She's a Beauty

(Kilimanjaro, Tanzania: June 24, 2007)

You may be wondering - did I make it? Well, yes! … and no.

We started out as a group of 7, with about 30 porters and two guides: Victor and James. I have done a fair amount of serious backpacking in the past – but always carrying my own gear. It was strange to have porters carrying all of our gear – all we carried were small daypacks with water and extra layers. Not that I’m complaining about carrying 20 pounds instead of 55!

There aren’t any easy routes up Mt. Kilimanjaro - they’re all pretty much the same. The difference is how many days you take to summit. Our route was supposed to be easier because we took 6 days to ascend instead of 4 allowing for extra time to acclimate. The first two days were surprisingly easy. Not too steep, slow pace, minor altitude gain – we were only at 11,500 feet after 2 days. I was really relieved my sinus infection and lack of recent exercise wasn't an issue. Mind you, the second night was our first below freezing – it was so incredibly cold, and only got colder. You can imagine that after drinking the requisite three liters of water each day, I had to make many trips outside the tent at night. Torture!! I would lie there for at least 30 minutes before getting up the energy and willpower to even unzip the sleeping bag. As soon as that frigid air leaks in though, it’s time to get up and out as soon as possible. Sometimes I would decide to wait until morning, which was equally unpleasant.

Day three was tough for me. It was our first day at higher altitude (12,000+) and I was light-headed and a bit nauseous, and generally not feeling like myself during the hike. I almost passed out once. As soon as we got into camp at 13,000 feet I had an instant headache – it was so severe that I was incapacitated. My vision was throbbing, seeing spots, and if my head were in any position other than upright, it felt like it would actually explode. I was certain I would need to be evacuated, or walked out in the middle of the night. I didn’t think I would be able to continue. Amazingly, many Advil later my headache was gone by the next morning. It was a terrible night. Thank you Ibuprofen!

Day four went well actually, we went up to almost 15,000 feet for the first time. Unfortunately one of the girls in the group, Daisy, wasn’t feeling well, so I walked to the next camp with her while the others got to do a little rock scrambling up Lava Tower. I was feeling completely better, much to my surprise. She got really sick though, which was really hard for our group.

The next day was the first really strenuous day. We’d been walking for up to 8 hours each day, but with a reasonable amount of elevation gain. Day five was Barranco Wall day - 1500 feet of scrambling straight up. Unfortunately Daisy couldn’t make it up the wall due to altitude sickness and had to be walked down and evacuated after she passed out. That was a really big loss for the team – it made it apparent how quickly our health could change in those conditions. I felt really strong that day, but another team member, Andrew, started to get a stomachache, either dehydration or altitude sickness. The next day was our summit day so we were all hoping for the best.

Spending each night in near zero degree temperatures at high altitude made for really difficult sleeping. I would sleep for about 3-4 hours, then be awake for the majority of the night and if I was lucky fall back to sleep for an hour or two in the morning. The night before and after the summit day we camped at 15,180 feet, which was terrible for me. Since I couldn’t take the high altitude medication I was a bit of a wreck.

Day six, aka summit day, started out poorly. I felt terrible after another sleepless night. I was winded just walking to the mess tent, which was no more than 20 feet from my tent. My body felt like it was a zombie body someone had attached to me. To say I had no energy was an understatement. I was hoping that by the time we were moving I would perk up a bit. Hardly! Andrew only made it for an hour before he had to turn back – he was too low energy to continue which was so very sad. He wanted to summit so badly, and had definitely trained more than any of the rest of us. That really was hard for me to see him turn back. We still had about 4 hours to go until lunch, and then at least 2 more hours to summit and the trail was straight up - 4000 feet straight up. Every step was harder than the prior step. Our leader, Victor, kept checking to make sure I could continue – I’m sure I looked like the walking dead. At one point I knew I had to turn back, because every shuffle of a step was more energy than I had. A porter offered to carry my daypack, so I continued on at a snail’s pace literally dragging one foot in front of the other. A little further along I again said I was ready to go back, but I wanted a slightly better view to take a photo, so I decided to go up to the big rock ahead. Then to the next switchback… I kept setting goals that were no more than 30 feet away each time, knowing that I had to try my best to get to the lunch spot because I was out of water and food. After what seemed like an eternity of trudging up this FREEZING cold, blustery wind blown high altitude desert, I made it to the lunch spot with the team, and just sat and cried for a long time. That didn’t help my breathing!

Rather than turn back then, I followed the team, knowing I would not make it to the summit, but just trying to get as high as possible before I needed to turn back. I had already decided I would not allow myself to go so far that I needed to be carried down, so I used that as criteria to evaluate if I could take another step or not.

About 45 minutes later I started to get loopy and light-headed, and before I knew it we were at the top!! Not the Uhuru Peak summit point, but the top of the crater rim, 19,000 feet, Stella point. I had made it! I honestly could not believe I had gotten myself up there. It was truly a miracle, and I was so proud and so grateful. My mind actually dragged my body up that mountain.

I knew it was time for me to turn back as the remaining 4 team members continued along the glaciated and snow covered crater rim to the highest point.

I somehow made it back down – nearly running down the scree and deep loose sand with no control over my body. That night was so hard to stay at 15,000 feet - the altitude did not get along well with me. Two days later and we were back in Arusha in such comfortable beds – it’s amazing to sleep through the night and not be a frozen block of ice each time you wake up! Such luxury.

So I got my certificate for making it to Stella point, and now I know – I am not doing any more high peaks – there are plenty of lower ones to climb!