Kilimanjaro

  After seeing Su and Raven off at the bus station in Arusha, we started the hour long drive towards Machame gate, the starting point for my 7 day trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro. Before long, the equatorial snow of Uhuru Peak, the summit snowfield, came into view. The total absurdity of this iconic mountain is mesmerizing. The Geographical Society made a laughing stock of Johannes Rebmann, the missionary who reported a snow covered mountain in East Africa in 1848. I couldn’t help trying to snap a few pictures from the moving vehicle as we passed fields of palms, corn, and sunflowers. I started to get butterflies in my stomach as I gazed up at the highest peak I have ever even considered trying to summit. I hadn’t exactly been training for a 19 000 foot climb, and my knee had been sore ever since I had gotten carried away with the bike in Hampi, but I’m still in reasonably good shape, and more importantly, stubborn to the core, so I knew only a major injury would prevent me from summiting. General fitness levels really have minimal influence on the success rate on Kilimanjaro, because there is no way to prepare for the rapid gains in altitude. General mountaineering guidelines suggest not gaining more than 300 meters of elevation per day, but I would average 800 per day. The more time you can spend at elevation  the better, but some people just don’t acclimatize easily, no matter how fit.

Glasses case and mountain friendly sleeping bag?

  After reaching the gate, I joined the assorted groups of hikers, from other single climbers to a large group dressed in very new, right out of the box looking clothes, packs and boots. I waited and waited as the other groups started off up the trail. Eventually the office manager collected me, and I signed into the log book. Shortly after, we went up to the gate, where I was introduced to my guide, and the cook, and the three porters who would accompany us. There is no way to climb Kilimanjaro solo. You must have a guide, and the cook, and they each have a porter, which means we need another porter for all the food. That’s right…I needed a group of five people to ‘guide’ me along the trail to the summit! My only really concern was a decent sleeping bag. Our highest camp would be at 4600 meters, and it was going to be cold! The manager had assured me they would be ‘treating me like a baby’, ensuring I was comfortable and safe during the entire journey. I asked to inspect the sleeping bag they were providing, and was shocked when they produced a light summer bag, one that I wouldn’t even take on a summer camping trip in Canada! I was appalled, but was eager to get under way, so I shrugged it off, hoping the extra layers I had brought would be enough.

  The porters were still busy having their bags weighed, so the guide told me to go ahead, and that they would catch up with me. Fair enough. All the porters I had seen in Nepal were very fast, so I didn’t doubt that they would catch me in time for a late lunch on the trail, since all meals were provided from the moment I left the hostel. I started ascending through lush, semi-tropical cloud forest, enjoying the quiet and solitude. I was told that it would take 4-5 hours to reach the evening camp, so I settled into a steady pace, stopping occasionally to snap pictures of wild flowers and the dense, moss-covered foliage. I stopped for a water break, expecting to see my team any time, as I was getting hungry by now. I had brought some snacks and chocolate bars, but wanted to save them for the more challenging days to come, so I just pushed on. I was first to arrive at Machame Camp, arriving in less than four hours. I signed into the guest book, changed into some dry clothes, and patiently waited for my guide and porters. As the sun started to set, I spent time staring up at the golden light playing across the snow and rock towering above, and chatting with the other hikers, several of whom I would get to know quite well over the next six days. Finally, my guide arrived, but no porters. By 7:00, they had all arrived and set up my tent, and shortly after, produced some popcorn and tea, the first food I’d eaten since breakfast at 07:00 in the hostel. Not so confidence inspiring, but I chocked it up to first day confusion. Just before 8:00, I finally sat down to a full meal, and then tucked up into my thin sleeping bag. I woke up cold around midnight, and put on some extra clothes. There was a layer of frost on the tent in the morning, and I started to get worried about my lack of adequate gear. I had more layers that I could sleep in, but wanted to add more each night as we went higher. Luckily Rick, an American ER nurse who had been working at a hospital in rural Kenya, had a bivy bag that I could borrow. I can’t thank him enough, because it would have been a very different experience if it weren’t for the extra insulation.

