Kilimanjaro Trek – Tanzania (Post #61 )
Jambo! (Swalli greeting)
Michele here…we are currently in Zanzibar, an island off of Tanzania (in Eastern Africa). How we got here is another adventure that we will relay later. For now, I will tell you about our Mt. Kilimanjaro adventure.
After we got back from the safari, we needed a few days to recoup from days and days of camping and being covered in dirt. We paid the staff at our hotel to hand wash our clothes in a bucket (that’s the way clothes washing is done here) and we made our plans for our Kilimanjaro Trek. We decided to go with a different company than the one we used for the safari because we were concerned about the equipment we would use for the trek. Climbing “kili” as it is called is no joke and we needed top quality tents, sleeping bags, boots, and a whole lot more. Since our Land Rover safari vehicle ran out of gas due to the gas gauge being broken and we froze in our sleeping bags one night, we had concerns about the equipment provided by Nature Beauties. We had heard good things about Good Earth’s equipment so we decided to go with them. We met with the company representative and he had a checklist of what was needed for the trek. Hmmm….ah, yea, well, you see, we are on a trip around the world and we don’t have many things on that check list. So, the next day 3 guys showed up at our hotel, including our Kilimanjaro guide, with 3 huge bags of clothes and a bag of boots. We rented:
2 sleeping bags
2 pairs of hiking boots
2 heavy down jackets
2 pairs fleece pants
2 pairs rain pants
2 medium weight fleece pullovers
2 balakavas
3 pairs of socks
2 sets of treking poles
2 pairs heavy waterproof gloves
1 pair googles
The next morning, on Thurs, Nov 3, we were picked up at the hotel and saw that the car contained 6 porters including our guide. Then we drove 1.5 hours to the Machame gate and picked up 2 additional porters for our Kilimanjaro trek. (Note that there are many routes. We chose the Machame route because we could camp for 6 days instead of staying in huts and because it is reportedly the most beautiful of all the routes.) There is no fresh water and no showers on Mt. Kilimanjaro. All our water was collected from streams and boiled and Paul, our cook, made us great camping meals, sack lunches to take with us each day, and lots of snacks, while Floreane was our “waiter” (the guy who served us food while we were in the “restaurant” tent).
With our guide and 7 porters, we started up the mountain. Our 6 day schedule with pictures and descriptions is below:
Day 1 – Mt. Kilimanjaro Machame Gate (5,248 ft) to Machame camp (9,840 ft)
This was an easy day. We hiked 4 hours and 40 minutes with no problems. The entire hike was through a rain forest and very beautiful. We saw a large monkey and Mike caught a multi-colored camelion (lizard).
Day 2 – Machame camp (9840 ft) to Shira camp (12, 500 ft.)
Again, we didn’t have any problems. No headache or nausea that we heard we would get from hiking at higher altitudes. We hiked for 5 hours and were feeling confident about the altitude and the fact that we were having no problems. Another beautiful hiking day. At the end of each day we are served snacks. Here I am in the “restaurant tent”.
Day 3 – Shira camp (12,500 ft) to Lava Tower (15, 091 ft) and down to Barranco camp (12,500ft.)
Another 5 hours of hiking through very unusual landscape. We didn’t feel a thing – boy, we were feeling confident. However, many of the sections of the hike on this day were very, very steep, and we did notice that it was more difficult to hike today than the first 2 days. During the hike things started to look like Mars on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Here is a picture:
Day 4 – Barranco camp (12,500 ft) to Barafu camp (15,088ft)
At this point there was no vegetation any longer. Just rocks and more rocks. We now regularly hiked through clouds and today’s hike took us 5 hours. I started to feel a slight dull headache but Mike still had yet to feel any affects of the altitude, even at over 15,000 ft. Wow, I mean really – we were invincible! We went to bed at 6:00pm because we would be getting up at 11:00pm to get ready to start climbing towards the summit.
Day 5 – SUMMIT DAY – Start at midnight and hike from Barafu camp (15,088 ft) to Uhuru, the highest point on Mt. Kilimanjaro (19, 340 ft.), then down to Barafu camp (15, 088 ft.), rest for 1 hour, then down to Mweka camp (10, 089 ft)
The plan was for our guide to wake us up at 11:00pm but instead we were woken up by something else – hmmm…was that thunder? And lightening? Doesn’t that mean it’s going to be snowing at this altitude? Yes, sure enough, we were in the middle of a snowstorm. We ate a small bit of food prepared by our cook, and put on 3 layers of pants and 3 layers of shirts and jackets. We were the last people to leave for the summit that night. About 30 people were in front of us and we ended up leaving at 12:30am in a snow storm.
