I've a confession to make. The excruciating level of accuracy given for the previous days trekking are the direct result of me actually taking notes. I even brought a lovely little multi coloured note book and pen. I'm well aware how sad this is, but it was done for all the right reasons. What those reasons are I am unwilling to disclose at this point in time. This allows me more wriggle room when the piss take commences, but rest assured they will involve, in some capacity, blaming Ash or Conor. Or possibly both. The reason I mention this at all is because for some reason I stopped taking notes from here on. So I'm afraid that the details might be a little sketchy at best, at worst I'll just leave stuff out. Of course I wont leave any good stuff about me out, can't be certain the lads will escape though! He He He
So today was the day. D-day in a totally non historical way. Freddie had glided into our mess tent last light with a flurry of 'Hakuna Matata' (no worries). We got a brief run down of what today had in store for us, most of which I missed because my mind got stuck on the 'up early cos of 6hr walk before lunch' part. He did however end the brief with another 'Hakuna Matata'. Which made it all ok. So we did as we were told and got up nice and early and headed off on our little journey. There wasn't much slowly slowly today as we were trying to get there as soon as we could to allow more rest time before we made the last burst to the top. Of course burst is probably the least accurate description of what would happen. In many ways calling it a burst is like describing soccer as interesting or the HSE as efficient. The HSE is undoubtedly a poor example as any adjective used would need a expletive placed before it, after it and where possible over it.... Anyway, the walk itself proved to be quite enjoyable. This probably had a lot to do with that sort of giddy nervousness that invades a space when everyone is trying to give off an impression of being cool as a breeze. Needless to say the guides had no need to give off any impressions. In any case they were too busy trying to block out our attempts to sing the first two lines from every song every written. We were one song off achieving our goal when Conor jumped in with the middle two lines of 'My Way' and blew it. The highlight of the morning walk (besides our melodic tones) was walking down into the glacial valley just before our camp. Walking up the other side was possibly the low light. The valley was massive, and deep. We all had a stab at pretending we knew EXACTLY how it was formed, and to be fair anyone who was listening to us (and of course possessed not a semblance of an education) would have thought we were renowned experts. Regardless we were suitably impressed by ourselves, (a common theme throughout the trip, and possible after the trip too!!!) an admiration possibly not shared by our poor guides who at this stage had put on ear defenders and rang ahead for migraine tablets. We climbed back up the other side of the valley which took about an hour and was by far the toughest part we'd encountered so far. When we got to the camp they were still putting it up, which was a real victory for us. Not that it meant we helped out. God no, we just basked in our reflected glory against some rocks and happily watched with not even with a casual interest on our little world being created just below us. We also heard Freddie boasting about our time of 4hrs 55min to the other guides. Alas I think we had given him a very false impression of our fitness! It was darker, colder and higher when he discovered the horrible horrible truth...
The camp was set up and ready for use at around 12pm. I say around because I have no idea. I could as easily been 11am or 1pm. In fact there is even a chance that it wasn't exactly on the hour. I haven't a clue. Whenever it was, shortly afterwards they served up lunch. It was eaten, but not with the same enthusiasm that previous meals had enjoyed. After which we had a bit of a rest before we were brought on a little walk for about an hour. After a slight misunderstanding about whether we wanted to go higher (we naturally did not) we returned for our dinner. It's fair to say everyone was still in good spirits at this stage. A bit quieter, which was no harm, but still laughing. I think Freddie sensed this because he came in at the end of dinner to give us a final chat and frightened the living bejesus out of us. The chat involved all the usual stuff, be packed (we of course chose not to pay much attention to this request until 10 min before we needed to go) what time we were getting up, setting out etc etc. And then he went and ruined it all with just with one little sentence. ' IF I SAY YOU MUST GO DOWN, YOU MUST GO DOWN'. 'Hakuna Matata' my arse. All of a sudden I think the possibility of not making it rushed into our heads. It was now 6pm and time for bed. The plan of course was to get some sleep before we headed off. Something we all failed hopelessly to do. I spent my 5 hours trying to drown out the outside noise (for once not Conor snoring) using various techniques. Ipod, ear plugs, breathing exercises, chanting to name but a few. Actually that's naming all of them, including some I just made up. All of which meant that come 11pm when we got up to have a cuppa before we set off, we had already been up 17hrs. And not a pint was had!!!
