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11:00pm - The long awaited time has come. We got up and packed up for the final trek to the summit. We weren't taking much with us - simply our medical kit, 3 liters of water each, and 2 candy bars. Gaudence, our assistant guide, would carry my 14 lb camera bag for me (no way would I make it with that!).
11:30pm - We had tea and some ginger cookies (this is to hold us over for the next 12 hours!!). They don't give you any food, as they figure that the more you eat, the more likely you are to throw it up as you get to higher altitudes. Also, most people do not have any appetite at this altitude (Jaimie was feeling that way). Anyways, we prepared ourselves mentally, and were ready to go. 12:00am - Moses, lead us out of our campsite at exactly midnight. There were many other groups setting out at that exact time, and others who had left just a little earlier. We fell into line, and passed some of the larger (and therefore very slow) groups as we started our trek up the mountain. At 15,000 feet high, we moved very slowly among the large boulders and rocky trail. We took deep breaths, and small steps. After just a few minutes, a light snow began to fall. I was a bit worried about what might lie ahead, given the blizzard we had heard about the previous night. Thankfully, that snow only lasted about 30 minutes, and was very light. Ironically, about the point where it stopped, our lightly snow covered trail turned into at least 2 inches deep snow (sometimes much more than that), making our climb even harder, as we had to fight slipping on the snowy incline.
3:00am - We were at about 17,000 feet - we were near a group that had about 15 people in it and at least a few of them were starting to hurt, with two of them already turning around. We, of course, were feeling the altitude as well (some were crying!). Each breath was difficult, and each step almost unimaginable. Moses kept our pace, but at some points, I had to slow down even slower than his pace just to catch my breath. We knew the pace was the key to this climb and to successfully reaching the top. The largest percentage of people who do not reach the top are young fit males - the reason being that they believe themselves to be stronger than they think and therefore hike too fast, succumbing to high altitude sickness (vomit, headache, and nausea). With that knowledge, we knew to take it as slow as possible. The 2 of the group of 13 (the only females in their group) who had made it yesterday took 8 1/2 hours - so we knew that was a very slow pace. 4:00am - I started to develop a mild headache - about where my head lamp was, so I took it off, and started to carry it. As requested by Moses, I let him know about this new development. He said to drink more water. I had been drinking a lot though, we only had 3 liters each, which needed to last going up 4000 feet, and down at least 4000 feet or more (we weren't sure about the water situation when we returned to camp, as there wasn't any fresh water near our campsite). I drank more, but the headache slowly got worse. At some point, I was thinking about turning back. The headache was very large (especially for someone who never has headaches!), and my stomach was starting to do somersaults. But instead of turning back, I just started to take smaller steps. Even with my small steps, I noticed I was getting higher up by the minute - so I figured we would eventually make it to the top, step by step. Jaimie also was suffering from a small headache that at times would begin to pound and then subside again. 5:45am - My headache was indescribable. Combined with my stomach pains, I felt like my head wanted to vomit out of my face. I wasn't sure about how close we were, so I was really thinking about going back. Moses probably looked at me and could tell from my wincing in pain what I was thinking. He stopped, and pointed to some lights up ahead. He said, "Up there, where the lights are (from other hikers), that's Stella point - only 30 minutes away." I wasn't at all sure what Stella's point was, but it looked so close I just kept walking.
Just after enjoying all the sights, I thought I saw clouds starting to consume one of the other peaks in the distance. Oh no, the clouds were going to consume my picture-ready landscape! Days ago, however, I had succumbed to this climb beating the picture taking desire out of me - I just wanted to make it now. So I kept the camera in Gaudence's backpack, and we kept walking very very slowly along the ridge. Uhuru peak seemed so close, just a stone throws away, but we kept walking and walking. We passed a few people who had summited earlier in while it was still very dark, and had given up on the idea of watching the sun rise. About then, the clouds consumed the entire path. We were once again covered in a dense fog - with only 50 feet visibility. There was only one way to walk, and we kept in that direction. 6:44am - 19,335 feet. We had reached the highest point on the continent of Africa. Amazing - I couldn't breath, I wanted to throw up, and my stomach and my brain hurt from the intense migraine I had - but we were there! We had reached a point that 6 months ago sounded so simple, but during the last 24 hours, seemed almost impossible. We had our congratulatory hugs from our guide and assistant guide, took our pictures, and just tried to enjoy the feeling of achieving an unbelievable goal.
