Kilimanjaro: The Video

We got some new video-editing software this month and Nathan is recreating our Tanzania video!  Here's the first part: Mt. Kilimanjaro climb via the Machame Route in HD.



If you haven't heard the story and still want more details after viewing the movie, check out these old posts.  I sure wish I were back in Africa right now!

Kilimanjaro Hike

Summit Journal Entry

Reliving Kilimanjaro

Nathan is currently working on a video of our Tanzania vacation and it inspired me to go back and read some of my journal entries for the first time. I'm really glad I wrote everything down because details like what we had for dinner every night in our tent take me straight back there, but are details I'd since forgotten. I thought you might be interested in reading my entry from our summit day of Kilimanjaro. While no description can really prepare you for the agony of Summit Day, it captured some of the emotions pretty well - at least from what I remember. So, here it is uncensored and uncut:

Day 6 - Kilimanjaro (Summit Day) - September 27, 2008

I didn't get any sleep before our summit attempt. Because Nathan had been feeling sick, I gave him the down sleeping bag and was cold in his, which is by far inferior.

Timo [this was our porter/waiter] got us up @ 11pm to get ready for the trek. I ate my first and probably last Cliff bar - it didn't sit in my stomach well. Then I layered on the clothes in preparation for a cold ascent.

We had biscuits and tea, then Timo brought headlamps and we set off for the trail around midnight. We were VERY excited - little did we know this would be one of the most grueling days of our lives.

The stars were out in full force and you could see the lights of Moshi dancing around on the ground below. When we started out, the temperature was fine and I even thought about taking off one of the three pairs of pants I was wearing. It was fun to look back on the trail and see a string of headlamps from the camp. Lots of people were summiting that today. So, all was fine - we made it to 4800 meters and were feeling great.

All of a sudden, our guide Alex tells us that from a little over halfway up to a place called Stella's Point (from where you can walk to Uhuru Peak - the summit) the trail gets very steep and the weather very cold. Almost on-cue the wind picked up and those three pants I was wearing wasn't enough. I'm guessing the wind chill was negative 10 and the steepness of the trail along with the altitude completely changed the trail. For about four hours we were faced with this atmosphere and all we could do was concentrate on "one more step" and "one more breath". I think getting to the top of Kilimanjaro in these conditions is honestly the hardest thing I've ever done.

Once @ Stella's Point, there was another 30-minute walk to Uhuru Peak. At this point we have no energy and the summit is so cold that you can't take your hands out of your gloves for 2 pictures before losing feeling in them. So, under these conditions, the amazing Glacier, sunrise, and crater was kind of lost in the flurry of "yay we're here, I feel like crap, let's get out of here". Of course, we thought that would be the worst of it and, for the most part it was. However, the trek down was extremely long - about half the time it took to get to the summit (6hrs to summit). So, by the time I got back I had an altitude headache, a stomach ache from the Cliff bar, had to pee (too cold to do it on the trail), and legs, knees, and toes that were completely beaten up.

As if that wasn't enough, we got an hour to rest, a warm lunch of soup, noodles, watermelon, cucumbers, and sauce, and then had to hit the trail for another 2.5 hours to Mweka Camp to spend the night.

The trail over descended into the forest, so all of the pressure put on our knees for the summit descent was amplified on a rocky trail.

The forest on this side of the park, however, is very different from that of the other side. There are short trees and lots of birds here and lichens galore! The campsite is cute with actual campsites sectioned off and surrounded by short trees. The registration desk sells all kinds of things from "Just Done It - Kilimanjaro" T-shirts to Kili Beer. Today, Nathan and I broke down and bought a "Victory Coke" @ Barafu Camp on our way in. It cost 3000Tsh (or $3) up from the 1000 Tsh in most restaurants - extra charge for shipping it to the camp on the mountain!

We are both looking forward to a hot shower tomorrow and toilets with actual seats to sit on - ahh luxuries!



So you see, I'm not sure why Nathan thought I was nuts when I mentioned we should climb Denali this summer if he got the job in Alaska - 20,300 feet - that's only 1,000 feet higher than Kili! Ha. Only.

Curry Turns Back and Life In Camp

Today Show video on what life is like in camp:
Kili Camp

HOWEVER, don't get the wrong impression. NBC spent a lot of money on their team because a precious few camps have private bathrooms with seats and dining tents with tables. See my Kilimanjaro post to understand what it's really like in a Kili Camp.

