On July 4th at 3:50 pm Tanzania time I summited Mt. Kilimanjaro all the way to Uhuru Peak at 19,341 ft, aided by my trusted guide Godlove and my personal porter Umsafiri. It was by far the most difficult physical feat I ever accomplished, made painful by the high altitude for which there is no real way to train. The climb overall was an adventure which had us just about circumnavigating this beast of a mountain which taunted us the whole way. The trek was not physically challenging until summit day, when I hit a wall at about 17,000ft with more than 2000 ft to go.
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| I thought it was hard getting to this point... |
I didn't know it was possible to walk so slowly and still engage in any forward motion (and at times I didn't as the surface was so sandy that sometimes one step forward resulted in a slide two steps back).
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| ...and this point...but there was still more uphill to go! |
But reaching the ice fields and glaciers at top, with the summit to ourselves since we reached it so late was exhilarating.
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| The glaciers distracted from the lack of oxygen on the way up. |
I was truly at the rooftop of Africa and atop the highest freestanding mountain in the world!
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| Almost there -- the summit sign is finally within sight! |
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| Finally made it (though the sun's angle killed the pix!) Now I know why people do midnight summits! |
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| Me and my trusted guide Godlove... |
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| Go Team Fox! |
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| Feeling like I'm at the top of the world and the end of the earth, soaring above the clouds! |
The next challenge was sleeping at Crater Camp, elevation 18,600 (the little orange dots in photo below were our tents), with temperatures in the single digits and and oxygen levels depleted to 60%...sleeping was a challenge but the 430 am bathroom run was even more so!
On July 5, we began our descent and it was remarkable how much elevation you can climb down in so short a time.
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| It seems so much less intimidating on the way down! |
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| The last views of Kili before we descended below the clouds... |
Sleeping at 12000 feet was literally like a breath of fresh air, and I ended the day's final descent with a healthy paced jog, even passing these porters (who are totally amazing in how much they carry and how fast they both climb and descend, often with gear merely balanced on their heads!) After leaving the gate of the park it was a most deserved "Kili time" (Kilimanjaro is the local beer that was hawked to returning trekkers) and I quickly befriended the local vendors.
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| My climbing mates... |
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| ...and the amazing staff who guided, cooked, set up camp, blew up mattresses, deflated mattresses, and carried it all up and down the mountain! |
I now sit in a very western hotel in Arusha having taken the longest shower ever yet was still unsuccessful in getting the encrusted dust out of my fingernails... I think it will take at least 3 manicures to get that done! Looking forward to meeting Ben for our safari which starts on the 7th... In the meantime, I think I need to find another Kili.
By the way and for the record, according to the local guides, I may have been the first person to summit Kili in purple hiking boots...though at the moment they look the same dust colored grey as everyone else's. I am confident that I was the first person to do so with purple boots, gaiters, trekking poles and goretex jacket, however dust-encrusted they may have been!