So today was the day. D-day in a totally non historical way. Freddie had glided into our mess tent last light with a flurry of 'Hakuna Matata' (no worries). We got a brief run down of what today had in store for us, most of which I missed because my mind got stuck on the 'up early cos of 6hr walk before lunch' part. He did however end the brief with another 'Hakuna Matata'. Which made it all ok. So we did as we were told and got up nice and early and headed off on our little journey. There wasn't much slowly slowly today as we were trying to get there as soon as we could to allow more rest time before we made the last burst to the top. Of course burst is probably the least accurate description of what would happen. In many ways calling it a burst is like describing soccer as interesting or the HSE as efficient. The HSE is undoubtedly a poor example as any adjective used would need a expletive placed before it, after it and where possible over it.... Anyway, the walk itself proved to be quite enjoyable. This probably had a lot to do with that sort of giddy nervousness that invades a space when everyone is trying to give off an impression of being cool as a breeze. Needless to say the guides had no need to give off any impressions. In any case they were too busy trying to block out our attempts to sing the first two lines from every song every written. We were one song off achieving our goal when Conor jumped in with the middle two lines of 'My Way' and blew it. The highlight of the morning walk (besides our melodic tones) was walking down into the glacial valley just before our camp. Walking up the other side was possibly the low light. The valley was massive, and deep. We all had a stab at pretending we knew EXACTLY how it was formed, and to be fair anyone who was listening to us (and of course possessed not a semblance of an education) would have thought we were renowned experts. Regardless we were suitably impressed by ourselves, (a common theme throughout the trip, and possible after the trip too!!!) an admiration possibly not shared by our poor guides who at this stage had put on ear defenders and rang ahead for migraine tablets. We climbed back up the other side of the valley which took about an hour and was by far the toughest part we'd encountered so far. When we got to the camp they were still putting it up, which was a real victory for us. Not that it meant we helped out. God no, we just basked in our reflected glory against some rocks and happily watched with not even with a casual interest on our little world being created just below us. We also heard Freddie boasting about our time of 4hrs 55min to the other guides. Alas I think we had given him a very false impression of our fitness! It was darker, colder and higher when he discovered the horrible horrible truth...
The camp was set up and ready for use at around 12pm. I say around because I have no idea. I could as easily been 11am or 1pm. In fact there is even a chance that it wasn't exactly on the hour. I haven't a clue. Whenever it was, shortly afterwards they served up lunch. It was eaten, but not with the same enthusiasm that previous meals had enjoyed. After which we had a bit of a rest before we were brought on a little walk for about an hour. After a slight misunderstanding about whether we wanted to go higher (we naturally did not) we returned for our dinner. It's fair to say everyone was still in good spirits at this stage. A bit quieter, which was no harm, but still laughing. I think Freddie sensed this because he came in at the end of dinner to give us a final chat and frightened the living bejesus out of us. The chat involved all the usual stuff, be packed (we of course chose not to pay much attention to this request until 10 min before we needed to go) what time we were getting up, setting out etc etc. And then he went and ruined it all with just with one little sentence. ' IF I SAY YOU MUST GO DOWN, YOU MUST GO DOWN'. 'Hakuna Matata' my arse. All of a sudden I think the possibility of not making it rushed into our heads. It was now 6pm and time for bed. The plan of course was to get some sleep before we headed off. Something we all failed hopelessly to do. I spent my 5 hours trying to drown out the outside noise (for once not Conor snoring) using various techniques. Ipod, ear plugs, breathing exercises, chanting to name but a few. Actually that's naming all of them, including some I just made up. All of which meant that come 11pm when we got up to have a cuppa before we set off, we had already been up 17hrs. And not a pint was had!!!
SUMMIT TIME!!!
I was going to do this section in point form, but then decided against it. I frequently have little disagreements with myself like this one. Just thought I'd share.
We were up at 11pm for tea and biscuits. I could go through the reasons behind the lack of milk in the tea, or the fact that all the biscuits were plain. I could also explain why we all took Imodium, but I think it's best just to leave it like this. Information supplied, deal with it. After the tea we proceeded to once again drag out the packing process even though all we had to carry this time was our water and summit jacket. The whole time we were packing Freddie was outside singing christian hymns. Now I'm not sure exactly what he was trying to achieve with this, and maybe he was just reminding us that we were running a little behind schedule, but it did make me think of funeral marches which was possibly not an ideal thought process at this point in time. We eventually left at just after midnight, under the light of the full moon. And at the risk of sounding like a big raving jessie, it was an amazing sight. Well worth timing the trip to summit with a full moon. And it was definitely a good idea when my head torch gave up the ghost 2hrs in to it! Anyway we headed off in single file, Freddie leading followed by Conor, myself and then Ash. Joseph and our new guide Andrea (wearing only sneakers) were at the tail. I was going to type they took up the rear but I felt this was not the time in our story for sniggering. So at the tail they remain. We were going at a nice little pace, just one foot in front of the other, following the trail of head lamps of the people who had made packing a fine art and had headed off before us. Myself and Ash had a little debate about droplets of liquid we were seeing on the ground. I was going for blood while Ash was aiming for it being my water leaking. An opinion he mentioned quite regularly! As it happens we were both wrong, it turned out it was the Mountain Warrior Freddie demonstrating, quite effectively, how not to get headaches by not sniffing all night. 'Nuff said. I think it's fair to say that we were quite happy with this starting pace, but Freddie had a plan. His plan involved us passing out every group in front of us and to be fair it worked well for the first 2hrs. He even took steeper little short cuts to gain a few metres on people and we were indeed out in front for a good part of the climb. But, alas his plan had one major flaw. Us.
