Climbing Kilimanjaro Successfully

The Day Before

Flying into Arusha and our first intimidating peak of Kilimanjaro''s summit over the clouds.

Day One

Hiking through the rain forest territory.

We were still fresh faced in the ''experience'' and ''hygienic'' sense!

At our first camp, the clouds cleared briefly for a peak of Kilimanjaro.

Over the next few days we would trek towards, around the front and then around the back of that peak... and up, up, up!

Day Two

We trekked up a steep hill for hours...

And up and up and up....

One of our very, very many breaks - and still smiling!

It clouded over very quickly at one point - it was quiet, foggy and very creepy walking through this section - especially with all the talk of vampires and zombies...

Our 2nd campsite (Shira camp - 3847m) The air was starting to get pretty thin here already, making everything much more difficult to do.

Our team of porters, cooks, guides. We had a singing welcome every time we managed to drag our tired bodies into the campsite.

The porters had of course left after us each morning - running past with all our gear, set it up and cooked food by the time we rolled in.

Very high up already with stunning views across the Shira Plateau.

It was starting to get very cold from here.

:o)

Again the clouds cleared for us revealing the ever expanding mountain top.

It got bigger every day - although didn''t seem to get any closer.

An afternoon hike - after we had hiked for hours to get to the camp.

Torture with stunning views.

Still on the additional afternoon hike. "Walk high, sleep low" is the name of the game from here on out.

A view from our tent (home for 6 nights)

Day Three

This proved to be one of the more challenging days - Marco started getting headaches from the altitude near Lava Tower (fortunately this didn''t persist the rest of the trip) 

That''s us taking it slowly, slowly again.

You can see Mount Meru in the background of this photo.

Another (much needed) break.

And it rained and rained and rained!

We''d walked up to 4600m at Lava Tower, had lunch in the blizzard and then made our way back down to 3950m.

The terrain after Lava Tower and back down to Barranco camp changed quite a lot - with more (weird looking) plants all over the place.

 Thankfully, we had some greenery again.

A room with a view - the photo doesn''t do it justice - we were looking up at the glaciers on Kili''s summit.

Simply AWESOME

Day Four

A relatively short day (which still managed to take us about 5 hours of climbing UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN)

I was tired, I really needed a deep breath of OXYGEN and I was in danger of losing my sense of humour at this point.

My camera battery had also just died (my manual charger missing) which left me with my low quality point-and-shoot camera to take the rest of the pics.

(I was Not a Happy Camper!)

Another gorgeous day with gorgeous views

Up Baranco wall - I didn''t get great photos here (although I have been promised a cd of pic''s from the other guy in our group...) but this turned out to be a highlight for me. 

Absolutely stunning (although very steep) for many hours again - noticing a theme here? 

Eat, Sleep, Hike uphill; Eat, Sleep, Hike uphill

Once you get back into the idea that you''re on your feet and hiking (again) you soon forget your aches and pains and start enjoying it. 

There are still smiles and jokes along the way.

Some more lava rocks strewn across the landscape.

They are a lot bigger than it looks in this pic.

This was at Karanga camp (4040m)

We caught the tail end of a stunning sun set. 

This camp is pretty steep and the clouds / mist rolls in pretty quickly. We were advised not to wonder off too far - ppl have very easily been lost or slipped off the steep hill and have been hurt or died in the process. 

A reminder of how easily something can go wrong and how careful we need to be on this trip, despite the awesome beauty.

Our tent at Karanga camp - the Queen (as the guides called her) quietly revealing herself every once in a while.

Day Five

And we''re on the move again. Those are porters charging past us with all our gear (These guys are truly AMAZING to watch!)

This was another (relatively) short hike - 4 or 5 hours again.

On our way to Barafu camp (at 4681m)

The view from our tent - looking across the valley towards one of the other volcano peaks that make up Kilimanjaro - Mawenzi

We had to pack and get dressed in the late evening after supper. We slept in everything up to the 3rd outer layer of clothes. 

We''d put those on at 11:00pm when they woke us for the "summit assault" as they call it. 

The air is so thin here that EVERYTHING is a huge effort. Moving this from here to there took up precious energy that we were desperately trying to conserve. 

We were very tired and had to try get a few hours sleep before they woke us at 11pm.

Day 6

Ok, between the last photo and this one was a LOT of effort, some tears (mine, not Marco''s!) and tonnes of will power. 

Between the last photo and this one was almost 8 hours of VERTICAL climbing that actually got steeper as we went along... 

It was also so cold that we couldn''t rest for more than a few minutes at a time and there was no way that I had the energy or the inclination to take my camera out until we got to the top. The boost of adrenalin in getting there encouraged me to take some more pics. 

Definitely the hardest thing we have ever done.

Flags on the Roof of Africa.

Where glaciers meet the clouds.

Inside the dormant volcano.

That is Mount Meru in the background.

Ground was still frozen here!

We couldn''t stick around too long. Marco was already beginning to feel the affects of the altitude.

So off we went. We still have a looong day ahead of us...

The same steep uphill is now a steep downhill, only the ground is no longer frozen and we slip and slide our tired aching bodies all the way down this mountainside.

What took us almost 8 hours to get up, took us 3.5 hours to get down. 

Not many smiles at this point..

We were so tired that despite the burning sunshine (the UV is very strong at that altitude) it was easier to leave our warm clothes on (despite the heat) to prevent burning than is was to take the back pack off and put on sun cream. 

We just didn''t have the energy...

We were allowed to break for 1.5 hours at the camp. Long enough to change and pack up our gear.

We then had to make our way down over 1.5 vertical kilometres.

The next portion of the route down seemed really arduous (we didn''t know what we still had in store here!) 

Here are some porters making their way past us with more gear.

About the last 2 or 3 hours was following a dried up rocky river bed. There were loose stones, big and small. 

Each step had to be carefully negotiated - which was difficult in our current physical and mental states. 

When I thought I had nothing left near the summit - I didn''t realise that all these hours later, I would still be walking along what I thought was a torturous track, seemingly lasting forever!

I don’t know what distance we covered doing that, but we eventually got to the camp at 4pm. 

We had hiked from 11:30pm the night before, summiting Kilimanjaro, resting for only 1.5 hours and then coming down to reach camp at 4pm. 

We hiked in total for around 15 hours at altitude.

Day Seven

The final trek back to the gate - this was only about 3 or 4 hours. The track was much better to walk on and the air became better to breath with each step.

Still... we were tired, dirty (no bath in 7 days!!) and only just realising what is we''ve just done...