Here is a sunset photo from each end of the plane:
From Grand Junction we went to Phoenix and then Philadelphia. On the way to Doha, we took Qatar Airlines and I had one of the best experiences flying! Great airline!!
The flight attendants were very accommodating, the seats were comfortable, service was great, and the food was good. We were fortunate to have a light flight, so even though we were in the air for a long time, we were able to stretch out across the 3 seats and try to sleep. Unfortunately for me, even with the help of a sleep aid, I was not able to do more than doze for an hour or two, but it was better than nothing, and before we knew it, we were in Doha! This is an incredibly beautiful and well designed airport, and it was odd to see signs in Arabic!!
We had a few hours in Qatar before our flight left for Africa and Lukasz showed me how to sleep on the chairs when we had a few hours to wait. You will notice a theme with Lukasz and sleep. At some point on this trip, he told me that he was like a male lion because he sleeps 23 hours a day and eats what the woman brings him the other hour. It took me only a couple of days to realize he wasn't joking! And ironically, his sign is "Leo". LOL Suffice it to say, the boy likes his beauty sleep and isn't a fan of being woken up...which I found I often had to do. Such a shame that I didn't take any pictures of him snoring away. :-)
But getting back to the trip...I woke Lukasz up to go to our gate, show our passports (for the zillionth time), and get new tickets printed. Qatar is supposedly really cool to look at from the air, but because of the direction we took off, I wasn't able to see all of it. Despite that, what we saw was still pretty cool.
Finally, we made it to the Kilimanjaro International Airport!!!!! It was like a heat wave getting off the plane and I left one of my expensive hiking layers in the airplane's bathroom, but I couldn't have been more excited! We filled out the obligatory yellow forms, showed our passports/Visas, and picked up our luggage - everything arrived timely!! Team Kilimanjaro (who I highly recommend) was there to pick us up and take us to our hotel in Arusha. We were tired, but excited to begin our trip!!
On the way to Arusha, there were many small towns and villages we passed. Many homes had aluminum roofs and most of the vehicles were motorcycles or 3-wheeled cars. The mountain in the background is Mount Meru, which is about 16,000 ft.
People in Tanzania drive on the "wrong" side of the road. LOL
Our first destination was Arusha, which is a tourist city with over 500,000 people (over 1 million people in the surrounding area), and is more developed than most other places in Africa we visited. When we arrived in Arusha, we checked into the hotel, which had mosquito netting around each bed (something all the hotels used).
There were pretty flowers by the hotel. This is a kiss from Lukasz to Ewa, our friend who loves beautiful flowers. :-)
After unloading our things, we had a few hours to kill and then decided to walk into town and explore the city. There were "buses" overflowing with people (including people hanging on to the outside and trying not to be thrown off when the vehicle turned), and we learned that motorcycles were commonly used as taxis.
This is the Uhuru Freedom Monument, also known as Arusha's Independence Monument. A little history... Arusha was originally founded by the Maasai people in the early 1800s and was taken over by the Germans in the late 1800s. During WWI, the British took over control of Arusha from the Germans, then in 1961, Arusha regained their independence and built this monument in memory.
We ran into two locals who escorted us, taught us a few words in Swahili (such as saying "hapani sana", which is a very useful saying to politely say "no thank you" when people ask for money or to buy things). They took us to the market.
Then they took us to a place where the locals eat so we could experience real African food. We sat outside on the 2nd floor (below is a view of the city from the restaurant). I only ate a little, because I wasn't sure if they boiled the food well, but neither of us got sick. I have no idea what it was, but the food was pretty good!!
By 7:30 am the next morning we were to begin our 6 day trek up Mount Kilimanjaro via the Machame (or Whiskey) route. We had a quick breakfast, loaded our gear in the truck, and headed to the Machame gate, where we waited to get checked in and register.
