Armed with our supplies, we head to Marangu gate. It’s drizzling and we rent tarps to wrap our gear in, sign in at the parks board and take group photos at the entrance. I’m glad I put everything in ziplock bags from home. If I ever write a book on backpacking, ziplock bags will be at the top of the “supplies” list. I have to be honest, I don’t really feel anything at all at this point. Not anxiety, nervousness, excitement. Nothing. I feel numb, like I’m about to go on an ordinary walk. Greg keeps saying “I don’t know why the fuck I’m doing this” and Carly and Ben just kind of chill as we mull around, waiting for the guides. I’m surprised how quickly I feel winded, but an hour or so into the climb I get into a groove. I discover that it’s the getting started that sucks.
The jungle is amazing. It’s so thick and lush and a fine mist surrounds us until I am soaked. Every time one of us stops to, ahem, “relieve” themselves in the bushes, we make note of how it goes. In fact, the status of one another’s bowel movements has been the dominating topic in 70% of all discussion. We find those that take immoduim have it go too far the other way and it becomes a pep rally when someone pipes up that that might actually have to go this time. Other times, we support each other by saying "maybe you don't really have to go again. Maybe it's a false alarm." I have been controlling the ebb and flow of my digestive tract with a combination of cipro, immodium and crossed fingers. Thus far, it’s working.
We proceed “pole pole” through the jungle for about 5 hours. I try to keep my mind busy. I name all the cheeses I know. When I let it wander, I think of the most random stuff. I think about things like the time Mom and I rented this scary movie called “An American Haunting” and the dvd was all scratched so the whole thing was a skipping mess of random images and sound bytes. I remember that we’d made popcorn and hot chocolate and had our comfy, matching pj’s on and everything. We started making up our own dialogue and storyline and before long we were laughing so hard that tears streamed down our cheeks and we’d knocked over the bowl of popcorn all over the living room rug. It was one of those memories that makes you laugh out loud and then everyone looks at you like you’re nuts. I don’t know why I started thinking about that night, while walking through the African rainforest, but I think it’s probably the best memory I have of my mother. It’s funny, the things you think about when you have nothing to think about. I smile a lot on that first day, soaking wet and flushed-faced.We finally arrive at Mandera hut, the first of the camps. I’m physically and mentally exhausted.
The porter brings us wash water and we have bread, soup and stew for dinner. I overeat, as usual, then we go to our pointy little shack that looks like something hobbits or elves would live in and crawl into freezing sleeping bags. I’m so cold and everyone keeps saying “how the hell can YOU be cold? You’re from Canada?!” I don’t know. I say that my sleeping bag is the best; it was over a hundred bucks. Greg props himself up on one arm, stares at me and says “mine only cost 12 quid! How can you be cold?!” He isn’t even wearing a shirt. He’s what they call a Geordie. He is the only person that I have ever met that can wear swimming shorts during a freezing mountain expedition and sleep shirtless in a $20 sleeping bag in a place where you can see your breath. I don’t care what anyone says, man, Geordies are FAR tougher than any Canadians I know. The guy just motors along with little to no regard for current conditions. Greg is my climate hero.
We all sleep with our cameras to keep them from freezing. The acetazolamide makes me and Greg pee every 20mins like clockwork. Greg finally says screw it and pees beside the hut. Carly and I follow suit. The one time I venture to the toilet alone, something in the darkness beyond makes this “kaa-aa” noise, which seems to echo all around me. It sounds just like the thing from “Predator” and I talk to myself the whole way. Peeing beside a shack is definitely a better deal. Besides, now I’m a 2nd degree black belt in squatting ;)
The next day we make it to Horombo. The trek is hard and we escape the damp jungle and emerge onto the desolate, rocky ledge in view of the summit. I listen to my discman this time and oh, what an invention that is! It helps me focus on the moment. Each individual step is all that there is. Bob Dylan gets me up one particularly rough patch. The wallflowers another. It’s really the entire Dylan family that’s getting me though at this point. We pass fellow climbers who are on their way down. Most of them look downright miserable. Carly and I look at each other and go “that’s not a good sign.” I try not to think about the top too much. I sure as hell don’t think about the descent.
