TANZANIA: ARUSHA January 03, 2013


Jim and I left Capetown early Wednesday morning on the 2nd. I was on the 8am flight up to Jo’berg, and he was on the 10:00am flight, then we both caught the 3:30 to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We had some hours to kill in Addis Ababa, so we got a few beers and were sitting in the lounge when a frantic woman ran through saying that the Kilimanjaro flight was actually leaving now, at midnight! So we slammed the beers and ran over to the gate, catching a flight to Nairobi, Kenya that would be stopping at the Kilimanjaro International Airport. We got in at 2:30 and headed to the hotel in Arusha. The next day we met our mountain guide and secured all the gear we needed for the trip. We went to bed early as we would be heading off to the mountain the next day.


TANZANIA: KILIMANJARO SUMMIT January 04, 2013


Day 1: Simba Camp. 2700m (8,900’)

It was a 4 hour drive to the trailhead of the Rongai Route on Kilimanjaro. I really didn’t do too much research as to the route we would be taking. We chose Rongai because we could get up and back down in 6 days as opposed to the customary 7. We came to find out that the route is also known as the ‘Coca Cola Route’ due to the ease with which it takes to get to the base camp of the summit. The trade off being there is less acclimitazation time and the summit attempt is harder. Therefor, the Rongai Route as we came to lear, has less of a success rate. Starting at Rongai required that we drive to the north side of the mountain, only a few kilometers from the Kenyan border. We arrived at the trailhead at 1:00pm, passing through the Rongai Gate, 1800m (5,905’), and made our way up through new pine forest and then low deciduous plants and trees. We arrived at Simba Camp around 4:00, having intentionally traveled at a snail’s pace to aid in the acclimatization. I learned two very important, and often repeated words, on this day: ‘pole pole’... meaning, go slow. Rain started falling as the porters put up the tents, and Jim serenaded them all with a few ditties on his ukulele. We settled into bed and I was fast asleep, until about 2am when a spotted mongoose started screeching just outside the tent. It was hair raising, sounding like a baby being slaughtered. My heart was jumping out of my chest and it took a good 45 minutes for me to settle back to sleep.

TANZANIA: KILIMANJARO SUMMIT January 05, 2013


Day 2  Second Cave Camp. 3400m (11,150’)


It was a really quick day today. Despite almost hiking backwards, we reached the Second Cave camp by 11:00. I found the day kind of disappointing. There is only so much sitting in a tent/ around camp that one can do. The guides and porters busied themselves in the tent playing ‘last card’, for which the winner would yell ‘OBAMA!’... It was pretty comical. Jim jammed on the uke, I did a few drawings, but we were still kind of bored. We hung out in the tent for a bit and Jim taught me how to play rumi. Rumi is fun for a while, but not hours... so we got out of the tent, stretched the legs and headed up the ridge to do a little acclimatizing. We took the trail heading northwest over towards Mawenzi Peak. As we got up to the rise in the trail, the clouds lifted, affording us great views of both Mawenzi and Kibo. Kilimanjaro actually refers to the entire area that is composed of three peaks: Kibo, the tallest at 5,896m (19,343’), the peak commonly referred to as Kilimanjaro; Mawenzi, which is actually a more beautiful and dramatic peak, but a much more technical climb, topping out at 5,120m (16, 797’); and then Shira Ridge to the south, with an elevation of 3.962m (13,000’). On this second day, I more than doubled my understanding of the Swahili language. When greeting someone formally, saying hello, you say ‘Jambo’, but on the trail, the more informal greeting is ‘Mambo’, which is typically followed by ‘Poa’, meaning ‘Cool’. Our guides, the cool cats that they are, taught us a little slang to throw in there. Instead of just saying poa (cool), spice it up a bit, show the folks you’ve got a little personality... in response to Mambo, give them a little ‘poa mchizi kama ndiz’. Essentially they are asking you how you are, and you’re saying, ‘I’m cool like a crazy banana.’


