Firstly, for those who skip to the last pages of books to find out what happened, here's the only picture taken of me at the top. I did make it and lived to type the tale. Here's the lowdown on the uphill day.Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is a bit like child-birth. There's a sort of conspiracy of silence as to how hard it actually is. Believe me I've done a lot of physical challenges before and this is by far the hardest thing I've ever done.
It's like the scene in Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Sam climb into Mordor up a cliff in the dark. It seems to go on for ever and ever and they get weaker and weaker as they climb. We weren't attacked by a giant spider at the top but you know what I mean.
A annotated photo of the highs and lows of the climb
I was supposed to get some sleep the evening before but as this sleep was in a tent and I was lying on the floor there's wasn't much chance of that. We were up at 11pm, fed with tea and biscuits and told to put on all our gear. 3 to 4 layers, puffa jacket, hats, scarves, gloves - the lot. By 12.10am we were off in a slow silent funerial-paced procession up the mountain. It was -10 and we were due to walk upwards for the next eight hours or so. For the first 3-4 hours I was fine. I was keeping a positive mental attitude, the cold wasn't that cold and I was walking pretty much at the front. In hindsight I can pinpoint where things went wrong. We were resting and I tried to drink from my water bottle and found that it was frozen. "I can't be arsed to go in my backpack and get my other bottle" I thought and I remember how I wanted to leave my snacks til we got to the rim so I could reward myself when I got there. Bad mistake.
Basically, my body ran out of fuel after that and things started to wobble. We were walking up a scree at this point and for every 10 steps forward I had to take 10 seconds of oxygen to get the energy to do the next set of steps. And due it being scree it was more or less two paces forward, one step back. The darkest part of the night coincides with the hardest part of the climb where the slope gets really steep and you start having to clambering over rocks. There's a reason they make you do the ascent in the dark - it's so you don't see what's in store for you at the top.
The sunrise from Gilman's Point - not that I noticed
My lead group made it to Gilman's Point at 6am - we had got to 5,600m from a starting point of 4,500m and the worst part was over. There were nine of us in the group - our guide Heaven leading the way, and me, Simon & John, Jim & Rob, Keni, Dave and Lucy who, remarkably, was showing no signs of fatigue. We all collapsed in a heap at the col and held out out hands for the cups of sweet tea being offered. Just as the new day broke across the sky, as the sun came up over Mwenzi peak away across the saddle, I managed to ruin the symbolic moment by projectile vomiting everywhere. No one was really concerned with my health, they were too busy laughing. Lucy later described it as the highlight of her day.The top from Gilman's Point looking round the caldera
With a mouth tasting of sick, knackered and staggering around like a drunkard I set off with the rest to walk round the rim of the Kili caldera to ascend the final 250m up to the summit. It looks about 15 minutes away but takes 2 hours in these conditions. The sun was now up and life was returning to our bodies but it was still a hell of a trudge to the top. Once I knew I was going to make it I actually slowed down, no need to rush now it's in the bag I thought.
With a mouth tasting of sick, knackered and staggering around like a drunkard I set off with the rest to walk round the rim of the Kili caldera to ascend the final 250m up to the summit. It looks about 15 minutes away but takes 2 hours in these conditions. The sun was now up and life was returning to our bodies but it was still a hell of a trudge to the top. Once I knew I was going to make it I actually slowed down, no need to rush now it's in the bag I thought.By the time I got to the summit I was greeted by the sight of Dave in the nude. Nice. Apparently being 22 makes you strip off whenever you get to the summit of anything.
So how did I feel when I got the top? If truth be told, I felt nothing. Hollow, knackered and aware of how much energy I'd used to get there. Having read enough mountaineering books I knew that most accidents occur on the way down when everyone's tired so I wasn't much looking forward to turning round. Still, everyone else seemed pleased enough and I was proud of them all for making it.
I knew I was physically weak and things were getting on top of me. They say your emotions are heightened when you get to the top and it's true. I took myself off to sit on a rock away from everyone and looked out across to the glacier at the edge of the rim. I thought about mum, I thought about everything I'd done in my life and thought about all the things I still have to do. Sitting there crying in the warm sunshine on the top of the world is a pretty strange sensation I can tell you. I not sure if it was a good or a bad thing, just what happened.
Getting down proved to be a hell of a lot easier. Firstly, once we turned round we were able to bump into our climbing friends on the way up. First Kylie with a look of total determination on her face, then the group of Andy, Rach, James, Kat and Jess all being dragged up quite literally by Rambo their guide. Unfortunately, Sarah had got to Gilman's Point and beyond but was too weak to continue and had to be escorted down.
We really wanted to see the next group though - Paul, the Doc, Pene, Yasmin, Patrick and especially Lee, who had climbed Kili once before but only got as far as Gilman's and had to turn back. Yet here they all were with smiles on their faces and 30 minutes to go before they made it to the top.
We raced round the rim then got to Gilman's ourselves. I was dreading the scree on the way down but it was the best thing of the whole day. It was loose and all you had to do was jump off and 'ski' down. Dave was off first and then I jumped. 40 minutes and one rest later I'd descended a kilometre and was walking off the mountain into camp. Each slide made the energy return and oxygen re-fill your lungs, the sense of achievement was kicking in now and I knew I was going to finish in one piece.
I avoided any triumphalism on my return to the camp, I was painfully aware that 4 out of the 25 hadn't made it to the top so didn't want to gloat. After a brief chat with everyone in camp I went for a lie down. The whole day had been, frankly, surreal. I felt a strange mix of satisfaction & achievement, guilt for not feeling more excited at getting to the top and very hungry: I hadn't eaten all day and sicked up my last nutrients four hours ago. All in all I have to say, Cheryl Cole I salute you, Kilimanjaro really is a mighty challenging challenge.
Looking back at my iPod there were a spooky amount of related tunes in my top 500 that pretty much described what it was like.
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