This is the sign by the entrance with the rules:
There were 4 other hikers waiting with us to get started, and we had time to chat for a bit. Unfortunately, 2 of the 4 didn't make it all the way to the summit, but it was nice meeting up with people we had seen before at each of the camps. Our route ended up intersecting with several other routes, so we met 1-2 new groups at each camp. There were people from Russia, one from Sweden, 4 from Poland (much to Lukasz' excitement), a couple from the UK, some from Austria, a guy from Nepal... But no one from the US! LOL
This is the starting point, where we waited. We are pumped and ready to start hiking. Do we have our permits ready yet??? :-)
We had 2 guides - Thomas was our head guide, and Julius was the junior guide. We purchased the "budget" climb, which meant we didn't have a table or meal tent (basically, we had to eat in our large tents). I was expecting cold small meals and inferior service. Instead, I felt like we were quite pampered!!! There were snacks, hot drinks, hot meals, lots of options and condiments, and WAY too much food!! The only time I can say I probably put on a few pounds while hiking!!
The porters (of which we had many - maybe because it was off season or because of all the food), carried everything except for our day packs, and they went ahead of us (and went rather quickly I might add, despite all their gear). Many of them also carried their packs on their heads. Amazing!!!
The trail started out wide with very little elevation gain, and was okay for vehicles to use. Lukasz is very social and loved any opportunity he could find to meet and talk to others (as you can see in the photo below). I am not as social, and since I read lips to understand what people are saying, I tend to avoid groups while hiking. I also hike a lot faster than most people and was not allowed to lead after about 10 minutes of being told "poli poli" (which is Swahili for "slowly slowly"). Lukasz and I hike at very different paces. He likes going slower and taking breaks. I don't like stopping and enjoy hiking as fast as possible. The result was that I felt like a dog who kept going far ahead and then turning around and coming back. :-) It did give me plenty of opportunity for photos though!
The first day was in the rain forest and consisted of hiking about 3.5 hours, from 5800 ft to 9800 ft of elevation. Supposedly there were blue and colobus monkeys in the forest, but I didn't see any. The guides said that due to all the rain, they were probably staying under cover. (I don't blame them.)
There were juniper trees, olive trees, lots of moss and ferns, and many plants covering the forest floor.
This is a view straight above us. It rained much of the time we were hiking, but not a lot of rain fell through at the beginning because the tree coverage was so dense once the trail became more narrow.
There were many different kinds of flowers, shrubs, and trees that I've never seen before, and others that just stood out as colorful or unique, so I tried to take photos of them whenever possible. Because it rained so much, making it difficult to take out the camera (and because the camera was getting really wet), we didn't take many photos along the way. Lucky you? LOL Either way, I'll try my best to name the plants I took pictures of.
This red and yellow plant is unique to Kilimanjaro and is called the Impatiens Kilimanjari.
This one is an Impatiens Pseudoviola. Very pretty flowers. :-)
Once the rain started coming down harder, we put on our rain gear and put rain covers over our packs. Unfortunately, the rain gear I had bought a long time ago that I've never had to use in CO (ultra light backpacking rain gear), was completely ineffective. After about 5 minutes of light to moderate rain, the shirt I was wearing underneath was soaked. :-( Since I left one layer on the plane and another layer in the hotel, I was in for a real treat as it was going to rain every day with little chance for anything to dry out. At least on day 1 it was warm!
I have no idea what this tree was, but it looked cool. This was the end of the rain forest, when it started to open up. The rain occasionally slowed to as mist, but the fog remained. Any time there was any visibility or just a light rain, I took advantage and got out the camera. :-)
Of course as soon as I would take it out, the fog would roll right back in. These views are probably amazing without the fog as they were still pretty cool even with it. It made it almost spooky, and the higher we got, I felt like I was on another planet or part of a Dr. Seuss book (you'll see why shortly).
We (and our bags) were soaked by the time we arrived at our first campsite. Machame Camp is at 2980 m (9776 ft) and neither of us had any problems with the altitude thus far, but for fun, I pulled out the pulse ox to see what our levels are. Lukasz' O2 sats were 95% and HR 88. Mine are shown below.