TANZANIA: KILIMANJARO SUMMIT January 06, 2013



Day 3 Third Cave Camp. 4,100m (13,451’)

Another short day that saw the landscape turn from low lying scrub plants to a rocky, barren, almost lunar landscape with very little signs of life. Following our guides Victor and Jackson up the mountain felt kind of like following Gollum in the Lord of the Rings (insert nerd jokes here!). We traveled up through the mist and the fog, the foreign landscape always looking eerily similar, like we weren’t making any progress, with the mountain looming over us the entire time, appearing and disappearing int he clouds. We arrived to camp before noon and took lunch before going on another acclimatization hike with Victor and Jackson. We made our way up the ridge to about 4,400m (14,435’). We came down at about 2:00 and busied ourselves throwing rocks... yep, throwing rocks... Jim and I invented a game, where you set a larger rock on its end, then each of us would pick 8 smaller rocks to throw, and we would see who could knock down the upright rock. Thrilling stuff I realize, but there is a point to this. We were playing for a little bit, when one of the porters, Alex, noticed and asked if he could play with us. Then another of the porters came over wanting to play. I can’t remember his real name, but we were calling him ‘Crazy Banana’. After a while a few of the other porters gathered around to watch. It was quite the spectacle at 13,500’! We played for a while, then the porters really started to humble us, kicking our ass every round in the game... it was kind of embarrassing, so Jim and I quit and let them continue playing. I fell asleep that night to the sound of the Liverpool game on the radio, echoing from the porters tent, called by Kenyan broadcasters in Swahili.


TANZANIA: KILIMANJARO SUMMIT January 07, 2013


Day 4: Kibo Village. 4,700m (15,420’)


We reached Kibo village, the base camp for summiting Kibo Mountain and Uhuru Peak (the tallest point on the mountain), again getting to our destination before lunch. It was our first camp of the trip that actually had huts and buildings, but we were cool slumming it in the tent. We registered with the ranger and did a little walking around the village. It was a funny mix of those of us coming into camp, wide eyed and eager, and those coming down having just summited, or at least having attempted to summit, looking just destroyed. It was overcast and cold and I was anxious as hell, but feeling the beginning of a headache. I just wanted to be going already. I wanted to be working my way up the mountain. I was tired of all of the sitting around... but I would have to wait until midnight, when we would be waking up to begin the slog up the mountain. Jim and I occupied ourselves by exploring the area and climbing up the little rock towers surrounding the camp. Looking off in the distance along the saddle of land between Kibo camp and Mawenzi, I could make out a person in a bright yellow jacket, sitting down on the side of the trail. I remember thinking to myself, if that person is tired or spent or suffering from the altitude, they are in for a rough night and summit attempt. About an hour later, I was walking around the camp and saw that the same woman had made it up to Kibo camp and was lying down, spread out across the main trail through the village. We wondered if she was OK, and saw her friend go over to her. Her friend then pulled out her camera, and started taking pictures of the woman in yellow sprawled on the ground. I guess things weren’t that bad. Eventually Jim and I got into bed, probably around 8:00 or so, trying to get as much shut eye before the 12:00am wake up call.
January 8, 2013
Day 5 Summit, Uhuru Peak. 5,896m (19,343’)
The wake up call came and I felt surprisingly rested. The night before I had laid out all my clothes in the tent, in the order in which they would need to go on, so as to ease my prep work when I woke. I slept in my thermal underwear, so need to hunt of that in the morning. I had put my heavy coat down first, followed by my lighter coat, the heavy ski pants, my micro fleece, my long sleeve t-shirt, 2 pairs of socks, and sitting on top was my knee brace, which would need to go on first. Sometime in my tossing and turning, the knee brace got tossed aside, and in the morning I forgot about it. So i put everything on with the exception of the heavy jacket, and as i lumbered out of the tent I noticed that I had been sitting on my knee brace... AWWWW FUCK! So I had to take the light jacket, the fleece and the ski pants back off so I could put the knee brace back on. This set me back a good 10 or 15 minutes. By 12:45 we had drank some tea, eaten some biscuits and were ready to go. This is the moment I was looking forward to. I was tired of sitting around and looking forward to getting started.

The summit team, in our order of ascent, was Victor, myself, Jimbo and Jackson. As expected we headed up very pole pole. Starting out at 15,420’ was already at a higher altitude than I had been in nearly 15 years. Slow. Meticulous. One foot in front of the other. I was still feeling the effects of the headache, but it wasn’t enough to hinder any progress. We probably weren’t going for an hour when we saw people already coming back down, to nobody’s surprise, the woman in yellow was the first one we saw to give up on the summit attempt. We probably passed another 15 or so on our way up to Gillman’s Point. There were some milestones along the way. We hit Williams point at around 3:00 which was the 5,000m (16,404) mark. I was still feeling good here. As we approached the cave at 5,500m I was definitely feeling dizzy and drunk. When I would look up the mountain, the parade of headlamps would blend in with the stars, which made me additionally disoriented and nauseous. So I just kept my head down and trudged along, humming tunes to myself in my head in rhythm with my steps. At 5am we reached the crater rim at Gillman’s Point, a significant milestone at 5,685m (18,652’). We had gotten ‘over the hump’. From Gillman’s point we followed a knife edge ridge north to Stella point. The experience of the ridge is something I won’t soon forget. To our left was the long slope, down over 1000 vertical meters to the Kibo camp, and to the right was a rocky snow filled bowl leading into the crater, probably 500m below. Stella Point, at 5,756m (18,885’) is where the Kibo Hut route and the Machame Route come together, and from there all climbers make there way up the final 140m to the mountain summit at Uhuru Peak. We made it to Stella Point in time to see the sun come up, and then we pushed on to the summit, albeit slowly. Both Jim and I were hurting. It is unfortunate, as I really wish I could have documented the experience a little better. But we made it to the top and took the obligatory pictures. Jim and I together in front of the summit sign. Then with our guides. We spent only about 10 minutes up there before turning around and heading back down. Along the way back to Stella Point, Jim took a brief break to make an offering to the mountain gods. I believe this had everything to do with our safe return.