When we get settled into our Horombo shack, the sun is setting. We’re right at cloud level now and as the sun disappears, the clouds dissipate and I can see the twinkling lights of Moshi below. It’s breathtaking and I stand there, shivering, feeling so tired and so alive at the same time. I sit on a rock and write in my journal as this huge cloud rushes the mountain and completely engulfs me in minutes. This thrills me. How many people can say they have been swallowed by a cloud?
Thursday, we make it to Kibo. This is the base camp before the summit. The trek is easy enough, but the oxygen here is about half of what it is at the base. As we approach the camp, high above the clouds, we are struck with the feeling of light-headedness. I keep my head down and my boots feel like they are made of lead. Ben has had a headache for an entire day now. I’m very thankful that I don’t have that.
The landscape is fantastic. It’s like the moon or the edge of the earth or something. It’s desolate, rocky and terracotta. I keep staring at the ice cap at the top, feeling for the first time, the twinge of uneasy inevitability that comes with looking at a mountain that you will soon have to climb. I feel like I’m waiting to write a naked calculus final. Carly and I take photos at the sign, of us staring down the mountain. We eat chocolate bars and venture to the most disgusting toilets I have ever seen. She laughs hysterically as I stagger out, gagging and coughing. I say out loud that the toilets are by far the hardest part of this journey, summit be damned! Usually, we just go in the bush, it’s a lot nicer.
We sign in and go to a communal hut. It’s freezing. Here, I put on every article of clothing that I own. It goes something like this: wool base layer, thermal undershirt, dry-fit t-shirt, fleece, shell. Bottom: Long Johns, Yoga pants, combat pants, shell. I also wear 2 liner socks and a pair of wool hikers. I curl up in my expensive sleeping bag and try to sleep. I lay there with my eyes shut for what seems like ages. There is no WAY that I’m going to sleep before the summit push. Not a chance. People come in and out of the shack. It’s still daylight.
We’re beginning the push at midnight and the time hangs over my head like a big dark cloud. In my light headedness, the room is spinning. I close my eyes and I am spinning. When I go outside to pee, I have to focus on every movement. I feel drunk. I am scared of looking drunk, so I overcompensate and move like a meticulous sloth accountant. I’m more afraid of being taken down the mountain before the push, than I am of the altitude sickness itself. When we first arrived, I saw this guy who was in really rough shape with the sickness, standing outside the outhouses. When one opened, he just stood there, looking at it like it was an excavator or a garden shed. His mouth kind of hung open, like his jaw had rusty hinges. I said “Hey man, were you waiting for the bathroom?” and he just stared at me with these vacant eyes and said “I don’t even know. I’m so out of it. You go ahead.” I go into the bathroom, thinking “wow, you’re fucked.” As I slowly stagger back to the hut, I realize that’s how I must look now. Fucked.
There is a man from Canada staying in our hut. He’s here with his eleven year old son. He has summited Uhuru 3 times before. He gives us advice like don’t eat too much if you don’t want to puke and bring lots of water. His kid is in rough shape. Headache, dizzy, classic altitude sickness. Carly tries to pep talk him and he smiles a bit, but he still looks like shit. I give his dad some Tylenol and down some myself; so far, it’s working and I’m not in any real pain yet. I lay in the dark for hours, checking my watch. I haven’t had an appetite for 2 days, that’s what altitude will do to you. I know I’m starving and thirsty, but I can’t eat or drink. I swallow a mouthful of water and feel like I’m going to puke it right back up. All my energy is focued on not vomiting. I open a power bar from home and have half a bite. That’s all my body will allow. I hate that it’s rebelling like this. I try to drink some tea, that’s a no go. My head is swimming. I’m scared. I can’t seem to organize any kind of coherent mental to-do list. My hands are shaking as I try to get new batteries into my head torch. I forget my jackknife 3 times. I put on 2 balaclavas and hot packs in my gloves and boots. When we exit the hut for the last time, I’m sweating, shaking, nauseated and terrified.