Day one is over and I had waaaaaay too much energy. We had to sign in
the log book that we arrived (something we did at each camp). I wanted
to continue hiking, but there wasn't much to do and it was cold and
rainy, so we took advantage of our tents. Our tents were divided into 2 parts - the back half with the orange door
is where we slept, and the other part is where we ate, put our belongings, and hung our wet
clothes under the illusion they would be more dry than they were when we
removed them.
We had popcorn for a snack and hot water with many options, such as tea, coffee, hot chocolate, or cocoa.
Lukasz was so happy to see his sleeping bag, he left all the popcorn to me and went right to sleep for his afternoon 4 hour nap. :-) I had been soaked and was just trying to get warm. LOL I brought 3 novels to read and am glad I did as I got through just about all of them on our climb. I'm not much of a nap person, but I probably got 10-12 hours of sleep a day while climbing.
(And this I have to say to Ron, my super fast hiking partner... I was thinking of you and how bored you'd be if you came on this trip. If you want to climb this, I'd recommend pre-acclimating and doing it as a long day hike. I'll come with you as I haven't done 30 miles with 15K feet of elevation gain in a day hike before and you're the only other person I know who'd do that with me!)
At about 4 pm the rain stopped temporarily and the sun came out. It was a rare thing on this trip, so I emerged from the tent to take advantage. Here's the view from our campsite.
This is Mount Kilimanjaro. It doesn't look very high! Can't we get there tomorrow? :-)
I love this picture, because it shows how high we already are. At about 10,000 ft, many of the clouds were below us, and far below them is the city of Arusha from where we came.
Day 2 started with coffee and breakfast, then we packed up our things and tried to find something dry to wear. We said goodbye to the rain forest and headed toward Dr. Seuss land, for what would be another short 4 hour day of hiking.
We were blessed with about 30 minutes of sun before the clouds rolled in. You can see the clouds sneaking up on us in the picture below... The trail through the moorland was rocky and the vegetation very interesting, so even though it was a short day, it was fun and quite scenic!
Every day our guides asked us how we were feeling. Did we have a headache? They wanted to make sure we didn't have altitude sickness and to adjust speed and time in each location based on that. I did have a headache for most of the trip and I had a cold that came on a few days prior, but turned into a bad sinus cold that lasted the entire climb. Lukasz had Tylenol that helped with the headaches, which could have been from being sick rather than altitude as descending or ascending didn't make it better or worse. The head cold probably didn't help either as it made it very difficult to clear my ears, which isn't great for high altitudes. I went through a large box of Kleenex by the end of day 2 (most of which were soggy from the rain and hard to use) and by day 4, my nose was raw and bleeding. Unfortunately for Lukasz, it didn't slow me down at all. :-)
The rocks you see below were typical of day 2 (and actually every day except the first). They were also very slippery as they were not only wet, but had water running down them.
It's amazing how none of us fell and injured ourselves on the rocks!!
This is a Mountain Gladiolus.
There was a small set of rocks with a beautiful view of the hills and valleys we were climbing over. Like a little child, Lukasz kept asking "how much longer?" and "are we there yet?", so I told him this was the summit...one of many along the way, but it made the child in him very happy to reach the top of...something...as we couldn't see the top of the mountain we were climbing.
Also on these rocks were raven - one of the few forms of wildlife we saw.
Snack break and the raven is getting hungry.
Lukasz thought this would be an ideal time to tease the raven and put his hand out closer and closer to the raven's beak until it reached out and bit him. Just a warning peck... Next time, bring food. LOL
There was a lot of fog and mist as we made our way through this area. There were rolling hills of green that looked like something out of a movie. Very beautiful.
We only had a couple of minutes to enjoy the view before the fog crept in and surrounded the area.