  The second day was stunning. I stayed with my guide for a while, but his pace was uncomfortably slow, so I left him behind to find a natural pace, this time equipped with a packed lunch box. One of the most incredible aspects of the Kilimanjaro climb is the number of distinct climate zones you ascend through. I quickly left the dense cover of the cloud forest, emerging into a sparse alpine ecosystem. The trees were stunted, the soil much drier, and vistas of the lower slopes opened up. Soon a thick fog rolled in, imparting mystical qualities to the steep, rocky trail. I didn’t see anyone else for an hour at a time, just the occasional porter struggling slowly upwards, navigating ravines and slippery stream crossings with bulky loads balanced precariously on their heads. I was first to sign in again, before settling down to enjoy the magnificent view from Shira Camp, a wide open site facing the distant cone of Mt. Meru. A few of us gathered to chat near a cliff face, just down from the camp, and when I was finally called back for dinner, I was facing a large collection of capable looking mountaineering tents, low and stable. I then realized that my tent was a flimsy, Canadian Tire style tent, standing in stark contrast to all the others. The large groups even had large dining tents, complete with lights! As I tried to open the fly, the zipper jammed. I was trying to gently wiggle it loose when my guide showed up. He reached down and pulled the two sides violently apart, breaking the zipper beyond repair! He turned to Rick and I, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away without saying a word! Things weren’t looking good…

  Thanks to Rick’s over-bag, I slept soundly, waking refreshed and eager to see what the day would bring. After another hearty breakfast, we resumed our ascent, cresting the ridge into a boulder field of epic proportion. Almost immediately, it was clear that we were entering into the alpine desert, devoid of plant life, except for the most resilient lichens. We were heading for the ‘Lava Tower’ for lunch, a high point of 4600 meters, before dropping back down to a mere 3900 meters to the nights camp. With glaciers hanging above our heads, we skirted the base of the cone, following a faint, dusty trail that disappeared into the distance. As we approached the Lava Tower, I felt great, no headache or nausea, so I picked up the pace, curious to see how my body would respond at this elevation. I left everyone behind, striding quickly, but mindfully, up the last steep incline. Within a minute, my heart rate had settled down to a steady, barely perceptible thumping in my belly. 15,000 feet, and No Problems! As the rest of the groups arrived, I dug into my lunch box for some tasty roasted chicken, fruit, juice, sandwiches, and biscuits, enjoying the sun, basking in the feelings of contentment and well -being. After about an hour, we set off down the loose rocky trail to our third camp, nestled amongst the lobelia flowers, Tanzania’s largest flower.

  The weather had been perfect so far, which was lucky, because I had to wait an hour and 45 minutes for my porters to show up! If it had been cold and rainy, I would have been pretty miserable. Rick’s tent was already set up when I got in, first again, but he was only a few minutes behind me. Shortly after, I watched enviously as his cook brought over tea and popcorn. I found a quiet spot out of the wind to meditate, using the time to reconnect, refresh, and come to terms with the fact that my team was really dropping the ball. The porters didn’t even go up to the Lava Tower, but took a shortcut, keeping to lower elevations, as they had less of a need to acclimatize, since none would tackle the summit. I really couldn’t fathom how they could be so slow! The Nepalese porters practically run along the trails, reaching 4000 meters in flip-flops! Eventually they showed up, setting up my crappy, broken tent, and then serving up another wonderful meal. I was still warm at night, sleeping well, and the food was great, so I was still optimistic things would work out. A few of the other trekkers came over and we chatted about travelling, trekking, and the challenge of the Barranco Wall, looming over head.

  Day four starts off with the most technical section of the entire trek. It’s about an hour of scrambling up a fairly steep rock face, occasionally requiring the use of hands to pull yourself up, hug the wall, or squeeze through a tight spot. This was my favorite section of the approach, and it was over all too quickly. After another couple of hours along a gently rolling trail, we came to our lunch stop. Some groups just continued on, but my cook prepared a massive hot lunch, so I was there for an hour and a half. I suspect that they were just trying to slow me down, so the porters could catch up! There was so much food that I almost needed a nap afterwards. The final push up to the base camp is steep and barren, with stunning views of the ravines and ridges sloping away, small towns and fields below, stretching away to the horizon. As I reached the camp at 4600 meters, I was still feeling great. I did 30 push-ups, just to see if I could in the thin air. Their plan seemed to have worked, because the porters showed up shortly after me, and I changed into some warm clothes and had some tea and popcorn, the usual, delicious, pre-dinner snack. I climbed up away from the camp, just to help with acclimatization, and sat down to meditate again. After reminding myself to be patient and aware, visualizing a successful summit, and filling my lungs to capacity with oxygen and prana, I felt so alive, confident and connected.