Its actually a bit difficult to describe that climb. We were feeling very good for the first 2 hours or so and had taken a break for 10 min after about an hour and a half. I can only speak for myself but I think after about 3 or 4 hrs it became a tough struggle. At the time I thought the two lads were fine, but later I discovered Conor had felt everything I was going through and Ash had also dealt with a blood nose. You start the climb thinking that when fatigue sets you can just tell yourself to push on. This is a mistake. What really happens is you tell yourself to push on, but then your brain says hold on a second old stock this is madness, I'm all for going back down. You try to shut it up, but it being the brain, it sort of has an advantage in this line of debating. To be honest I face this dilemma on a daily basis, but its tougher when it's cold!! So you just try to shut it down and plod on, and to teach you a little lesson it makes you stagger. And once you say 'ah shit i staggered' its back up and running and giving out again. I would have paid for a lobotomy at around 4am. It was also at around this time that Freddie had spotted my stumbling and INSISTED that i give my bag to a guide. I say insisted, some might have interrupted it as mildly inquiring as to whether I might like to give the guide my bag. Regardless I did. At the time it felt like a great idea, now not so much. But heh I'm soft. It should have been expected. The funny thing is at this stage there was nothing in my bag only about a litre of water. I blame the altitude!!! 4am 14th of October 2008, Puma becomes a little kitten...Of course a little later Ash slipped a bit, and he made him the same offer. I can say without fear of contradiction, this was the closest Freddie ever came to a good eye rucking!!! We stopped a bit more frequently now, which was a bit of of a ying and yang. Nice to get a break but the cold got to us quick so starting back up was a bit tough. Conor at this stage was our motivator, with little 30 min to go shouts. And coincidentally after he said it, 30min later, just in time for sunrise, we were at Stella Point on the ridge line. 6am. What a sight. Absolutely fuckin amazing. Did nothing to give us energy, neither did the red bull but it was some sight. So high above the cloud line watching the sun come up. Brilliant.
We rested here for about 15min, sipping our red bull. Wings me arse!!! Stella Point is 5752m high and Ulhuru (the tip top) is 5854m high. They are 1.2km walk along the ridge away from each other. And that morning before we set off again, it looked like just a little merry stroll. I was mistaken. I picked up my bag again and we headed off. After 100m I sat back down again shattered. I hadn't a drain of energy left in me, but to be fair I knew I'd make it, it might just involve a break every 10 steps. Similar to my Carrauntwohil climbing technique way back. I told Freddie my ingenious plan, he responded by giving my bag away again (note how I made that sound like I had nothing to do with it. I can give lessons in saving face. They're pricey though..) and letting me set the pace. I felt like I was slowly boring the lads to death, but it transpired that they were as wrecked as I was and were quite happy with the pace. Although Ash was prone to outbursts of pure energy, zipping here and there for photo ops. Myself and Conor showed our thoughts on this by breathing harder and frowning. At 7.14am we made it to the top!!! Yaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!! We poured out cups of tea, had a toast to Sullie and hung around waiting for the sign to free up so we could take a few photos. Popular spot Kilimanjaro.
15min later we were on our way back down. We went back by a different route, along the ridge to Gillmans point and then down to Kibo Huts. Don't for a minute think it was easy. We were still shattered, although I don't think we really cared at this stage. We had made the top and so were safe from an assault of piss takes when we got back. 30 years of Hamish reminding us that girls have made it to the top and we didn't was a powerful motivator!! From Gillmans down to Kibo huts the scree is so loose you can actually ski down it. Miraculously we manged this (in bursts-did I mention I was tired??) without causing us or anyone else any major physical harm. The scary thing is people actually use this route to go up as well. Cant see it myself. We passed one couple attempting it as we skied past. By the look on her face the whole couple adventure was about to end swiftly and painfully for him. We had beds waiting for us in Kibo huts where we slept for about an hour. Yes even through the snores. After a bit of lunch we were back on the road again for a nice pleasant stroll back to Horombo. We were back in Horombo for 4pm, where we washed, ate, sipped a tiny bit of whiskey, played cards and at around 7.30pm slept. We had been on the go for 34hrs by the time we arrived back in Horombo Huts, with only about 2hrs sleep and had traveled a distance of 28.5km. Not bad for 3 fat guys. Coincidentally tonight was the night I worked out how to zip up the bag properly and remained toasty all night!!!
Day 5 & 6. Horombo Huts (3741) to Barafu Camp (4681) 9km 5 hrs!
Barafu Camp (4681) to Stella Point (5752) 3.3km 6 hrs!
Stella Point (5752) to Ulhuru Point SUMMIT (5854) 1.2km 1.25 hrs!
Ulhuru Point SUMMIT (5854) to Kibo Huts (4700) 5.4km 3.5 hrs!
Kibo Huts (4700) to Horombo Huts (3741) 9.6km 3.5 hrs!
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