But we kept hiking through the fog and up the rocks climbing and dropping back down. We're still smiling because despite the fog, we haven't had to put on our rain gear yet!!! :-)
MJ: Uhm, Lukasz... We just took a break 5 minutes ago!
Lukasz: Just 30 seconds. Keep going. I'll catch up.
It became almost comical how often we had this conversation along the way, but it made it rather entertaining.
This was a cool little waterfall just off the path. Notice how our rain gear is now on, so it really won't matter if we get a little wet...
There were many types of senecios in this area, which you don't see back home.
This is a dying Lobelia deckenii plant.
And here are some beautiful Lobelia plants, which close their leaves at night when temperatures are freezing to keep frost out.
As we hiked, the fog got worse until visibility was extremely poor.
I wanted to see the mountain, but the rock and plants would have to do for now.
It was still foggy and rainy by the time we made it to our second campsite. Instead of signing in right away like we did at the other campsite, we spent a few hours getting warm inside our sleeping bags in our tent. These trees were my favorite part of our campsite. I don't know what kind of trees they are, so I'll just call them the slanted trees. Anyway, the toilets were far away and you couldn't see them (or your tent from the toilets) due to the heavy fog. To find my way to and from the toilet, I used these 3 trees as a guide.
This campsite is called Shira Camp and is at 3840 m (12,600 ft). I didn't have a headache anymore, but my cold was getting worse and I felt like throwing up. Nausea meds were the only med we didn't have in our mobile pharmacy, but Lukasz went on a hunt for some meds and found a hiker who was a nurse and had Zofran, which is commonly prescribed during pregnancy for nausea. She was kind enough to give me one and it helped.
By about 2 pm I was feeling better and Lukasz was able to take his daily 5 hr nap before dinner. When it was time to go to the hut and sign in, I decided to let Lukasz sleep and signed us both in.
Since we aren't really that high considering, I hesitate to say I'm getting sick from the altitude, but you never know. (Personally, I think it's from being fed so much food and having a bad cold!) Either way, we let our guide know, and he recommended that I start taking the Diamox that night, so I started 120 mg bid - morning and before dinner. Diamox makes different parts of your body feel like pins and needles for about 5 minutes at a time. It was interesting because it would be my fingers one time, then a knee and foot another time, then a hand... No consistency at all!
In the morning, we had a little view of part of the mountain, and you can see we are getting close to snow. I almost didn't recognize our camp as this was the first time seeing it without the fog!
Wait, wait, wait. I spoke much too soon! We didn't get hardly any time at all with sunlight before the fog started rolling in for a rainy start to day 3. LOL
Day 3 was supposed to be one of the most difficult days. We'd hike for about 7-8 hours, go up 3000 feet to the Lava Tower and have lunch, and then come back down to about the same altitude we were at last night to sleep - climb high, sleep low concept. Most people who wouldn't be able to handle the altitude would have issues on this day...
We started up slippery rocks, which was slow going, but more fun than a simple trail. That silly grin on Lukasz' face in the picture below reminds me of something I haven't yet mentioned. Maybe I blocked it out intentionally, but this face just brought it all back. :-) Almost the entire way up and down the mountain...every day...Lukasz would sing the same 2-3 lines of a few select songs over and over and over until I wanted to smack him upside the head. The good news is that I tended to hike far enough ahead that I didn't have to hear it. LOL His favorites were "American woman, stay away from me". (Hmmm.... Should I read into that?) Another was "Ain't no sunshine when she's away". (Very appropriate since there really was no sunshine.)
I think he got tired of hearing those phrases himself, or maybe he just got tired of the fog and needed a distraction, so every once in awhile he'd put earphones on and listen to music or lectures on his i-pod. Either way, every time I turned around to make sure he was still with us, he was taking a pee break or stopping to change songs on his i-pod or just taking one of his famous "30 second" rest breaks. That was his way of slowing me down. :-)
In addition to hearing "poli poli" on a regular basis, our guides would often say "hakuna matata" (no worries, which I had learned from The Lion King many years ago). I would catch myself singing Hakuna Matata (and other Lion King songs) quite often along the way.