  My guide went over the summit approach plan with me after dinner. They would wake me at 11:30 with tea and biscuits, and we would be climbing by midnight. It usually takes 6 hours up to the crater rim, at Stella Point ( 5756 meters), and then another hour to walk along the rim to the summit at Uhuru peak. At this point, I was very specific. ‘Are you sure it will take 6 hours?’ I had been taking at least an hour less than their lowest estimated arrival times for each camp, and didn’t want to start at midnight if I didn’t need to. ‘No. No. Six hours. Pole, pole  (Slowly, slowly)’. OK then, midnight it is. The sun should be coming up as we walk along the rim, illuminating the largest expanse of horizon visible anywhere on the planet! Let’s do this!

  Wake up came abruptly, after only a few hours of restless sleep. The girl in the tent next to me had been coughing all night. I left everything except extra layers, water, camera, and headlamps in the tent, checked my trekking poles, and we were walking at 0:00 exactly. The moon was approaching full, so we made good time under moonlight alone for the first hour. The trail continued to steepen as we started picking our way through another massive boulder field. I stayed behind my guide, matching his pace, step for step. The boulders were casting long shadows at our feet, so we both turned our headlamps on. I noticed how dim his light was, and before I knew it, we were zigzagging up loose scree slopes, obviously lost, as his lamp died completely! I offered him my spare headlamp, not impressed with being lost at 5000 meters, having to expend extra energy scrambling through loose, broken rock. We found the trail, but were soon lost again, fighting for breath and for footing. His only comment was:  ‘Don’t worry. Every way is a good way. They all go up!’ Grrrr. We stopped for a water break, and I put on an extra layer under my parka, as it was getting surprisingly cold. I still felt fine; no headache or nausea, so we pushed on, pole, pole. I could see lights behind us, getting closer and closer as we continued to get lost, finding ourselves in loose gravel several  more times.  I started to get some cramps, and it became obvious that I was experiencing some loss of cognitive ability. Balance became more and more challenging, and I was glad that I had kept my trekking poles from Nepal. I kept a nice slow, steady pace, tunnel vision focused on my boots, and before I knew it, we crested the rim, and the sign for Stella Point was gleaming in the light from our headlamps. We stopped for another water break, but in the back of my mind, I was starting to wonder why we were here so early. It was only 04:00, and we didn’t have far to go. Maybe there was a hut up here, where we could stay warm, and wait for the sun to come up? Another solo trekker, Paul, from Nanaimo, and his guide were suddenly on the scene. It had been their lights I had noticed earlier. We laughed at how impaired we were feeling, and rested for a few minutes before carrying on along the snowy crater rim. I became even more thankful that I’d brought trekking poles, because the hard packed snow was uneven and slippery, dimpled with boot tracks from recent days that had re-frozen overnight. The stars were unbelievable! I’ve been out on the boat in some isolated parts of the coast, out in the desert away from city lights, but I have NEVER seen starts like that! It was nearly impossible to pick out any constellations, because there were clouds of stars. The Milky Way was a bright band of light stretching from one horizon to the other. Absolutely awestruck!

  My official summit time is 04:41 AM…Initially elated to be standing on the highest point in all of Africa, I quickly realized that there was no hut to comfortably await the warming rays of the sun. ‘Why are we here so early?!’ We just got blank stares.

 ‘I didn’t come all the way up here to take a picture of a sign in the dark! I could find that on the internet! I came up here to watch the sun come up over Africa!!!’

‘Oh, no. We can’t stay up here. The sun doesn’t come up for nearly two hours!’

‘Ha! I’m not going anywhere! The plan was to be here at 6:30! Why are we HERE?!’

  Paul and I bundled up, ducking under a ledge of rock at the summit, and waited a full two hours for the sun to come up. After about an hour, the sky started to lighten, then brighten. Eventually more and more people started to arrive. Rick and his guide showed up, obviously worried. Our guides had gone back down to Stella Point, and Rick’s guide was trying to get us to walk further, to a viewpoint over-looking the glaciers, to help warm us up. We were lucky, as the wind was still light, and although we were pretty cold, we weren’t in danger of frost bite or hypothermia. I was pretty comfortable, with my Hawaiian shirt wrapped around my face, and my legs buried under my empty backpack. I had only brought two pairs of thin work gloves, the ones with a rubberized palm and stretchy fabric on the back, so I had to keep my hands in my pockets, but by the color of the sky, I knew the heat of the sun would be arriving soon. I could barely imagine what Uhuru Peak would look like without any glaciers, but I’m glad I was able to see it in all its glory. What a gift. As the sun broke over the horizon, I got up to do some yoga, warming my body, and giving thanks. I had been focusing on the Warrior on the way up; the Strength, Determination and Awareness of the Warrior. There had been moments when the voice of the Opposer had piped up. ‘Why are you doing this? What’s the point? Do you really need to keep going?’ I gently quieted the chatter, allowing my True Self to carry me onwards, past the limitations of minor physical discomfort, towards the larger goal, fulfilment of a life-long dream, and the sense of accomplishment that would accompany it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Namaste