The guide says “ladies first” and the order is Carly, me, Ben and Greg. We are at the end of the larger line of climbers. We start off at a pace beyond slow. We are going to a place with 1/3 the oxygen. Step, step, stop. Repeat. I can do this. I keep my head down. Every time I see my own gloves out of the corner of my eye, I see trails. Carly’s boots look like slinkies, the way I see light lag behind them. I am hallucinating. I try to push that thought out of my mind. I am fine. Whenever I look up to see what is ahead, a hundred little dark spots rush into my eyes and expand until I put my head back down. I am terrified that I am going to pass out. Carly’s heels are all that exist for me now. I have my discman rigged up through my coat and my camera underneath. It looks like a giant tumor. It’s nat a tuma. I let my mind trace the words of the songs. Before, I had thoughts running through my head. Now I can’t think at all. I hear the words and the music has become mechanical. Dry. Rage against the machine might as well the Albanian national anthem.
In the back of my mind, I have the vague knowledge that we begin passing people. I think about asking if we should slow down, but the coordination that it takes to talk is beyond me and I keep my head down and poles forward. Every so often the guide asks if we're ok. He looks at each one of us and I always smile and say "yeah, super!" or something stupid like that. I feel like a teenager, trying to act sober in front of her parents. I can't tell if I'm being paranoid or not, but I keep thinking that he doesn't believe me. I try not to look anyone in the eye, but also not to look down too much when we stop. We don't stop very often. The one multi-minute break that we do take, I use to (oh and this is a shock, I'm sure) pee. The entire trek to the top is spent on loose lava rock. It's like walking up a really, really steep hill in sinking sand and large boulders. I find a place to get my footing and squat there. The wind is freezing. I'm dizzy. There is this one moment where I waver and tip forward and I am sure that I'm going to fall. Down the mountain. Face first. With my pants down. But I somehow regain my footing and am able to pull up my own pants. I want to drink some water, but there is no time.
The guide has to help me get my gloves on. This is something my father has invariably teased me about every single time we go skiing. I can't put on my own gloves. When I was a kid, I remember putting one glove on, spending 5 minutes getting the coat sleeve just so, over top and then having no idea how to get the second glove on. I mean, the fingers are so clunky and floppy and I could never grab my coat sleeve or get my hand all the way in. Dad would laugh this big, booming laugh every single time and say "Kelly Ann, you can't ever leave home, who is going to put on your gloves for you?" Well the answer is, strangers, Dad. Strangers will put my gloves on for me. Friends will. The Kilimanjaro guide will. Anyone but me. Standing there, on the side of Africa's tallest mountain, age 22, I realize that I am never going to be able to outfit myself for snow. Period. At one point I think I have figured it out and have both gloves on the right hands and everything and then the pole loops are too small and I can't get my hands through the poles. Damn. I also smile when I realize that Dad will no doubt, laugh and laugh and laugh at this when I tell him. He'll say "well I guess you'd better move back home, then." Maybe, Dad, maybe.The guide and porters are all calling me "mtoto" Yeah it means "child" I don't know how it got started at Mghombu, but the workers were all calling me that. It drove me nuts. Thanks to Ben (yes, Ben, I will one day pay you back for this), it has spread to Kilimanjaro. I am now the "child" who cannot put on her own gloves. It's a humble moment for this tenacious, intrepid adventurer. But alas, I push forward.
The only real clear, lucid moment that I have on the mountain comes about halfway up. We stop for a 5 second breather (any more and it's impossible to get going again) and I look down the mountain. By now we have passed so many people that behind us a long line of climbers trails down the mountain. I actually look up and it registers, how surreal and fantastic this is. On my discman, the song "We are the Waiting" by Green Day comes on and I stare at the distant dots of light that are the headtorches of the others making the journey. They look like fireflies. I smile, able to appreciate beauty on the push for the first time. Then it's time to go and I put my head down once more and it's back to Carly's boots.
