“Get Me Off This Mountain”: An Ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro – Part Two

Day 4

It was incredible the difference a good night of sleep could make. I awoke feeling rested, for the first time in a week. My head was clear, my stomach settled. The sun was just starting to rise on the horizon as I crawled out of my tent, the mountain resting behind me in the quiet of the dawn.

We were falling into a familiar rhythm now. Taking our places on the trail, our packs heavy with our day’s rations of water. The morning sun was always the most intense. We set a steady pace that day, slow and gentle as we trekked uphill against the strong forces of altitude seeking to tire us.

The elevation was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. How quickly our bodies – bodies of people used to living at sea level – became useless with the lack of oxygen. Walking now was harder, slower by necessity, each step a conscious effort not from our legs but from our lungs.

The body can’t heal here, not if it is unaccustomed to the altitude as mine was. Little cuts on my hands from clambering over rocks that ordinarily would heal overnight were now lingering, stubborn against my skin. The sunburn on my nose was angry and red and persistent. Here was not the place to sustain any worse injury; not if you wanted to get down again.

That day was entirely for acclimatisation as we continued up toward Lava Tower. Those of us who had felt unwell the day before were restored, as I was, our bodies settling into the lack of oxygen as best we could. Those of us who had managed the day before were now feeling the air thin. We began to swap medications between us as readily as we did snacks, a collective first aid kit to get us to the top safely.

To look over the landscape was to feel as though we were on another planet. Dark, volcanic rock formations and worn dust beneath our feet. Somewhere in the distance was the sky and the mountains but ahead of us, all we could see was land as desolate as the moon.

Lava Tower itself rose as one such formation, the camp below it where we would rest for a moment the highest any of us had ever been. There were ginger tea and biscuits awaiting us as we sat on the rocks, the bright sun overhead.

We wouldn’t camp there – most people didn’t, although there were a handful of tents. It was too high for us to be sleeping so soon, even though for as long as we sat there, I didn’t feel the lack of oxygen.

Our first long downward section to our camp for the night would teach us the first of two important lessons: down is definitely worse than up. We scrambled down a weak waterfall, hopping over damp rocks and catching our feet in the grooves between them. Somewhere, at the end of this long path, lunch was awaiting us and with the fog overtaking the warm skies, we were all feeling the need for endurance take its toll.

Our second lesson came after a short break: never ask how much longer. So sure that we were close, we thought maybe half an hour.

Our guide looked toward the clouded over distance. “Maybe two hours?” She shrugged.

It was a quiet walk from there to camp, all of us sulking in our own way as we trudged the down, down, down to camp that never seemed to appear, not least with the clouds thick ahead of us.

With our stop at Lava Tower, the porters had made good progress getting ahead. So much so that, before we could reach camp, they were retracing their steps back to us on the trail.

“Sister Suzey!” I had come to meet my porter on the second day, a warm, smiling man who always seemed very concerned about me at all times.

I didn’t protest when he took my daypack from me and began to walk with me in companionable silence toward camp.

Our tents were tucked into the valley, steep rock surrounding us on all sides, although the fog was so thick by then that I could barely see it. It was not until the evening, as the skies clear and our surrounding area becomes visible that I realised I couldn’t see the way forward.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked the group, peering at the rocky walls.

One of the group pointed out of the mess tent to the seemingly sheer rock face ahead of us. “Up there.”

Stats

Signposted distance: 10 km
Actual distance walked: 11.4 km
Elevation gained: 460 m up to highest point of Lava Tower

Day 5

As it turns out, everyone else knew this was coming. I had read the itinerary, but I hadn’t spent much time researching the areas of the route, or taking in that Barranco Wall might really mean… A wall. An almost flat, narrow-pathed wall, that needed to be scaled up, with no ropes or supports.

“Well,” I said, as we strapped on our packs that morning, “at least my parents didn’t know about this part.”
(They did, actually. I didn’t, but they did. Sorry, Mum and Dad.)

I’m glad I didn’t know. I didn’t have time to be nervous about it as I came to the first of the boulders and began to climb. Hand to foot, finding a centre of gravity that was about a metre further back from where I’m used to it being with my daypack weighting me backwards.