Despite the fog, you could still see the mountain and what we had left to climb (or at least part of it). This hike was not difficult, but it was really cold, raining and sleeting, and my gloves and clothes were soaked, despite the "rain gear". I couldn't wait to get to the Lava Tower!
There was a slight break in the fog and rain - time for a group photo! Thomas, our head guide, is the guy in the red. We're at about 15,000 ft here, so most of the vegetation is gone and there's not much but rocks and snow/water.
It wasn't long from the time it started sleeting and snowing until we made it to the Lava Tower. My hands were numb and I kept thinking...just another 10 minutes until hot chocolate and a warm sleeping bag. Despite the altitude, neither of us had any headaches or issues at 4630 m (15,200 ft), which I was thrilled about!
It was fun to finally get there, but there was too much snow and ice on the Lava Tower to climb up it, so for the next 2 hours, we took off our wet clothes and tried to warm up in the tent. Lukasz seemed to warm up quickly, but I didn't stop shaking from the cold for most of that 2 hours, so I was incredibly grateful for the hot chocolate and the dry t-shirt Lukasz let me wear!
When it was time to leave and head to down to the next camp, I put a couple more layers on and ended up actually being too warm and having to take a layer off before returning to camp - much better than being too cold!
This is a look back at what looks like a fort surrounding the Lava Tower.
Going down the rocks with water streaming down was like climbing down a small river and was very slippery and challenging to figure out where to go without falling in the water or slipping on the rocks.
But once we got down the steep rock/water section and into lower elevation, the rain slowed and the Dr. Seuss vegetation came back.
Here, Lukasz and I are posing in front of a giant groundsel tree (also called the Senecio kilimanjari).
If it's going to be wet and foggy, and if the trail is going to be a stream of fast moving water, you might as well enjoy it.
The other nice thing about all the rain are the waterfalls that were all over the wall of rock near the next camp site.
Looking back from where we came, you can see our trail, which is really just one long stream of water.
The 3rd campsite is Barranco Camp at 3950 m (13,000 ft), only 400 ft higher than the last camp. I was slightly disappointed that this was considered a "hard" day, as it felt like another short day of hiking with a long lunch break, but because of all the cold and rain, it actually felt good to be at camp early.
The headache that was gone at 15,000 ft came back, so I took another Tylenol, and this was the worst night for my cold as I couldn't clear my ears and I couldn't breath out of my nose. I tried not to complain about it, but I was worried it would impact my ability to continue climbing. Lukasz had a slight headache during the day, but it went away with a Tylenol, so all is good.
Because our tent was set up for lunch at the Lava Tower and we moved pretty quickly downhill, we arrived at camp about the same time as the porters, so we got to watch them set up our tent (they didn't want us helping them).
While we waited, we tried to find some rocks to dry out our clothes as the sun was starting to come out. Unfortunately, this only lasted for about 20 minutes and I left another one of my layers on a rock as it rained. I noticed this when I tried to find that layer to put on in the tent, and after searching out on the rocks in the dark for about 20 minutes, I gave up looking and thought it was lost. It turns out that our guide saw it sitting on the rock getting wet and put it in his tent. I was so happy I could have kissed him!! (Without 2 of the layers I originally brought and most of the other ones now wet, since I wasn't able to dry anything I had, I ended up wearing one of Lukasz' t-shirts as my "base layer" the next day.)
Most of the clothes at this point were classified as (1) wearable damp, (2) too damp to wear, or (3) it's so wet it needs to be wrung out before hung up to "dry".
This was a wonderfully warm sleeping bag that I hated to return after the trip. It was impossible to get cold in this thing!!! (Thanks Nathan!!)
During that 20 minutes or so when the sun came out, we were treated to a rare view of the mountain.