TANZANIA: KILIMANJARO SUMMIT January 08, 2013


Day 5 Horombo Village. 3,720m (12,205’)


The trip down was hell. We were layered up and the sun was coming out and heating everything up. We were exhausted, sick and just not in our right minds. On the way up the mountain you follow switchbacks through rock and loose scree. The way down is a lot more obvious, just point yourself downhill and let gravity and the loose rock do the rest of the work. While this sounds easy enough, it requires a lot of work. At one point I turned to Jim and stated the obvious, ‘This is hell...’. To which he replied, ‘I wish the mountain would erupt and consume us so we wouldn’t have to walk back down.’ That sums up the state of affairs. It was a grueling three hours coming straight down the face of the mountain. At around 10:30am we rolled into Kibo camp and took took a nap for a few hours. We still had a ways to go that day, as we were to spend the night in Horombo camp before getting back to Arusha the following day. While napping, there were tents being set up next to us for all of the folks arriving, setting out to summit that night. They were hammering the stakes into the crusty, rocky soil. I was in such a sleep deprived state of mind that I thought someone was knocking at the door, so I invited them in, to Jim’s amusement.

After the nap we were both feeling a lot better and had a bit of food before setting off at about 1:00pm down the mountain. We hiked over the saddle and followed the trail down to Horombo village, at 3,720m (12,205’). As we descended the trail became much more verdant until we finally reached camp, nestled among a grove a stocky palm-like trees. As you could imagine, we were pretty exhausted, and after a quick dinner we were dead to the world by 8:00pm. I’m not sure I ever slept so well and so deeply in a tent before.

TANZANIA: KILIMANJARO SUMMIT January 09, 2013

Day 6 Back to Arusha


We awoke to get an early start the next morning. Our guides originally wanted to make a lower camp after the summit, but we were just too exhausted. This meant we had about a 5 hour hike out instead of 3. So we got up early, powered down some breakfast, and hit the trail. We made some good time, but as usual, the porters passed us like we were standing still. We passed through dense jungle along the way, seeing all kinds of animals including colobous monkeys, birds and chameleon. We made the Marangu gate at about 2:00 and Jimbo bought a couple of Kilimanjaro beers to celebrate our accomplishments. What an amazing experience shared with a really great friend!

Thanks to everyone at Congema who helped us get up and down the mountain. The team was absolutely fantastic. Our main man Victor who was the lead guide. Every time I talked to him and learned more about him, I was more blown away. There is a Kilimanjaro marathon every year, not up the mountain, but still at elevation with some pretty good climbs. Victor told me that he ran it every year. I explained that I too am a marathon runner, with some pretty decent times I might add... so I asked him more about the marathon, his times, what the field is like, etc. There are typically about 3000 runners in the event every year, about 500 of which are mazungu, or white people, In the last one that he ran, he came in 22nd place.... I couldn’t believe it! He is a fit guy, but more muscular than fleet looking. What a rock star. Then there was Jackson, the assistant guide. He was our shadow, always following behind and making sure that we were OK. He also introduced us to the phrase ‘Huyu Hapa!’ Which is the equivalent to... maybe... ‘There’s the man!’. Jackson always kept our spirits high and made sure we were doing OK. Cassim, the cook, kept us well fed. His soups were the bomb and I am amazed the meals he came up with being on the mountain for so many days. I sure as hell ate better than I do on my backpacking trips. And the rest of the team were all really fun, animated and professional. Thanks you Noel, Alexi, Adam (who brought us our meals every day!), Crazy Banana, Mbao and Benson. Going out and playing pool with them all upon our return to town was a once in a lifetime experience.