Also, it appears that Ann will not make it to the top. I don't blame her - this hike is not a cake walk: Turning Back at 16,000 Feet

They missed a pretty spectacular glacier at the top, but I think their mission to bring footage of the melting Equatorial Glaciers was accomplished. Congratulations!

More on Kili

I just watched another clip of Ann Curry climbing Kilimanjaro. This is a fun clip for Nathan and I since the first part of her route - The Western Breach - is exactly the same as the Machame Route, which we took. Watch this clip to see the first three camps we were at - Machame, Shira, and Barranco Camps:

Reliving our hike with Ann Curry

"V" is for Kilimanjaro Victory

I just finished doing one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Nathan and I reached Uhuru Peak - 5895 meters above sea level at 5:56am on September 27, 2008. The trip up was amazingly grueling and something that, just like others before me have said, "I'm glad I did it, but I'll never do that again!"

We climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in style - well, as much style as the Machame route would allow, whose accommodations are tents every night in camps with only squat toilets. The climb was seven days long, but we had a team of two guides, one cook, and six porters waiting on us the entire time. Everyone treated us like VIPs, which was weird, but it wasn't hard to get used to someone waking you up every morning with a hot cup of tea or coffee in your sleeping bag.

We did nothing that makes camping time consuming or hard. We never had to set-up our tent, cook, get water, or carry our heavy bags. The team did everything for us. Porters could carry up to 20 kgs of stuff and they did it quickly - beating us to camp every single day and having popcorn, cookies, and warm wash water ready for an after-hike snack within minutes.

The food the entire time was amazing and they always tried to feed us too much. We always had a hot breakfast of things like eggs, toast, "sausages" (which is Africa is really a hot dog), and fruit. We usually had a packed lunch for the hike that consisted of mango juice, chicken, a sandwich, a tiny African banana, an orange, a hard-boiled egg (too many eggs!!), and a cornbread muffin. Dinner was always fantastic too: hot soup, a starch (noodles, rice, or potatoes), meat, and veggies spiced to perfection. The best part was the presentation. We had a waiter/porter named Timo who would come into our tent for every meal and set-up a tablecloth picnic complete with an array of barely-used condiments (tomato sauce, chili sauce, tea, coffee, Nido (powdered milk), Milo (Nestle Quick-like chocolate stuff), butter, peanut butter, jam, etc). You wouldn't believe me if I went on with the details, so I'll just leave you with this.



Ok....now...hike details:

Day 1: Machame Camp (~10,000 feet)

After arriving in Kilimanjaro National Park and waiting for about an hour for our permit and porters to arrive, we started the hike through pure rainforest. The forest was very different from what we have at home - lots of lichen-draped trees and neat flowers like the Impatian Kilimanjari:


The hike itself was not very difficult and it was made even easier by Kilimanjaro's famous motto: "pole pole" - walk slowly. We walked at a snail's pace up and still made it to camp by 5pm after starting at noon. We saw a few Blue Monkeys right at the gate, but beyond that, the tree cover was too thick to see anything else the rest of the way up. At the camp we were treated to our first in-tent candle-lit dinner (yes, we thought it was dangerous too). Tanzania gets dark at 6pm every day, and when we walked outside at 8pm, we were treated to the best stars I've ever seen - better even than in Glacier National Park.

Day 2: Machame Camp to Shira Camp (~12,000 ft)

This hike was five hours up a very steep trail. The best part was suddenly turning around to see a blanket of clouds about 1,000 feet below us and seeing Mt. Meru (around 1000 meters shorter than Kilimanjaro) sticking out of them! A weird plant called the Senecio showed up today, which only exists on Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya (picture under Day 3). There was also the best sunset of my life, I'll let the picture do the talking.



Day 3: Shira Camp to Barranco Camp (12,900 ft)

You know its going to be a tough day, when your guides pick up your packs in the morning and tell you they're too heavy. Today was our acclimatization day - walk high, sleep low. We hiked up to 15,100 feet to view the "Lava Tower", then back down to 12,900 ft to spend the night.



The air at 15,000 feet was definitely thinner and you almost had to start concentrating on breathing steadily. It was also quite cold and began to hail at one point, but in the end, it was a very good day because both of us felt fine after the hike, which gave us confidence that we could reach the summit without being hauled away on a stretcher. Barranco Camp was one of the coolest ones we had as we were surrounded by Senecio and Lobelia plants - both of which made the mountain start to seem like a strange fairytale jungle.