In the morning, we were going to climb up the Great Barranco Wall - which is supposed to be an awesome 1500 ft scramble, and one of the more physically challenging parts (something I was really looking forward to).
Lukasz was excited about climbing the wall as well.
We started off in great spirits with lots of energy. Finally! We had views of the mountain!!!!
As usual Lukasz didn't disappoint. Less than 5 minutes into the hike we had our first "break" to retie the hiking boots. :-) There is consistency with the rain, nap time, singing on the trail, and breaks. I think I will miss this when I return to my normal CO hikes!
As we scrambled up the wall, the fog started to creep back in, so we took a quick look at our camp in the valley below before continuing to climb.
Our main guide Thomas was a faster hiker than Julius, so Thomas and I started hiking more and more together, and Julius and Lukasz became a pair. Thomas also had music he'd listen to - everything from reggae to country western to African music in Swahili.
It didn't take long before we were at the top of the wall, but the fog was so thick you could no longer see the valley. The wall was actually a lot easier and more tame than expected, but was still a lot more fun than simply hiking uphill!!
Visibility is overrated. There were plenty of cairns to help guide the way...
Once we reached the top of the wall, we descended about 1000 ft into the Karanga Valley only to climb back up again to the Karanga Camp (which is where those doing the 7 day Machame route spend their extra night). Along the valley there were more plants.
I have no idea what this plant is, but it was some sort of flowering cactus plant.
These white plants are Helichrysums (otherwise known as Everlastings).
And these are small daisies, and despite their small size, they are tougher than they look! They were the only flower - or plant for that matter - that I saw above 15,500 ft.
As we moved through the rocks into the valley, the fog continued and the wet rocks were a challenge due to how slippery they were.
We took a short snack break at the bottom of the valley where Lukasz was kind enough to offer some of his remaining cheese to our guides.
I had an energy gel, though I was still so full of energy I really didn't need it. :-)
We didn't realize it would be just 10-15 minutes before we climbed over this hill and made it to camp for lunch.
As we hiked up and down through the rocks, it was like being on another planet again with the mist, fog, rocks, and strange plants.
It only took 2-3 hours to reach Karanga Hut, and it was raining pretty good by the time we arrived (imagine that).
We stayed under the hut's roof area and waited about 30 minutes for our lunch. The lunch was great, but I was freezing and would have rather just had a light sandwich and kept moving. Between the Diamox and all the hot chocolate and water, I was making almost as many pee stops as Lukasz - and he's hard to compete with!!!
After lunch, we continued along the trail, gaining and losing elevation along the way until we reached a steady climb up to Barafu Camp. The plants disappeared and all that was left was rock, and the rain turned to a freezing sleet and snow.
But... We were all still in good spirits and looking forward to taking a final rest before beginning the hike up to the summit.
Barafu Camp was at 4450 m (14,600 ft), about 500 ft lower than the Lava Tower climb. The toilet was an icy hole covered in a small wood shelter right at the edge of a long drop off. The camp itself was on a sheet of rock, snow, and ice. Not very hospitable and pretty cold due to all the rain and sleet, but soon we would be finished with the mountain and back in the hot humid weather.
As with all of the other camps, we had to sign in at the hut before finding our tents. The huts are also where the rangers sleep as they keep an eye on everything. While waiting for our tent to get set up, we met 4 Polish people returning from their climb to the summit. When we asked them how it went, the guy said the snow and cold made it terrible, but they enjoyed the summit. One of the girls even smoked a cigarette by the summit sign at the top!!! (I'd get lightheaded and pass out from one puff at that altitude I think!!)
You can see the route up along the ridge heading into the fog in this picture. We would start climbing at midnight in order to try and reach Stella Point by sunrise. As soon as we were situated in the tent, took off our wet clothes and crawled into our sleeping bags to catch some sleep.