Now we start passing the fallen. From the corner of my eye, I can see people sitting on the ground. I can hear vomiting. I see puddles of puke. I never look up. The one time I catch a face out of the corner of my eye, it's a girl that we talked to at Horombo. I decide it's better not to look. I make no comparisons between them and me. I don't think about aches and pains. I can't feel my toes at all. I try to think in terms of vitals. Any time my mind drifts to thoughts of my toes, which are frozen blocks of ice, I focus on my core. My heart is beating. My lungs are filling up with air. My kidneys are working extra hard to regulate my pH. My brain is still working, I can form sentences. What I don't want to think about, is the possibility of nerve damage. Frostbite. I know in the back of my mind that is a huge risk up here, with hardly any oxygen and bitter cold, cyanosis is looming. I have seen many toes amputated, due to frostbite, while working orthopedic surgery. I know how much it sucks back home. I refuse to think about what it would mean here. Heart. Brain. Lungs. Kidneys. Carly's boots. This is all I need.
Carly's gait becomes wide. This registers in my mind, but barely. I am watching her boots, when they start to lose traction. She stumbles and flails a pole and I reach out to steady her. She kind of flings herself over the rocks and I stay back, I think she might fall on me. I don't know what's going on. When we stop for water, I ask if she can get mine out of my pack because I can't solve the mystery that is my gloves in time. Then I see her face. She looks up at me with these wide eyes and her skin is this gross green colour, like when people in PG movies get seasick. She says "I'm sorry, I don't think I can do that. I'm really disoriented..." and then she stares off at the sky. She looks like a zombie at a wax museum. She later tells me that I might as well have asked her to preform open heart surgery. Now I feel unnerved. If tough as nails Carly Owens can get spacey, what the hell is going to happen to me?
We claw our way up, literally, until I can't claw anymore. My thirst has become this all consuming force and it clouds my mind until I can't function. I yell "Maji Pomzika!" and no one stops. I stop, yell again and then throw my gloves off and drop my bag. I chug the water until it gives me such bad brain freeze that I have to sit down. By now everyone has stopped and are drinking water as well. When I finally look up and the insanity spawned by my thirst has cleared, I ask how much farther. Demmy says "4 minutes." I say "oh" He might as well have said "toaster oven" I have no idea how long 4 minutes is. How long have we been climbing? It's like someone has lined my brain with kleenex. The thoughts are fuzzy and soft and insulated. We gear up and keep going. When I pull myself over that final rock, I come face to face with a sign, it says "You are now at Gilman's Point. 5681M ASML Tanzania. Welcome and Congratulations" I stare at it. Blink. Blink. I think "That's it? No shack? No sign-in book? Just a big sign on a pile of rocks?" I sit down beside it. I'm panting like a dog and feel stunned. I am at the top of Kilimanjaro. This is it. There are other climbers up here and I can't see my crew. I call for Carly, Ben and Greg and am surprised at how weak my voice sounds. I cough and hack and wheeze. Then I sit there and do a quick assessment of myself. I am okay. Everything is still working. I don't even have a headache. You're okay Kel. I don't know why, but my feet thaw out here. The entire climb I was wiggling them like crazy inside my boots. Now, sitting here at the top of a freezing mountain, not moving at all, they become burning cubes of pain. I am now distinctly aware of each toe, each blister. I smile, this is great. This means that I have circulation and they won't have to be chopped off. Here I get my second wind. It's 5:07am.I see Ben trying to warm Carly's hands. She looks really out of it still. He then walks up beside me and we get a photo with the sign. I stand up and say "So...Uhuru!?" and everyone says "yes" Excellent.
