The Big Climb

After months of preparation, the big climb finally arrived. I had read many blogs that had scared me half to death, with tales of acute mountain sickness and crippling blisters. I had planned to keep a journal as I went, but the torrential downpour on the first day soaked everything inside my bag, so that put paid to that idea.

Kili in the clouds

Day One

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Just as we arrived at the entrance to the National Park, the heavens opened. We all dug in our backpacks and found our crisp new waterproofs and got ready for the long walk ahead. The  pouring rain may not have dampened our spirits, but a fair few of the people descending the mountain tried their best. Our cheerful group clapped and cheered everyone who had attempted the climb, greeting the porters and guides with 'Mambo poa, mambo vipi' (Swahili for 'how's it going?). In return, we heard tales of snow up to the armpits at the summit and temperatures plummeting to minus twenty-two. I started to wish that I had hired extra thermals but it was too late at that point.
The rain actually worked in our favour, meaning that the temperature was much more temperate for climbing. The first day takes you through tropical rain forest and up to an altitude of 2700m - similar to that of Bogota, where I lived a few years ago. It was much colder than I remembered though - or perhaps I have just gone a bit soft after living in Kampala for such a long time.


Day Two

Day Two took us from the tropical rain forest into a more alpine like environment. I believe we are possibly the most cheerful group ever to climb Kili, with the students almost singing and dancing their way up the path. The incline was still gentle and the path was wide and well maintained. The sunshine lasted until about 11am ... then it did not just rain, but hailed. By the time we reached the pic-nic site for lunch I was shivering and soaked to the skin. The mud was intense, people were slipping all over the place and my boots were starting to leak a little. It was, to all intents and purposes, miserable. The soup at lunch time did little to warm me up when we were sitting around in howling winds and icy cold rain.When we set off again, I caved in and started listening to my i-pod, even though I had been planning to save it for the summit day. I needed something to cheer me up.

Serious mud!

Just before the second massive downpour 

 

Day Two was one of the most challenging in many ways. It was not so much the long walk, as some of the things we saw along the way. We had all trained sufficiently well, so nobody was having any difficulties in that respect. The first disturbing sight was of somebody being carried down the mountain on a stretcher. The whole body and face was covered in a sleeping bag and one of those tin-foil recovery blankets. We heard two stories about this person - one was that it was a climber who had ascended too quickly and was suffering from Acute Altitude Sickness and another that it was a porter who had met a much worse fate. I'm not sure which story is true, but a shiver ran through my whole body as I saw this person. It was a sharp wake-up call that what we were about to embark on could be very dangerous. The second upsetting thing was just before we arrived at the second base camp. One of the porters (from a different company) had not been wearing waterproofs and was saturated, shivering and shaking. Apparently he had hardly eaten that day either. We gave him some snacks and rehydration salts and our guides helped him carry the bag the remaining few hundred metres to the camp. The porters have a very physically demanding job and I started to feel like a bit of a princess for making another person carry my stuff up the mountain. We later found out that the porters are not permanent employees of the companies, but casual hire. They wait around at the bottom of the mountain and wait for groups to arrive and their pay is essentially the tips the group leave behind. As they are paid on a daily basis, many of them risk their health by taking only one or two days of rest, before starting on another trek up the mountain. It is now 4 days since I finished the climb and the most exercise I have done since then is a few laps of the pool, meanwhile, some of our porters could be half-way up to the summit again. We had made a bit of a faux-pas, by agreeing on a much lower tip than what we should have paid. Our understanding was that a tip is a little extra something that you give to somebody to say thank you for a particularly good service. When we discovered that our team of 16 climbers required 34 porters, 3 guides, 3 cooks and 2 waiters and that some of those people were relying on our tips to pay their wages, we made a quick dash to the ATM (in Moshi - I am not claiming that there is a cash point on the mountainside) and made amends. If you do decide to climb Kili, find out how the porters and paid in advance and ask the company exactly how much is required. These people are not protected by employment laws and have a very hard life.

Day Three

Day Three was a very well needed rest day. The idea is to acclimatise your body to the altitude (in this case 3700 metre above sea level) and to walk to a higher altitude - real mountaineers talk out 'climb high, sleep low'. It was also a good opportunity for us to dry out our clothes, as we were all starting to worry about not having enough dry clothes for the summit day.
The morning was lazily spent drinking endless cups of Milo, playing cards and snuggling up and snoozing in our sleeping bags.
Now I would like to mention some of the food we sampled on the trip. Being from the North of England, a region famous for healthy dishes such as deep fried Mars bars and Wigan Kebabs (that's a pie wrapped in thickly buttered white bread if you're unfamiliar with this term) it is very difficult to criticise food. Nor would I like to be responsible for catering for 16 whilst half-way up a mountain, with no power supply or running water. However, even I was unprepared for the surprise that a Swahili omelet is chips in an omelet - I kid you not. I was a little dubious about the nutritional value of this meal, but I was reassured that it contained all the essentials for mountaineering - carbs in the potatoes, protein in the eggs and a generous portion of fat in the greasy oil it was fried in!

Drying day!

Mmmmmm ???

Zebra Rocks

Before my body could digest the Swahili Omelet, we set off on our afternoon walk to Zebra Rocks. By this time, the weather had turned in our favour and we had the benefit of the walk and staying dry.

Day 4

Rested and dry, we started our journey towards the final base camp. From this point, we had a clear view of the summit. Inspiring and terrifying at the same time - inspiring because we knew what we were aiming for and terrifying because we had no idea how much snow was there and the path up looked mighty steep.

We're heading right to the top!

Layered up - the air's getting a bit think here!

At least it's pink!!

It wasn't long before the vegetation changed again and we entered an arid zone of tundra. The lack of plants was bad news for us, as it meant that we could no longer pee behind a tree, but would have to face the stinky latrine loos or pee in the wide-open space for all to see. We mostly opted for the second option - personal pride a having gone a long time ago! None of the women truly embraced the she-wee - a little contraption that lets you wee like a man, standing up. It's a shame really - it could have been very entertaining!



This was the section of the walk where we really had to start walking 'pole pole' or 'slowly slowly'. Many a Kili climber has been submitted to altitude sickness from racing ahead. As we got higher, going slowly became less of a problem as the air really started to thin out. None of us could really believe that the final 1.5kms could take us around an hour and a half, but it did. We kept plodding on, and the huts didn't seem to get any closer. I began to think they were a moving target.

Eventually, we got there, had another cup of Milo, dinner and a very early night before the summit ... and that deserves a post of its own!