Lukasz didn't want to be woken up for snacks, dinner, anything. For once, I didn't blame him. Despite that, we were interrupted every 30 minutes by our cook for drinks, snacks, dinner, and by our guide to prep us for the summit climb. Finally, about 7:30 pm, the interruptions were done and I was able to fall asleep. Luckily, despite the cold and high elevation, we were both able to get a few hours of sleep.
Lukasz had a headache today and had started taking Diamox - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We bumped up the dose and took 250 mg when we woke up to start the night summit ascent at the recommendation of our guide. Unlike me, who had tingling hands and feet and elbows and knees off and on for 3 days (which feels weird, but doesn't hurt), Lukasz had just one short episode of pins and needles with the big dose and nothing with the smaller doses. I did roll my eyes when he started complaining about how painful it was... :-)
We woke up at 11:30 pm, had a hot cup of coffee and some biscuits, and put on our gear to start hiking. As we hiked, we could see a few groups ahead of us (you could see the headlights) and a few behind us. The Tim McGraw song about red ants marching into the night was stuck in my head as I thought we all looked like a line of ants spaced out on the snowy mountain. I had a lot of gel energy snacks that I could eat while I hiked (I tried to eat one an hour for energy). I also had tons of layers on and more in my pack, and wore long underwear and snow pants over my legs to stay warm.
As we hiked toward the summit, I wanted to move faster to stay warm and because I wasn't feeling like I was getting a workout. Even at 19,000 ft I wasn't getting out of breath at our pace. But kudos to Lukasz for keeping up. Despite feeling like we were crawling and taking a million breaks, we ended up passing up everyone ahead of us and reaching the summit first, so I guess we were going faster than the normal "tourist pace".
In fact, we were so "fast" that it was still pitch dark when we reached Stella Point. I had been drinking a few sips of water every few minutes from the Camelbak to try and keep it from freezing, but by the time we reached that point, it was frozen solid and I had to take off the thick mittens and use the water bottle. I had a headache at Stella Point, and even though I wasn't lightheaded
or breathing hard, I looked forward to reaching the summit and getting
back down to lower altitudes.
We were almost at Uhuru Point (the true summit) by 5:30 am in time to watch the sun rise over Africa. Below is Lukasz' headlamp as he made it the final 500 ft to the summit.
I'm used to starting hikes at 3-4 am and trekking long hours. Lukasz isn't, and the hardest part for him was mental - it was dark, so you couldn't see the mountain to know that you're making progress. After a few hours of hiking through snow in the dark, it gets pretty monotonous and you need to find a way to pass the time. I did it by trying to see how far ahead the closest headlights of the group in front of us were, and then seeing how long it would take to pass them.
Below you can see clouds above and below, and a wall of glaciers to the left of the ridge.
It snowed lightly most of the way up, so each breath was hypoxic air mixed with snowflakes. The wind picked up at about 17,500 ft, making it feel incredibly cold, especially when we stopped. Added to that, we were hiking in over a foot of unbroken snow and wet rock uphill, which exerts a lot of extra energy, and requires complete faith in our guide, Thomas, to find and stay on the route in the dark.
I gave Thomas my camera and joined Lukasz for a shot of us with the sunrise in the background so you can see the direction from which we came. The snow by our feet and fluffy white clouds to the right look like waves crashing against rocks and a white sandy shore.
The sunrise and views from the top was worth hiking through the snow and cold.
It's an amazing feeling to be on top of the world.
Considering the bad weather we had the entire trip thus far, for it to stop snowing at 18,500 feet and the sky to clear up in time for a summit sunrise was more than I had hoped for. We couldn't see down into the crater, but what we could see from the summit was absolutely breathtaking!
Pictures by the sign are "proof" that we were at the summit, but the real beauty was in everything 360 degrees around the sign.
We had to wipe off the snow and ice from the sign before taking the pictures so you could read it. This is with our guide, Thomas. We are at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, which is called Uhuru Peak, and is at 5895 m (19,341 ft).
The sun was rising quickly, heating things up, as we turned around to head back down toward Stella Point.
