Climbing Kili: Day 6 - Karanga Camp to Uhuru Peak!

Elevation (m): 4600m to 5895m
Elevation (ft): 15,100ft to 19,300ft
Distance: 7km
Habitat: Stone scree and ice-capped summit

Howl. Whoosh. Whip. Snap. Insert the wind onomatopoeia of your choice.

It was all we could hear when Robert woke us up at 11pm.

Alas, there isn't much one can do when Mother Nature gets her knickers in a twist. We slurped our tea and munched on our biscuits in the tent, threw on our extra layers, put on our boots and our brave faces and started off. It was the moment we had all been waiting for. Freezing for. Paying lots of money for.

Kaylan, in her infinite wisdom, planned the trip so that we would summit on full moon. Her best idea yet. We were able to switch off our headlamps and hike by moonlight alone. Breathtaking. In more ways than one.

Our pace was slow but steady. Determined. Dogged. It was too cold to stop for breaks for any length of time, so our rest stops were short and sweet and few and far between. We didn't realize it then, but this would unintentionally translate into our most efficient climbing time...ever.

The contents of our CamelBaks and water bottles froze not long into our ascent, creating berry-flavored slushies that would have been delightful on a hot summer day, but served little purpose in our current situation (tip: flavor your water - it motivates hydration). The flash on my camera was uncooperative in these temperatures as well, but after 12 or so attempts, we did manage to snap these two:

You'll notice that Matt's eyes are at half-mast. What I've neglected to mention until this point is that Kay and I took Diamox (the altitude sickness drug), which Matt began referring to as a performance enhancing drug. Diamox was off-limits for him, as he is severely allergic to sulphas (there's an eye popping story about him being rushed to the hospital as a small child).

Turns out Diamox does indeed have its perks. While I remained not more than 6 inches off of Gilbert's heels the whole way up, breathing heavy but symptom-free and smiling, Matt was dizzy and nauseous with stalled, walk-like-an-Egyptian style steps and a relentless nosebleed. His favorite symptom - waving his hand in front of his face and seeing the trail of his hand continue several inches behind.

Kaylan was somewhere in between the two of us. When I composed and sang a 2-verse song, she had the wherewithal to want to chuck me off the mountain (her words). Matt never even heard me singing.

The song, sung to the tune of...I don't know, ask me to sing it for you sometime:

Myyyyy nose is cold

Can't feel my toes

My fingers're froze

And my headache grows

About to barf all over these clothes

Hi ho, the dairy-oh

Buuuuut up we go

Pole pole with our poles

With some 'hips' and some 'hopes'

To keep us climbing so

Why we paid so much money

For this torture we don't know

Hi ho, the dairy oh

"Hips" and "hopes", by the by, are in reference to the cheers Robert taught us on Day 1 to gauge morale and make sure we weren't dead (His call: "Hip hip!" Our response: "Hope hope!"). He taught us another one, as well. Pardon me while I butcher the Swahili spelling. I'm using phonics:

Robert: Wera, wera!

Us: Tuna saka mahera!

It wasn't until we asked our safari guide post-climb what it meant that we'd realize we'd been screaming, "We looking for the money!" all the way up and down the mountain.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am only mildly ashamed to admit that I gave up my pack an hour and a half or so into our ascent. Robert, anticipating this, had gone up empty-handed. Another 30 minutes or so and Matt relinquished his, another 45 and Kay did the same. Hey. We never claimed superhuman status.

The goal on your summit attempt is not only to make it to the tippy top, but to do so in time to see the sunrise. As stubborn buggers, we were relatively confident that we could achieve the first, but, as our cohort's slowest climbers, had little faith that we'd actually achieve the latter. Lo and behold, we were still blanketed in darkness when we made it to Stella Point - on the top of Kilimanjaro, but not the top of Kilimanjaro. Still another 45 minutes to go. Snow crunching underfoot, we kept one eye on the cloudline and the approaching sunlight and the other on our steps as we hightailed it to Uhuru. Glaciers? What glaciers? We'll check 'em out on the way back.

There's nothing quite like that moment when you realize you made it. 5,895 meters up. The highest free-standing point in all of Africa. Uhuru Peak. The tippiest top of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Heck yeah.

We screamed, we jumped, we realized we forgot to Flip our screams and jumps and got the Flip out and screamed and jumped again. We took pictures of the whole team, we coaxed the flash to life and took more pictures of the team, we took pictures of the different permutations and combinations within the team, we moved aside and smiled as we watched others take pictures of their teams. We took in the glaciers and we took in the clouds and we watched the sunrise.

We watched. the sunrise.

And then we got the hell out of there.