Day 6 - July 11, 2013 - A wedding anniversary to be remembered ... it's summit day!

I have finally typed up my notes from on Kilimanjaro ... I will post them as a post per day ... only because otherwise it would be a 10 page post ... which I think would be quite overwhelming!!!  Pictures will come shortly ... I promise :)  My little inserts in italics are thoughts I've put in after the fact.

Day 6 - July 11, 2013

Cold and dark and steep and dusty and slow and steep and tiring and steep (did I mention steep?)  for 6.5 hours.   That was a description of the first 6.5 hours of mine and Luke’s 3^rd wedding anniversary.  A strange activity, really, to celebrate a wedding anniversary!!  It was definitely one that we won’t ever forget though.  Or, for that matter, probably beat.  Although, it has given us a great benchmark for future anniversary activities!!

The professional description of today, that we read yesterday at lunch (possibly not the best idea ever) reads as follows:

Tonight is very difficult - particularly the final 550m - and you’ll need to commit to fight for the summit. You will inevitably feel like giving up and going to sleep. This is normal and can be overcome with perseverance. When resting please ensure you only stand or sit and do not lie own or close your eyes. Please trust your guide; he is very adept at judging whether your condition will allow safe progress or whether you have succumbed to a potentially dangerous condition and to proceed will not be safe. Nausea and headaches are normal and around a quarter of climbers will vomit at or near Gilman’s Point.

I did not vomit … woohoo!  A couple of unfortunate souls in our group did though making us the perfect average group.  A lovely stranger also did and splashed on my boot.   I didn’t like my boots very much by this point though, so it really didn’t bother me.

Going to the loo on the way up was the scariest loo experience EVER.  Picture pitch black, 2 foot wide (maybe) trail, 1 foot of light radius max from headlamp and being told to just step over the ridge to the next one down to have a wee.  Adventure loo to the extreme!  Plus, in the dark, you can’t really see what previous loo deposits you may be stepping down into.  I had a narrow miss!   And, yes, I am aware of the loo theme throughout this 6 day summary.  In times like this it really comes down to the basics!!

Arriving at Gilman’s Point (5708m) was AWESOME.  I’d love to say primarily for the view but it was just sheer JOY at finishing the ‘demoralizing switchbacks’.  I’d love to reference that properly, but it was read to me from a book and I’m not sure which one.  They are quite demoralizing though just due to the sheer number of them, the dark and the slow slow slow speed with which you move through them.

I was quite surprised by the remaining distances though to get to Stella Point and then Uhuru Peak (5895m) but I was very very lucky and had a load of energy and was super hungry (phew for all of my sharkies and cliff bars that I brought with me)!

The walk over to the peak (with a steady climb of some 180 more meters) was incredible with views of the crater and glaciers and just the sheer joy of having made it to the top.  I luckily had no feelings of altitude sickness and actually thought I could have jogged over to the peak … with that being said, I probably would have died if I tried … but I’m going to keep thinking I’m Wonder Woman with nothing to prove otherwise.

The descent was incredibly fun – think alpine skiing in deep soft rocks.  Now that I write that it doesn’t sound as fun as it was … but, perhaps the exhaustion and the sheer joy at not having to walk slowly down were great contributors to the experience.   I have since read that it is very bad to ‘ski’ down the face though as it is causing rapid erosion … oops (Lesson 7).

Arriving back at Kibo Huts for lunch we were all shocked and, I think it would be accurate to say, absolutely HORRIFIED to find out that we still had another 12km to hike to get to our camp for the night.  We had a big group HMPH.  The total distance that we covered was 20.4 km and we were on the move from midnight until about 5pm non-stop.  It was an incredibly slow and LONG day!  I have never, and I can’t imagine ever in the future, been so excited to see an outhouse and our tent at the end of that 12k (Horombo Hut at 3760m).

I had expected that tonight would be a great night of celebration but it was, instead, a night of falling asleep wherever we stopped and counting down the time until they had finished serving our dinner and let us go to bed.   

LONGEST.DAY.OF.MY.LIFE.