One more look at the sign before leaving, which says it's one of the largest volcanoes in the world and the largest freestanding mountain in the world.
And another look at the glacier flanking us on the right as we started heading back over the ridge. The picture doesn't do justice to what this looked like in person!!
I had to see what my O2 sats and pulse were on the summit. We were hiking through the snow for a little bit before stopping and pulling this out, so that might explain the high heart rate, but I felt great and not at all short of breath hiking with O2 sats at 76%!! (I tried to get Lukasz to check his, but he said "no way".)
When Lukasz arrived at Stella Point, he got a "we made it to the summit" celebratory kiss.
Then I ditched Lukasz, and Thomas and I hiked at "MJ pace" down the ridge and back to camp, hoping the headache and lightheadedness would go away. It felt so good being able to run through the snow, but with the sun up, I was getting way too warm as well. I took off all layers except for my t-shirt, and took off the long underwear, but was cursing the snow pants that I had to keep on until I got back to camp. Good thing we had put sunscreen on at Stella Point!
Once I got to camp, I had an hour to rest, drink, and pack before Lukasz and Julius arrived in camp to join us. I still had a light headache, but felt great and was eager to start hiking the rest of the way down.
From camp, we descended down the Mweka route (which is steeper and more direct) to Mweka Camp at 10,200 ft, which was right at the edge of the rain forest.
It was still rainy, but not as bad as the other days. Along the route there were many more rocks to descend, and that made the going slow and slippery. My knees were having their usual issues, so I took my first pain med to get down to camp.
About 5 minutes from camp we waited for Lukasz to catch up. When he asked "how much longer?" I told him it was only another hour or two. He was hoping we were closer and groaned, but was then really excited to see the camp a few minutes later. :-) Here are our guides entering the rain forest by camp.
We took a group shot with our guides, cook, and the porters. Then they all sang us the Jambo Kilimanjaro song in Swahili, which was pretty neat. Lukasz memorized much of this song, and it replaced the other songs he had been singing over the past 6 days.
We could have easily hiked the rest of the way that night, but we stayed in the camp and headed back down to the Mweka Gate the next morning. Thomas and I left Lukasz and Julius to go at their pace, and we jogged the rest of the way down, chasing the porters who were also jogging, and shaving off 2 of the 3 hours. It was fun to get a little workout in on the last day, and I had plenty of time while waiting for Lukasz and Julius to look at all the flowers, buy the 2 of us Kilimanjaro t-shirts, talk to people waiting at the gate for others to get down, and help pack.
I also wanted to see what it was like to be a porter. Looked pretty easy to balance a 45 lb container on your head while hiking quickly uphill. Ha! I was happy to get it on top of my head, but couldn't let go with my hands (and there's no way I'd be able to carry this thing up the mountain)!
After 1.5 hrs of waiting I was starting to get nervous that something had happened. Then finally, Lukasz and Julius appeared on the hill, both smiling and Lukasz waving his hands in victory. We made it!!!
A successful summit and fun 6 day trip up to the roof of Africa. I did ask Lukasz if he'd mind waiting in town while Thomas and I made a quick day trip up and down the mountain again (now that we'd already acclimated), but he just gave me a "you're crazy and I'm ready to start the safari" look. LOL
On the way back down the mountain we passed many small villages and farms with rice, onion, and coffee plants. In fact, some of the coffee we had on this trip was from these plantations!
We also passed several schools. They all wear uniforms and walk to and from school - sometimes many miles each way! The girls typically have shaved heads, and aren't allowed to grow their hair out until the equivalent of high school.
In many places in Africa, this is what the bathroom stalls looked like. It took a little getting used to, but by the end of the trip it felt weird sitting on a regular toilet again!
Once we made it back to Arusha, we stopped into town to exchange dollars for shillings, paid our tip and said goodbye to our guides and porters, and were ready to start our 9 day safari adventure in the morning!
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