower-middle, alpine desert in the upper-middle, and some snowy icing; it is a perfect emoji mountain. Up close, the summit looks a bit like the moon. An old volcano, it sports a big crater, glaciers, and jagged chunks of ice and rock. However this recollection may be distorted, as the ten minutes we spent there are a cosmic blur.
The final ascent, on day four of our six day expedition, was probably the hardest slog of my life. Having hiked all day to reach the Kibo Hut base camp in the afternoon, we took a short rest before departing again at midnight to take on the six hour climb to summit. Clad like Michelin men against the sub zero climes, head torches affixed, we marched into the pitch black. After only a few hours, we began to pass scores of other climbers who had failed, and were cowering in various caves and small clearings. Porters took over their gear and prepared for their descent, and all we could do was block out their wincing faces and push on.
The gurus say that getting to the top is 10% physical and 90% mental. I’ll 100% attest to that. Tired, anxious and freezing, with laboured breath from the scant oxygen, you literally cannot move any faster than a shuffle. Our guides ensured we progressed pole-pole, Swahili for 'slowly, slowly,' as otherwise your body cannot acclimatise. Eg the risk of death by pulmonary or cerebral œdema really skyrockets. The altitude is like an invisible fortress, and the last 400 metres to the Uhuru signpost took a much-anguished eon to reach.
But we got there. And collapsed and cried in pain and joy. As day broke, the neon bar of light on the horizon cast dramatic shadows across the pebbly panorama. It was effing sublime and I blubbered all over my balaclava. We shook off our mittens to brave the -15°C degrees, and battling emotions and exhaustion, managed some desperate photos before our camera batteries all froze. There was a lot of hugging, and we drank in the euphoriant that comes with arriving at the top a mofo mountain. Not because our water bottles had also frozen, but because reaching summit has a lasting flavour. With a serious fist-pump after-taste. And yep, that's about all I remember. Fatigue and delirium won over as we turned around and descended for another lazy seven hours back to a safe altitude to rest.
Apart from days four to five, conquering Kili was an absolute pleasure. Sure we got sweaty everyday, didn't shower for a week, and our calf muscles have never looked more robust; however the more hardcore mountaineers refer to our Marangu route as the Coca Cola route: there are huts to sleep in, and less vertical scrambling than on other trails. I didn’t exactly bring my ice pick with me to Tanzania, you know, so we went Bear Grylls Lite (still more than tough enough). While there were certainly no refreshing soft drinks or other such luxuries, we did bring music to the mountain (only ACDC's It’s A Long Way To The Top...Of Kilimanjarooo will get you out of your sleeping bag at 6am), and made a point of wearing matching bandanas (Survivor style) for the entire trek. We thought perhaps our guides may be mildly amused by our cheese factor, though when we weren't busy hauling ourselves into the heavens, we would often bust them on ganja breaks. The Kili shrubs are full of crouching porters chilling (Swahili for getting blazed), so you need to be careful when choosing which bush to go and pee behind.
The perils of Kili may be many... but boy does she deliver.
WE JUST CLIMBED KILI. I refer to my party-mix of Australian Swedish and Japanese rafikis (Justine, Axel and Kenta); myself; two guides; a cook; nine porters; and Mount Kilimanjaro: all 5895 metres of it. The four mzungus summitted Uhuru Peak at 6.10am on Thursday 3rd July 2014, just as the sun burst above the clouds.
From afar, Kili poses as the quintessential snow-capped knoll. With verdant rainforest at the base, heather in the lower-middle, alpine desert in the upper-middle, and some snowy icing; it is a perfect emoji mountain. Up close, the summit looks a bit like the moon. An old volcano, it sports a big crater, glaciers, and jagged chunks of ice and rock. However this recollection may be distorted, as the ten minutes we spent there are a cosmic blur.
The final ascent, on day four of our six day expedition, was probably the hardest slog of my life. Having hiked all day to reach the Kibo Hut base camp in the afternoon, we took a short rest before departing again at midnight to take on the six hour climb to summit. Clad like Michelin men against the sub zero climes, head torches affixed, we marched into the pitch black. After only a few hours, we began to pass scores of other climbers who had failed, and were cowering in various caves and small clearings. Porters took over their gear and prepared for their descent, and all we could do was block out their wincing faces and push on.
The gurus say that getting to the top is 10% physical and 90% mental. I’ll 100% attest to that. Tired, anxious and freezing, with laboured breath from the scant oxygen, you literally cannot move any faster than a shuffle. Our guides ensured we progressed pole-pole, Swahili for 'slowly, slowly,' as otherwise your body cannot acclimatise. Eg the risk of death by pulmonary or cerebral œdema really skyrockets. The altitude is like an invisible fortress, and the last 400 metres to the Uhuru signpost took a much-anguished eon to reach.
But we got there. And collapsed and cried in pain and joy. As day broke, the neon bar of light on the horizon cast dramatic shadows across the pebbly panorama. It was effing sublime and I blubbered all over my balaclava. We shook off our mittens to brave the -15°C degrees, and battling emotions and exhaustion, managed some desperate photos before our camera batteries all froze. There was a lot of hugging, and we drank in the euphoriant that comes with arriving at the top a mofo mountain. Not because our water bottles had also frozen, but because reaching summit has a lasting flavour. With a serious fist-pump after-taste. And yep, that's about all I remember. Fatigue and delirium won over as we turned around and descended for another lazy seven hours back to a safe altitude to rest.
Apart from days four to five, conquering Kili was an absolute pleasure. Sure we got sweaty everyday, didn't shower for a week, and our calf muscles have never looked more robust; however the more hardcore mountaineers refer to our Marangu route as the Coca Cola route: there are huts to sleep in, and less vertical scrambling than on other trails. I didn’t exactly bring my ice pick with me to Tanzania, you know, so we went Bear Grylls Lite (still more than tough enough). While there were certainly no refreshing soft drinks or other such luxuries, we did bring music to the mountain (only ACDC's It’s A Long Way To The Top...Of Kilimanjarooo will get you out of your sleeping bag at 6am), and made a point of wearing matching bandanas (Survivor style) for the entire trek. We thought perhaps our guides may be mildly amused by our cheese factor, though when we weren't busy hauling ourselves into the heavens, we would often bust them on ganja breaks. The Kili shrubs are full of crouching porters chilling (Swahili for getting blazed), so you need to be careful when choosing which bush to go and pee behind.
The perils of Kili may be many... but boy does she deliver.
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