Day 4: Barranco Camp to Karanga Camp (13,900 ft)

Day four was an easy hike of just three hours. Although it began with a scramble straight up the side of one of one of the mountain's "barrancos" (ridges). The trail is called "Breakfast Trail" not because you do it right after breakfast, but because you get to see what everyone else had for breakfast. Ha! It wasn't that bad.



Day 5: Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp (15,000 ft)

Another easy hike of three hours to "base camp". At 11pm tonight we were awoken by Timo to get ready for the ascent that started at midnight.

Day 6: Barafu Camp - Summit (19,340 ft) - Mweka Camp

I use the word awoken loosely above. I got no sleep before our ascent because the camp was so cold. Once we started the ascent, I didn't feel sleepy at all. The stars were unbelievably beautiful and the lights from Moshi town below were stunning. Behind us and above us was a trail of headlamps. For the first 2.5 hours, the weather was great - I actually considered taking off one of the three pairs of pants I was wearing. However, very suddenly things took a turn for the worse. At about 2:30am, the trail became very steep and the wind picked up. It was so cold that the water inside my pack started to freeze. I had a very warm jacket on, but the wind against my face for the next four hours was frigid. It was so cold and long that you ended up only being able to worry about your next step. One more step, one more step, rest, one more step, whoops, don't forget to breathe, one more step. That's all we did for the next three and a half hours. It was dark, so you really had no way of knowing how much farther you had to go. At around 5:30am we reached what is known at Stella's Point. The top, but not the highest point, which is Uhuru Peak. That, was another 30 minutes walk away.

You think I'd be excited to almost be at the top of the mountain, but at this point all I could think about was how much my whole body hurt and how incredibly cold it was. It was so cold that once we reached Uhuru Peak your hands would freeze after taking them out of your gloves for one picture. I had no feeling of elation at the time whatsoever and even though the crater, glacier, and sunrise were awe-inspiring, I wasn't in the correct frame of mind to really appreciate them. All I could think about was get me the heck out of here!





We started down pretty quickly, but the hike down was also a grueling three hours back to camp. There, we bought a victory Coke (yes, they sold Coke, T-Shirts, and Kilimanjaro beer at every camp site), rested for an hour, ate lunch, and then, after already 9 hours of hiking that day, we hiked another 2.5 down to Mweka Camp, which was just above the rain forest.

Day 7: Mweka to Arusha

All I can say is thank goodness we're off that mountain! Actually, it was an incredible experience that I'm glad, in retrospect, we finished successfully. It was a test of wills and we overcame extreme physical challenge to get to the top and I'm very glad I was able to do it. The hikes every other day besides summit day were amazingly beautiful and worth it. My recommendation to future hikers? Unless you really need to check "Climb Kilimanjaro" off your life list, forget the top, it's anti-climactic and horribly difficult. Do a couple of day hikes, camp, take in the view. Your feet, lungs, and head will thank you later!

It's Kili Time

At 10:20pm tonight Nathan arrives, and on Monday morning we're going to tackle Africa's highest mountain - Kilimanjaro.

Kili is 19,340 ft to the summit and we've decided to take the second most popular route: Machame. There are several routes to the top and this one is suppose to be the most scenic - that's why we picked it. Its nickname is the "Whiskey Route". The easiest route, Marangu, which most people take to the top, is known as the Coca-Cola route because people sell water, coke, etc all along the route. By contrast, they do not sell Whiskey all the way up Machame, instead I've heard it's nick-named that because Whiskey helps to dull the pain.

It's a serious hike. Not really because the route is physically difficult, but because of the altitude. You can't go too far too fast or you may end up with a serious case of Acute Altitude Sickness.

That being said, thousands of people get up the mountain safe and sound every year and we're going to be two of them. :) We've added an extra day for acclimatization and are both experienced hikers and mountain climbers.

How we're getting up the mountain is actually really funny. We have an entourage! You have to have a guide by law to climb the mountain and the vast majority of tour groups throw in a lot more people to help make the trip easier. We are not an exception. For just the two of us to get up, we have the following support team:

1 Guide
1 Assistant Guide
1 Cook
7 Porters

That's right, for just the two of us, we have a team of 10 people helping us get up! On any other hike I'd feel like we're cheating, but for this one, where it will be hard enough just to breath without a 40 lb pack on top of it, I'm pretty happy about the arrangement. Accommodations will be in tents the whole way up.

I've always wanted to climb Kilimanjaro, so I feel very lucky that my CSC assignment was just 60km from the base of the mountain! Stay tuned to see if we actually make it or not! :)