My soul honors your soul.

I honor the place in you where

the entire universe resides.

I honor the light, love, truth,

beauty and peace within you,

because it is also within me.

In sharing these things,

We are united, we are the same.

We are one.

  After jockeying for some photo opportunities as the sun rose higher into the pastel sky, I left as soon as possible. I literally ran down towards Stella Point, generating some body heat, and inhaling more and more oxygen with every step. The decent was brutal. After dropping down off of the crater rim, we started step-sliding down through all the loose scree we had struggled up against. Before too long, my legs were screaming, and I tried not to focus on the base camp, visible in the distance, far, far below. We were back at camp by 8:30, and I don’t think I even took my boots off, I just laid down and passed out. I slept for three hours, waking for an early lunch before packing up for the rest of the days decent. I had another four hours of walking to the last camp of the trek. We would eventually descend 2800 meters, after the 1200 meter climb to the summit. That’s right. Four kilometers of elevation change in 24 hours. Ouch. Everyone coming into camp that night wore an exhausted grimace, knees shaking, thighs burning, but each one had a contented light shining from their eyes.

  That night, my guide came and sat awkwardly in my tent.

‘So... Did they talk to you about tips in the office?’

Ah. Here we go. The tourism industry in Tanzania is an anomaly. No-where else in the world do you negotiate and settle on a price, only to have everyone involved expect a large ‘tip’ at the end. I had read that 10% of the total cost is reasonable. The guys in the office told me $5 per day for each porter, $8-10 per day for the cook, and $10-15 per day for the guide. Even at the low end, that works out to over 16%. Now the guide is telling me they want $8 per porter, and so on and so on, basically getting as much as they can, almost 30% of the original cost, as a ‘tip’. I told him I would pay them all at the gate, when we were finished the trek.

‘Oh. Well, the porters are starting another trek tomorrow, so we need to leave here by 07:00, so they have time to get to the next job.’

  I had actually paid for 7 days, but was comfortable going up in six. As it turns out, there couldn’t have been much choice, because the porters were working again on the sixth day! My sixth day, someone else’s first day…Hmm. Double dipping. Instead of reflecting on my success, enjoying the last night on the mountain, I spent the entire night trying to decide how much to ‘tip’ my team. Sure these guys work hard, but it’s a good job in Tanzania. Why should I double their wages with a ‘tip’? While not a ‘worst case scenario’, the experience had been less than flawless. Every single day, my porters were the last into camp. That means every single day my tent was up last, and I ate dinner after everyone else. The sleeping bag was a major issue, but more for the guys in the office who had sent it out. Then there was the whole no-headlamp-getting -lost scenario. I ended up paying the porters and cook in the morning, on the low side, but still a wad of Tanzanian shillings. I told the guide that I would pay him at the gate, and set off after breakfast alone, enjoying the last few hours of solitude. It didn’t take him long to catch up to me, and we started what was to be a long, drawn out, escalating conversation about tips…I tried to start off by asking how well he thought they had performed, compared to the other trekking companies. He didn’t really bite. I explained what ‘tips’ mean in Canada; how it’s a voluntary payment to reward exceptional service. Still complaining. Finally, I had to bring up the fact that he had NO Light, and that we got lost repeatedly. I didn’t need to pay someone to take me up a difficult route. I could have done that on my own. The entire trek was just following a trail, but the summit push is where the guide should be in control. And why the Hell did we get there so early?! We had a plan. Did we stick to the plan?

‘No…’

That’s right. No. When I make a mistake at work, I don’t expect to get paid extra for it.

All in all, climbing Kilimanjaro really was a dream come true. It was yet another opportunity to explore my personal limits, and gain a new perspective. It’s just a shame that this attitude of entitlement has to overshadow the accomplishment and simple joy of exploring this exceptional place.