Day 7 - Summit Day! Barafu Camp, Uhuru Peak, Mweka Camp

Facts

Starting altitude (Barafu camp) = 4,550 m
Crater altitude (Stella Point) = 5,685 m
Summit altitude (Uhuru peak) = 5,895 m
Camp site altitude (Mweka camp) = 3,100 m
No of hrs walking = 12 hrs & 35 min
Distance covered = 7 + 23 = 30 km

The sign board at the summit

12:10am was exactly the time we took our first steps towards the summit. It was full moon and even though we had our head lights, we could see even without it. Hence I turned it off as I liked the idea of walking under the moon light without any artificial lights. Gideon led our group, followed by Scot, me, Ryan and Eitan. Wilibard was at the back. In addition our waiter was accompanying us. The extra guide was in case one of us had to quit and return back to the camp. For sure I did not want to be that person.

It was extremely cold. We were asked to put our water bottles inside our rucksacks otherwise the water would freeze.  I was wearing my ski jacket, two thermal tops underneath it, a hat, neck warmer, ski gloves, thermal trousers under the hiking trousers, thick winter socks and feet warmers, but I was still cold ! It was mainly my fingers and my toes. This is something I knew that I would face, since I have low blood circulation in my hands and my feet, so I always get this. Even the feet warmers that I had put in my boots were not really helping. I had given the guys the extra feet warmers and hand warmers. Eitan used them and said that they were not really helping him either! I was very disappointed with my ski gloves too. They seemed to be a bit small and useless, so taking them off and putting them back on was taking all my time and energy. With them I could not do anything and when I took them off, my fingers would freeze and it used to take me sometime before I could put my hands properly in there. That's why I hardly had a proper break and was struggling with these stupid gloves. 

Proud to be here! :)
From left: Wilibard (our guide), Ryan, Scot (Ryan's father), me, Eitan, Gideon (our assistant guide)
and sitting down is our waiter who was came with us to the top as an extra guide

Yes, I was there! :)

Some groups were slightly ahead of us and I looked back and saw a trail of headlights going all the way down. It was like a snake path. All of us were using the same route and all of us had the same target. Everyone was walking in silence and that made it sensational. I was wondering what was going on inside each person's head right at that moment. I was overwhelmed with what I was experiencing. I was trying to concentrate, not to underestimate the situation and not to make any mistakes. At every break, I tried to drink and had a small bite of the biscuits or energy bar that I was carrying. 

Our pace was very slow so that we could not feel the low level of oxygen. On the other hand, we were not getting warm, specially that the wind was quite strong. Our breaks were very short because of the freezing condition. Just enough time to catch up your breath and have a sip of water. I was fully concentrated. I knew the ascend was going to be difficult and long. I knew it would be uphill all the way up to the summit and I knew it would be daylight by the time we reach the summit. I tried to look ahead, mainly at Scot's feet who was in front of me. Unconsciously I stopped looking at my watch all together. I did not care what time it was or how long was left. I wanted to absorb fully what I was experiencing. I knew this was all new to me and I also knew that there was a little chance I'd be doing this again. So slowly my mind adjusted itself to the harsh condition. I tried to block the cold and the fatigue. My mind was absolutely loving every moment of this strange night. 

Throughout the hike, Gideon was chatting with other guides and singing the Kilimanjaro songs. I think the summit day was his favourite part of the hike as he was much more talkative than the previous days. On the other hand Wilibard was more quite and occasionally chatting to others, but was not singing. I enjoyed Gideon's singing. He has that typical deep African voice and the songs kept me going. I could already pick some Swahili words, so whatever I could recoginse, I tried to sing along with them. This took my mind away from the difficulty of the hike. 

The beautiful view from the summit - Glaciers blending into the clouds

View from the summit - glaciers blending into the clouds

4,600m was the highest altitude I had ever been, so I was very conscious to see if/when it would hit me, specially that I hadn't taken any diamox. As we ascended higher and higher, the guys started having headaches and slowly we saw the fatigue in Scot's movements. Because of this, Gideon slowed down the pace even more, but still Scot was finding it very hard. Every step was a struggle to him. I asked Ryan to replace his place with me, so that he could be next to his father, as I could see that Scot needed his support. It seemed to me that Scot was suffering a lot. At one point he told Wilibard: 

"Don't let me become like those two girls we saw yesterday!"

Ok, at least he was still conscious and knew where he was! :) After sometime, the supporting guide had to stay close to Scot and support him by holding him under his arm. I did not know what altitude we were at, what I knew was that if for any reason I walked fast, I could immediately go short of breath, feel my heart beating fast and my lungs shouting for air!

At the summit with my guides: Wilibard (left) and Gideon (right)

It was sunrise by the time we reached the Stella point (5,685m). The view was incredible. We had a very short break and then started off again, since we still had another 200 meters to Uhuru peak (5,895m). At this point we were all exhausted. My back had started aching as well. It was then I realised that I had underestimated the weight we had to carry each day. My rucksack did not have any waist support, so my shoulders had to take in all the pressure, hence the back ache.

The walk from Stella point to Uhuru peak was one of the most difficult sections so far. It felt like you were already at the top, but in theory you were not. So we had to keep going and it felt that we'd never get there. This part felt like an infinity. None of us was talking and we were dragging our bodies in silence. It was in fact an unforgettable scene, walking in between the glaciers towards the summit. 

View from the summit - glaciers blending into the clouds

I heard Wilibard and Gideon saying congratulations to us and pointing at a sign board. Oh, this must be it then! I came out of somewhere deep deep semi-unconscious world. It was then that I really looked up and around and saw the astonishing natural beauty of the roof of Africa. The glaciers were blending into the clouds in the distance. I also looked at the time for the first time since we started the summit hike. It was 6:45am. So it had taken us about 6 hrs and 35min to reach the summit. I was specially happy that I had come all the way up without having any headaches or any signs of altitude sickness.

After some time, I started feeling extremely cold again. It was very windy and I could feel my fingers and toes freezing. They estimated the temperature to be -20 up there. I don't know, it could've been even lower. After taking a few photos, we started our descend at 7:15am. We were going down in full speed. The path was all loose gravel and very slippery. At times we where sliding rather than taking any steps and it felt like skiing. In fact I was using the same technique. I was enjoying this new path until I felt that my knees were burning!! I could feel something underneath my knee caps. "Oh, not the knee pain again!"  As we started going down and down, my knee pain became worse. In fact, this was a different knee problem and that definitely worried me. Some of us, fell down that slippery road, including myself. In one of the short breaks, Ryan said that he was feeling nausea and threw up right over there. 

On the way down from the summit

After 3 hours of continuous torturous knee-killer downhill, we reached the Barafu camp. We only had one and a half hours of rest. When we were about to start off, I bumped into Moses!!! My young Moshi guide. I just had enough time to greet him and then had to run down and join the guys. We had to do another knee-killer downhill to Mweka camp (3,100m), ie another 3 hours! It felt like a never ending downhill and my knees were getting worse and worse. The hiking poles were not helping any more either. After a while my 'usual' knee problem (runner's knee) started and by the time we got to the camp I was limping and in pain.

Mweka camp site is a misterable place. It is in a forest area with no view. It is crowded, dump, muddy and wet. Nothing like the mountain camp sites. I was already feeling nostalgic and missed the free spirit of the mountains. This would be the last night we were camping outside and my journey was near the end... :(