#Nothing is hard after this

In my #introduceyourself post, I said I’d climbed Mt Kilimanjaro in 2009 and reached the summit with a group of women during August, South Africa’s Women’s Month. Let me tell you about the final summiting experience.

That's the summit in the distance. When we saw it through the trees on the first day of our hike, we realised what a ridiculous task we'd set for ourselves. But we were en route, and there was no turning back.

Skip to Day 5, Summit Night

Fast forward, because this post is about the really hard part of summiting Kili, not just the kind of hard part getting there....

At the final point before a night summit climb on the Machame Route, you arrive at Barafu Camp (4680m/15220 ft) sometime in the afternoon after a day's climbing, and that is after 3 or 4 days previously climbing over lava fields and with increasingly lower air pressure, meaning less molecules in the air, meaning less oxygen in the air. You’re supposed to sleep from late afternoon to around 11:00 at night to get ready for the final ascent, which begins around midnight or so. Don’t catch me out on the details, as I don’t remember them other than as smudges. Pretty much nobody gets any sleep - we're all too wired. We have our tea sometime after 11:00 and assemble with the several hundred other climbers hoping to make it to the summit by the next morning.

The entire camp empties out slowly in the windless (thank goodness) air, and silently, magically, a dazzling worm of diamond Petzel head lights ascends the steep but climbable slope. The worm is silent the way the aurora borealis is silent – it seems like it shouldn’t be. There should be music. But there isn’t, only Kili silence. The music is in my head.

Photo credit

Imagine there are hundreds of those lights silently snaking down the mountainside. The photo, which I appreciate someone having the presence of mind to take, doesn't begin to capture the eerie beauty of the light serpent. It was an inspiring start.

At this altitude , there is effectively 57% of the oxygen available at sea level – good thing I live in Johannesburg, at about 1750m/6000 ft above sea level, I sez to myself. Every step up takes concentration and synchronisation with breathing, to use the little oxygen our lungs manage to scrape from the thin air most efficiently. That’s for us guests to the mountain. The amazing support team practically run up and down as we slog one foot ahead of the other. I’m thinking as I lift one leg to ascend 6 inches that I’m really glad I listened to my trainer when he said that using major muscle groups uses more oxygen than, say, lifting my pinkie finger. Each step demands the concentration of a surgeon to execute.

It’s all silent, except for our breathing and the occasional attempt at rah-rah, which we use more and more because it’s getting scarier and scarier. About that breathing – this is not regular breathing. There is no air there. You have to suck for each molecule of oxygen, and the sucking takes energy. Lots of energy. It’s an in-out energy balancing exercise. Spend to get. Invest for short term return. Manage your resources. Sometimes we need to replenish some of that energy by taking a bite of an energy bar – and that takes energy too, to take off the gloves (cold!), unzip the pocket and unwrap the bar (both actions harder than they sound with fingers that have frozen almost instantly with gloves off), then take a bite and chew. Such small capabilities we take for granted in friendlier atmospheres!

It’s a little like taking prep breaths to do a deep surface dive into the ocean, except without the reward of oxygen. And we’re perched on the side of a steep dormant volcano with the other climbers the only living creatures around. Around 4 a.m. I feel genuine fear that we could freeze up there (completely misplaced – there’s no way the guides would let any of us come to harm). My group is a little slow since a couple of our members are struggling and need to take frequent breaks. Other groups are passing us, but pole pole (kiSwahili for “slowly, slowly”), one foot in front of the other, our amazing guide and leader Rajab, he of more than 200 summits to his credit (at the time - I'll have to ask him, or he can tell you himself if I persuade him to join Steemit to tell his extraordinary stories himself), continues to prod us on to keep moving forward and upward. And to stop only for the briefest of rests to catch what little breath we can.

Rajab

On the way to Stella Point, we paused to watch the sun rise, maybe around 5 a.m. A remarkable moment, yes, and oh good, it got warmer after that, but we couldn’t stop for long to enjoy it as we were like puffins on a cliff face at that point. Not that steep, and the ledges not that narrow, perhaps, but not comfortable enough to pop out the chaise longues either. Each look upward looks like it’s getting to a terrace just a few metres above us, but it’s an illusion. Each terrace takes us to another piece of cliff to scale, one foot at a time, then another terrace, then another.

Then Stella Point. Our mental “if I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” mark, which is at 5752m/18871 ft. Oxygen count up there? 50% of that available on sea level.
From there the gradient levels out to much flatter (by then, who knows), so you’d think the maybe half a km walk to the actual summit would be a 5 minute doddle. Bwahaha! I think it took us over half an hour, all the more frustrating as one of the few species to thrive in that atmosphere, a local raven, had a number of representatives soaring around us. How could they fly, when we couldn’t even walk?!? Step, rest, breathe, step again, rest again, breathe again.

Someone ahead of us blew a vuvuzela, one of South Africa’s quirkiest exports.

How?? With what lungs exactly? But it egged us on. We plodded on, pole pole. And then, miraculously, we were at the summit, 5895m/19340 ft, 49% oxygen.

Tears of joy streamed down our faces as we laughed and hugged each other and allowed the emotions to wash over us.

And we have our certificates to remind us.

Nothing is hard after that.