Kilimanjaro

Alright, now that we're finally in a city with plentiful, cheap internet, we can get around to posting a bit more often. Here's a summary of our Kilimanjaro adventure, written a few weeks ago after we got back from the mountain.

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We made it! After about a year of planning, and 11 months of worrying that it would kick our ass, we summited Mt. Kilimanjaro at 7:40am on January 6th, 2009. It was an amazing experience all around, but since I'm guessing not everyone is interested in the finer points of the summit approach to Stella Point versus the tougher Gillman's Point, I'll keep the technical detail to a minimum and just list some awesome/not-so-awesome things about the climb. If anyone is interested in climbing details though, we've got lots of opinions on operators and routes, so send us a note.

So, things that were awesome about the trek.

#1: Our Tour Operator
We booked our climb with Team Kilimanjaro (TK), and were really, really impressed with them. They were super professional, friendly, experienced, and almost shockingly fit (one of their employees, John, holds some kind of crazy world record for running up the mountain and back down in 10 hours). In addition to all that, they've also pioneered some new routes to the top of the mountain that they claim increase success rates from 50-60% to around 85%. Which brings me to #2...

#2: Taking a Top Secret Route to the Summit
Ok, we didn't have to roll any giant boulders out of the way to enter a shadowy secret passage or anything, but TK offers a modified version of the Rongai Route (there are half a dozen different routes up the mountain, of varying degrees of difficulty) that allows for more acclimatization, and an easier summit approach. They're understandably concerned about keeping the route quiet for as long as possible to maintain their competitive advantage, so they ask that climbers not reveal too many details about the specifics of the TK Rongai route. It kind of makes you feel like an old timey explorer who's found the Northwest Passage or something. Cool.

#3: Our Fellow Trekkers
There were 5 climbers on our trek. In addition to Mal and I, we were joined by Trevor and Kim, a married couple from Washington, DC, and Bill, an almost-retired doctor from Wales. If I could hand-pick the professions of people for an expedition up a big mountain, doctor would be pretty close to my #1 pick. Not only that, but Bill's thinking about becoming an expedition doctor after he retires, which means he knew a LOT about altitude. It was all very, very reassuring. He even brought an oxygen saturation meter! He took a reading of his blood oxygen saturation percentage at the summit, and I think the result would have landed him in an ICU had he taken it at sea level. Altitude does some pretty serious things to the human body.

Trevor and Kim were a ton of fun to have along on the trip, too. They were both very friendly, interesting people. As a side note (that I thought was pretty much the coolest thing in the world), Trevor is a 5-time Jeopardy! champion who made it not only to the Tournament of Champions, but to the ULTIMATE Tournament of Champions. I tried to play it cool, but by the end of the trip, I had asked about a hundred Jeopardy! related questions. Sorry Trevor.

#4: Filtering Our Own Drinking Water
I'm not sure about Mal, but this was the second time (Bhutan was the first) that I've ever been faced with the necessity of purifying my own drinking water. It is awesome. There is something undeniably manly and outdoorsy about drinking a bottle of water that you rendered drinkable using nothing but your wits and wilderness skills. And a bottle of prepackaged chlorine water treatment solution from Katadyn.

#5: Camping on a Mountain
We had some really amazing campsites on the mountain, including one beside a tarn (glacial lake), and one at almost 5000m that felt pretty adventurous. It was full of jagged rocks and snow and stuff. Very cool. Here are some of the views from our campsites. The pointy, extremely-hard-to-climb looking mountain is Mawenzi, the second highest peak on Kilimanjaro. We did not climb it.





#6: The Summit
Our state of mind when we got to the summit was a combination of happiness and relief, as we'd been pretty certain that our lack of dedicated training would make the ascent pretty darn tough. When we finally made it, without suffering from pounding headaches, vomiting all over the mountain, or getting a cerebral edema, it was definitely one of the best moments of the trip so far. It was made even better by the fact that everyone in our group made it to the summit. Here's our climbing team. The back row is Bill, Trevor, Kim, Joshua (our head guide), Nick (assistant guide), me and Mal. Front row: Solomon (porter/assistant cook/extra summit help), Idrisa (assistant guide), and Kombe (porter/extra summit help).


#7: Glaciers
Our whole motivation for climbing Kilimanjaro on this trip was that we wanted to be able to climb it while it still had glaciers (they are melting fast). Luckily they were still there when we made it to the top, and they are pretty spectacular.


As for things which were not so great...

#1: The Ascent To The Summit
We went to sleep around 7pm the night before our summit, and managed to get a deeply satisfying half hour of sleep between then and our 11pm wake-up call. Trying to get some sleep wasn't very easy, mostly due to the fact that we were at almost 5000m above sea level, and it was below freezing, and we were thinking about the ridiculous climb that we, for some reason we could no longer recall, had paid good money to attempt. We got out of our tent at 11pm, had a "breakfast" of porridge and Mars bars (we were going for maximum energy density), and then set off to climb the remaining 4.3km to the summit. 4.3km certainly doesn't sound like that much climbing, we thought, but our guides had budgeted 7 hours for the ascent. That works out to a blazing average speed of 600m per hour. We did not find this projection comforting. I'll spare you the details of the ascent. Suffice it to say it was one of the physically toughest things I've ever done.

#2: The Descent From The Summit
Oh yeah, sure, you get to the summit, it's all glaciers and shouting and pictures and happiness. And then you turn around and realize you have 30km of significantly downhill hiking to do before you can leave. It took us a day and a half to get from the summit back to the main park gate, and by the time we got there, my knees felt like they were full of broken glass, and we couldn't walk without emitting a series of very pained noises.

All in all, a pretty neat way to spend a week.

Next post: safari!