After four days of hiking, there was a certain kind of joy that came from moving my body in a different way. In hauling myself up the rocks, searching for foot holds to be able to clamber up to the next level.

It’s not as bad as it looks, not really. There are very few sections where it becomes so narrow as to worry, and our guides were always nearby to offer a hand or direct us to a more stable pathway.

“That rock is loose,” we’d call back to each of our group as we navigated our way up slowly. It was a stop-start section, the only time I would experience any kind of queues on the mountain, as people of all ages navigated the more treacherous terrain.

The camp below us was overtaken by fog early that day and soon, the world below was lost to us. There was nothing past the edge of the cliff but clouds. I kept one hand to the rocks at all time, reassured that if I could feel them beneath my palm, I was safe.

From the top of Barranco Wall, there was no view. Nothing but the dense cloud layer below us. The slight mist clung to my eyelashes, a shiver running through me as we set off again, down toward camp on the other side.

This down section was almost more tedious than the last, if shorter. We could barely see a few feet in front of us, the air not quite warm and not quite cold, leaving a cool sweat clinging to my spine.

It was beginning to clear when we reached the last push for the day, a steep uphill slope toward our camp on high. Here, for the first time, I found I almost couldn’t catch my breath. That the air grew stuck somewhere in between, never quite enough to let the oxygen flow to my brain. I pushed on, panting, sucking in what air I could between slow steps.

I was rewarded for my breathlessness, welcomed to our home in the sky. Our tents resting on the sloped ground, as if suspended above the clouds that pillowed below. The wind was stronger here, a chill in the air that we hadn't experienced much of yet.

The clouds were still heavy when the sun began to set, the light from the golden sky catching on the horizon. But once darkness fell, they cleared, revealing the lights from the town below us.

It was the first sign of other life we’d seen in days. “Strange,” I said, “to think that there are people down there, just getting on with their regular lives.”

“They’re probably looking up at us,” one of our group responded, “thinking how strange it is that we’re up here doing this.”

Behind us, the summit sat in wait. Now, it seemed so close, as though the path to the top could be mapped with the trace of your finger over the horizon.

We were three days from a full moon and it hung bright over the sky, illuminating our camp in the stars.

Stats

Signposted distance: 6 km
Actual distance walked: 6.5 km
Elevation gained: 100 m

Day 6

Compared to what had come before it – and compared to what was to come – Christmas Eve was but a stroll. We had a short distance to cover to get to base camp, our last stop before the summit, but they were no easy kilometres to cover. Not with the air thinning on every step, not with the bright sun overhead. Not with the knowledge of what was to come.

I fell asleep without meaning to, although it was barely mid-morning when we arrived into camp. Here, the terrain was so uneven that our tents were put wherever they could be, tucked into rock faces and nestled between boulders.

I just made it to lunch on time, the effort required to get myself over the boulders to the mess tent almost too much. It was the last time our group would sit all together before the summit push, as we split into two teams. Even before they checked my oxygen levels (respectable, considering how little I felt I could get into my lungs) I knew I would ask to fall back into the slower group, that left first. I had already had too many moments of feeling as though I was falling behind from the faster group as my chest heaved, even if I was not so far back as the slower group.

“Of course,” the guide granted. “Whatever you prefer.”

It gave me only a handful of hours until we would leave, less still until we would try to force some dinner down to sustain ourselves. I had no hope of being able to sleep. My body clock was bewildered by the warm sun outside and the lunch sitting heavy in my belly, the occasional bout of climber’s cough racking my body. An accompanying chorus of coughs came from the other tents around me.

My alarm went off at 10 o’clock that night. I had maybe slept an hour, on and off, if I was lucky. It would have to be enough. Enough to get me up there – and down again. There was no use getting up if you couldn’t get down. That much I knew.

The four of us in the first push were quiet as we sat in the mess tent drinking hot tea and eating popcorn. The enormity of what was ahead was present in all our minds, and the thick cold of the night would not aid our progress.

Camp was unusually quiet as we set off, some stirring here and there as people began to summit. Headlamps glowed ahead of us, on the steep uphill climb that would take us to the summit. I snapped my light on and tucked my buff around my chin.

Now, it begins.

Stats

Signposted distance: 4 km
Actual distance walked: 5.6 km
Elevation gained: 673 m