The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
The Ladder of St. Augustine – Longfellow
We started off just after midnight and I found myself up near the front by Matthew, the head guide. It was very cold and the trail appeared to be a mix of boulders and hardpack track (although it could have been frozen scree).
I was tired and still feeling ill so didn’t start off so well, in fact I stumbled and nearly fell as we were only about five minutes into the climb as I was climbing up a boulder. Matthew came back and said he would take my pack and he was starting to loosen my chest strap before I realised what he was doing.
I knocked his hand away and said no, probably louder than I meant too. I then felt really bad about knocking his hand away, so told him that I needed to do this myself. He just smiled and said, “Jay you are strong like a lion, you are the king of lions, you are Simba!”, which I knew was just said to make me feel better, but I appreciated it.
That incident really woke me up and I felt adrenaline coursing through me. I knew it wouldn’t last so I tried to get into a rhythm with my walking, especially when we were climbing up the boulders as I’d previously found this exhausting.
I don’t know if it was the pole pole pace, or that all the acclimatisation walks had finally paid off, but suddenly I felt ok. I was singing bits of songs in my head, over and over again, and “dancing” to them up the slope. I say dancing, but it was more of a slow shuffle, I’d step forward and tap my boot next to my standing foot before completing the step, doing the same as I bought my other foot forward, and swaying from side to side as I walked.
I found this rhythm really helped me focus on walking pole pole and keeping a steady speed. I even found that stepping up across boulders was easy using this rhythm, so I just kept singing inside my head. The song I was mostly singing was “you are my sunshine, my only sunshine”, probably because the lyrics are easy!
But it worked and pretty soon we were two hours in, at around 5,000m and stopping for our first break. We stopped in the lee of a huge house sized rock to keep out of the wind, everybody sat down, but I had to keep moving as I was getting cold and I didn’t want to lose this rhythm in my head. I still felt too ill to eat any of my snacks so I just walked around taking pictures of the group. I had to take my right glove off to get the camera out and to take the pictures but I didn’t mind. My hand was freezing but I knew it would warm up once we started moving again.
Jennifer looked tired but was doing well, in fact everyone seemed to be doing well at this stage, although some looked a little tired and cold, probably from the slow pace.
We set off again, still going pole pole, and I was straight back into my rhythm. I wasn’t sure if I could keep this up for the whole six hours to Stella Point, but I had to keep trying. To stop my camelbak from freezing up I had to blow back into the mouthpiece after taking a sip to let the water siphon back into my backpack and get some warmth from my body. It added another step to my drinking routine but it worked, and in our backpacks me and Jennifer had a litre bottle of hot water in an insulating sleeve as a backup.
The track still seemed to be boulders and hardpack track, no loose scree which we’d heard about, and my rhythm was still working well and pretty soon we were three and a half hours in and we were making our second break.
I took some more pictures, but was shocked by how tired the team seemed, especially Jennifer. I asked Matthew to take her pack and I took out my down jacket and made her put it on, I was really worried about her. She wouldn’t take my coat, despite the cold and I was getting exasperated by her. She said she didn’t want me to get cold, but I told her not to worry, we’d soon be at the summit and the morning sun would warm us. Pete was being a top man and he gave both me and Jennifer some chocolate as we were focusing on each other instead of drinking / eating.
The next few hours seemed to be a bit vague. The cold was getting worse and was sneaking in through my boots and gloves, and the tiredness was creeping into my bones, but I kept my rhythm going in my head and kept walking forward.
We had another break at around 4.30 – 5.00am, it was only a short break as there was no real shelter at that point. I remember Adam coming forward and asking if he could break away and speed up as the cold and the slow speed were making him fall asleep and if he kept going at this pace he wouldn’t make it. I saw him head off, I think with Pete and one other, but I can’t be sure in the dark.
We moved off again and within the hour it started to get light, but I was getting more and more tired with each step. Soon it was daylight and we were about 20 minutes from Stella Point, but all my energy seemed to have left me. I just had my head down and was focusing on one step after the other, the final rise to Stella Point seemed to be the longest 20 minutes of my life! My camelbak had also frozen up at some point in the last hour or so, I must have forgotten to blowback during the night.