We had to descend 4300 feet back to our campsite. Jaimie's knees were giving out, so we had to inch our way down. I almost thought we would have to request a rescue, stretcher and all, as she could barely walk down at all at some points. Luckily, as we went down a different path than the way up, about 1/2 of the way down was scree - so she could slide down balancing on her "good" knee and go quickly. 9:45am - We once again reached the Barafu base camp. My headache, unfortunately, had not subsided. Our porters quickly gave us an "orange" drink - very nasty but anything right now was worth drinking. We had an option to leave right away, as descending is the best way to rid oneself of altitude sickness, but after going up and down, and almost no sleep the night before, we needed rest. We said we wanted to sleep for an hour and then continue. I took Tylenol for my headache, and Jaimie Advil for her knees, and we instantly passed out in our tent. 11:15am - We awoke feeling slightly rested and my headache was finally gone. We packed all of our belongings, and began to descend towards tonight's camp - 10,000 feet. The hike was about 3 hours in total, and at the end we were so happy to be down so low. It seemed funny that after being above 19,000 ft, the camps at 15,000 and 10,000 seemed comparatively "low".
7:00pm - We stuck it out in the campsite and had our last dinner (canned tuna, rice and soup), and then negotiated our tip (which was weird). We had talked to the manager before we left and he said $90,000 Tanzanian each would be a good tip (as we had expressed our concern over being the only two on the trip, therefore being responsible for the entire tip). Our guide said that that's very small, that we had 7 porters, a cook, an assistant guide, and himself to tip (even though we had originally been told 4 porters instead of 7). We ended up giving them $220,000 Tanzanian tip ($183 US), as we wanted to give a bit extra for carrying my camera up and down. He seemed happy enough and we retired for bed. We had hiked 20 of the last 30 hours, 10 of which over 15k feet, and the remaining 10 hours of hiking over 10k feet - all with only 1 hour of sleep and just one meal + biscuits. We passed out in a second when we reached our tent. View Mt. Kilimanjaro Photo Gallery Day 68 - Mt Kilimanjaro < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 70 - Mt Kilimanjaro © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
10:15pm - We slept about 1 hour last night, waking up at 10:15pm and not being able to sleep for the next 45 minutes (we only slept maybe 2 hours the night before - so we were exhausted already)! When I lay down, my heart beat so strongly - but at a relatively normal pace - a very strange feeling to attempt to sleep to. Breathing was somewhat difficult, and sleeping was on such a higher level that we only slept out of shear exhaustion rather then by choice. 
The stars above, and once in a while, the lights of the nearest town, Moshi, would come and go - but we were surrounded by cloud cover much of the time. The lights of Moshi seemed so far away, some ~12,000 feet below. At some points the trail faded, and we saw only raw mountain side ahead. During these times, Moses was our shepherd through the valley of darkness, and was the finder of lost trails. We had thankfully just bought a second headlamp flashlight, which had 2 ultra powered LED bright white lights. Jaimie wore that one, and she was pretty much lighting up the whole mountain with it! :) 
6:10am - We reached Stella's point. Moses told us we were now at 5,700m (18,696 feet). Now I understood the significance of Stella's point. I remembered reading about the first peak which was at 5,700m (I just didn't remember the name). We were very close to the highest point of Africa - no turning back now. Moses did ask though, how do we feel - and from the euphoria of reaching 5,700m, I said let's go! We walked along the ridge of the huge crater which is now a dormant volcano waiting to wake up (not any time soon I hear though :). The sun was just starting to lighten the skies to the East - and I wanted to stop to take a picture. However, I didn't have the tripod to set it up, and figured we could get one on the way back. I was so elated to see anything though, as the people who went the day before had seen nothing! We then walked along huge glaciers as the sun rose - it was beautiful. This is why people climb to the highest point of Africa.
6:53am - Time to head down. I almost wanted to race down - however, the clouds started to clear, and I couldn't help myself but take a few pictures. It was such a huge effort to take the camera bag out of our guide's pack, and then take the camera out of the bag, that the picture had to be worth it. And thankfully, it was! :) We took a few pictures of the glacier, and hikers making their way to the peak. 
2:30pm - Finally at the Mweka campsite. I would qualify it as the worst campsite - just a weird feeling, as if everyone just wanted to leave (porters, etc.) - so it felt a bit strange. We might have voted to just walk the additional 2 hours to the base, but we didn't have a choice. 