Snow was pelting us in the face and Mike had a frozen beard and mustache almost immediately. Despite the snow storm we both recognized we were too hot in our 3 layers of pants (which included fleece pants, regular pants, and waterproof pants). We stopped to take off one layer of pants and put on another layer on our head and hands.
So, we climbed and climbed and climbed for hours. We were proud of ourselves because after 4 hours we had passed all the other hikers. Still, the path was nonexistent due to the foot of snow and it was very, very steep. Plus, it was getting harder and harder to breath. We literally, could not get enough air into our lungs and started to stop every couple of steps. After about 5 hours, we were close to Stella’s point (about 19,000 ft.) The last half mile up to this point is so steep that you have to crawl on your hands and knees or practically fall back each time you take a step. Near the top, Mike crawled and almost blacked out. I thought I was going to vomit I felt so sick and I couldn’t take more than 1 step without being out of breath. When we got to Stella’s point, we were totally exausted. I took out my camera because the sun was just rising. Here is a picture:
At this point, our guide told us, don’t worry, only about an hour more now. WHAT!? AN HOUR!? ARE YOU INSANE?! How the hell were we going to go another hour? We had given it all we had to get to the top of the mountain and now we had to walk around the Kilimanjaro crater rim to the specific high point of the mountain where the sign was. We both dug deep and started one step at a time. After another 45 minutes you could see the sign for 5895 meters (19, 340 ft.) We marched on in about a foot of snow, feeling pressured not to stop because we didn’t want anyone passing us after we worked so hard to pass all of them. So, after 6 hours and 15 minutes, we were there! Here we are and yea, it was an incredible amount of work (more than we ever anticipated):
After this we then had to hike an additional 3 hours to get down the hill. We both felt like we had the flu. We were hot and fevery, sweating, and felt sick. We got back to our camp and our guide said we could have 1 hour rest before we had to hike 3 more hours. We were so annoyed we could hardly sleep. We just killed ourselves to get to the summit, then feeling like @#@#$, we hiked 3 hours down a steep hill full of snow and small pebbles…. now we got an hour nap before we had to hike 3 MORE hours?! Gawd…
O.k., so we did get up and hike the additional 3 hours after our nap. I mean, we had little choice, plus, we did pay to do this to ourselves. When we got to the Mweka camp, we crashed hard.
Day 6 – Mweka camp (10, 089 ft) to Mr. Kilimanjaro Mweka gate (5,200 ft.)
This last day wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be because we were back in the rain forest and it had been raining. The problem with this is that the trail down to the Mweka entrance gate was steep, muddy, and full of rocks. Both of us slipped at several points and by the end of our Kilimanjaro adventure, we couldn’t wait to take a shower, clean our fingernails, floss our teeth, sleep in a real bed, and get our clothes washed.
Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro was a great accomplishment that we will both never forget.
After a couple of days rest, on Nov 11, we boarded a bus that took 10 hours to go from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam where we hired a taxi and TRIED to find our guesthouse – emphasis on the word TRIED. This resulted in a whole other story. But we’ll post that one later.
See ya!
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Tags: Category #17: Tanzania
Michele Harmon
Congratulations on summiting! That is huge! I guess it’s not that surprising you two made the trek into a race against the other hikers? 😉
Wow! Truly an “incredible journey”. M&M, you rule!
I would imagine the trip down must have totally sucked! After expending all that energy to get to the top, and then you still have to go back. You should hauled up some hang gliders and returned to the lower altitudes that way. Man, i’m a genius!
Anyway, love the sunrise picture. Must have been neat-o to be above the clouds like that. But i wish we could get a view of the surrounding area, to get a better idea of the scale – ya know?
Also, good work with the whole avoiding-murderous-baboons thing. Hope you’re having fun!
That’s awesome! I can’t imagine what the air is like at almost 20,000 feet. I always feel a scarcity of oxygen at a mere 14,000 feet. Intriguing that you would begin one of the hikes at midnight…this sounds like a trip to consider.
Unbelievable! Congratulations!
-Smith
Congratulations you guys, way to go! So now that you’ve done one of the “continental peaks” are you going to try for the others?? (climb each of the highest points in every continent) …’course this does mean Everest … and the Antarctica …. what? You’re not doing Everest this trip??? LOL
Thanks for your wonderful blogs, makes my work day go by much easier! Lots of greetings from folks at Westat.
Gary
Awesome job making the summit. I remember driving into the mountains outside of Denver & got lightheaded & dizzy at 8800 ft. I cant imagine walking & twice as high!! If you do Everest, take more pics!!!
just been looking at your photos… they look fantastic. i am so glad i found your site… i have just this week bookoed for a kili climb with none other than Good Earth… I do hope you found them to be a good operator. trying to be strict on the training front but need to work hard on that post christmas gut i’ve grown! enjoy the rest of your travels!
ed, london uk