We finally reached Stella Point at about 6.15am and I felt absolutely shot, and far from being bright and sunny we found that there was an icy blizzard on the rim. We sheltered behind a large rock and had some tea and Jennifer was hugging everyone and there were a few tears, and not just from Jennifer!
I was dead on my feet so just wanted to try to keep moving. If I’d’ve sat down at that point I think I would have fallen asleep. I tried taking a few photos but my hands felt like they were freezing off. I’d put my mittens on at somepoint during the night and they were effective when they were on, but it was bloody freezing now and soon I’d put my camera away.
After what seemed a short rest we headed off towards the summit. For some reason I thought this would be easy when compared with the steep climb to Stella Point, but in the cold biting wind it seemed even harder than the climb to the rim. Maybe the altitude was also affecting me but I could hardly walk.
I remember putting my head down and just following the tracks of those who had come up earlier, and I tried not to look up as each time we topped a rise, we saw there was another waiting for us up ahead. A couple of times I noticed I must have left the path as there were no footprints infront of me, so I had to backtrack, cursing myself for adding a few extra yards to my journey.
We were all strung out along the path, all trying to make our way forward through the ice. At one point I had stopped for a breather and for some reason I couldn’t move forward. I think maybe I was half asleep, or maybe it was just the cold, but I was looking at my legs and wondering why they wouldn’t move forward, then I heard Graeme’s dulcet tones as he came up from behind me, telling me to start walking again, and to follow him.
It woke me up and I started after him but I was struggling to keep even a slow pace and I soon dropped behind, then I saw Simon who had summited earlier, standing at my shoulder urging me forward, telling me its not far now.
Meanwhile Jennifer was getting closer to the Summit, and was also suffering. She fell down to her knees and then waited for me to help her up. When I didn’t, she realised something was wrong and she turned around and saw me far behind her, walking with Simon.
She immediately turned around and despite the guides telling her not to, she walked back towards me. She looked like an angel coming towards me on the path and when she took my arm I felt new energy surging through me and together we walked on and reached the Summit together, about an hour after leaving Stella Point.
Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern–unseen before–
A path to higher destinies.
The Ladder of St. Augustine – Longfellow
We both had icicles hanging down from our eye lashes and we were exhausted but we felt so happy, we’d made it, despite the conditions. Our skywatch anemometers were recording temperatures of between -35C to -64C (not sure about the accuracy of the -64C readings as the minimum operating temperature of these units is -30C so the further away from that the temperature is then the more uncertain the accuracy). After hugging each other and getting our photos taken we started following the guides and heading back down the mountain.
As we were walking back to Stella Point we finally noticed the glaciers. I’d missed them on the way up as I was walking with my head down, but now we could see them in all their glory and they looked amazing. Because of the weather there were huge pillars of ice hanging down from the tops of the glaciers, they looked like Grecian Columns on the Parthenon.
I thought of stopping to take a photograph, but I was just so cold and tired. If I’d’ve taken my hand out of its glove again I didn’t think I’d be able to get it back on again, and if I’d stopped then I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get going again, so we just left with out memories of an amazing sight.
It took us an hour to get back to Stella Point but once there we came down a completely different path to the ascent. It was an ash field covered in snow, the path was heavily churned up by the earlier descents but the guides wanted to really push us to get down quickly, trying to get us to run and jump at breakneck speed. I was absolutely shattered and in the end I just had to walk down. I even allowed Didas (one of the guides) to take my pack now I’d made it to the top.
It seemed to take us hours to get back to camp, in fact it took us two hours from Stella Point, but it was hard going all the way. We were exhausted and there was a wet drizzly rain all the way back to camp, the rain only stopped when we got back to camp, then we turned around and saw that the summit was clear now, with no clouds, just basking in the bright sunshine. We felt like the Mountain had played with us to show us its power.
We fell straight asleep in our tents and were woken up an hour later for something to eat and then we continue down the mountain, straight down the southern ridge for another three hours to Millennium Camp, where we signed in and sorted ourselves out.
We could have carried on down to Mweka Camp but it would have taken another two or three hours, and my knees couldn’t take anymore!
Tags: Kilimanjaro