We make our way to Uhuru faster than I ever thought we could. The walk isn't as difficult as the trek to Gilman's and I feel like it will be a piece of cake. I bound over rocks, lungs burning. I can't feel my face. We see Uhuru just as the sun is coming up. As I navigate the ice cap, I stare in awe as the entire sky lights up in the most spectacular display of colours that I have ever seen. The sunlight hits my cheek and instantly thaws the entire side of my face. This jaunt to the final peak is where I become wind chapped, sunburned and swollen. Every time I smile, my lips crack. I start to feel euphoric as we near the sign. Ahead of me, Ben staggers like a homeless boozer. His feet barely hold him up and he zig-zags his way along the edge. Greg pulls him back at one point, afraid he is going to fall into the crater. I say "you Okay Ben?" and he turns to me and his face has the same green sick look to it that Carly's did. The same look of so many people we have passed. He doesn't say anything. He makes some weird noises. I say "ok then" and keep walking behind him. I know that if he falls over, I can't pick him up, but I put a hand on his backpack every so often, when he looks like he's particularly tipsy. A few minutes later he says "I'm good enough" and I smile and think "haha yeah...sure." But he makes it. We all make it.
I take the last 50 steps to the sign. I never understood why people get so emotional over things like the tops of mountains; but here, trudging along the last leg of the ice cap, I feel tears welling up in my eyes. I think "Oh my God, I did it" and below me, the blanket of clouds and the rising sun is so beautiful that I understand people's reactions. It's gratitude. I feel so honoured to be standing here, at this moment, seeing something so great that so few get the chance to see. It's beautiful. The four of us embrace in a spongy group hug. Carly and I have been blowing "snot rockets" the whole way up and the front of our coats show it, glistening down our chests in the dawn. Never tell us we don't have what it takes ;) My nose is red and chapped and burned and somewhere along the way I lose my nose ring. We smile. The guide tells us congratulations. We take some photos, but mostly we're too cold and drained to do much of anything. I fall to my knees and stare out at mt. Meru and it's crazy shadow in the clouds. As soon as I touched the sign, my strength was gone. I have no idea how I'm going to make it down the mountain. We're at the top for maybe 10 minutes. Carly's camera freezes. My fingers don't work. We head back to Gilman's.
I feel everything now. The mind over matter zen-like state that I had been able to maintain throughout the summit push has crumbled like a pile of soggy newspapers. My feet are burning, aching, raw. My knees feel like bone grinding on bone. My lungs expand and contract against a bed of nails. My thoracic cavity is lined with shrapnel and broken glass. My head is swimming. I feel like I'm caught somewhere between laughing and crying and I don't know how to get a handle on myself. When we reach Gilman's, I take out my Celtel phone (which sucks big time) and call my parents. I can't tell if they're more shocked that I made it to the top or that I'm using a cellphone on it. I can't catch my breath and I sound weak and tired and scared. They say they're proud of me and it makes me feel so good. I try to hang onto that feeling as we make our final descent, but it floats away from me like a balloon. I'm left staring down the steep face, feeling like I can't take one more step.
We begin. My knees buckle. I fall. I get up, step, step, fall. I fall hard. I land on my side and knock the wind out of myself. I land on my ass so many times that it hurts to sit. Ahead, Carly does a faceplant and can't breathe for a minute. My lips are cracking open. I can't swallow. I can't see. My legs won't support me. I know what the problem is. I am extremely dehydrated. My anxiety increases with each attempted step. My boots are way too small and my toes smash into them in painful waves. I feel like I can't get down this mountain. At one point the guide actually attempts to switch boots with me, but with my size 4's it's a no go. They end up each grabbing an arm and helping me limp down the mountain. My feet flounder under me and sweat drips down my face in dirty streaks and plops onto my jacket. For all the stumbling and sickness I avoided this morning, I am paying for it 3 fold now.
When I finally get down to Kibo, we are allowed a 2 hour nap. After that, we walk down to Horombo. It sounds impossible to me. Walking? What's walking? I mix rehydration salts and chug 1L. I still have no appetite, but I force down soup. I'm shaking so hard that I can't hold the spoon, so I drink it right from the bowl. I curl up in my sleeping bag and tremble until I'm asleep. When we get up to walk to Horombo, my body does it all while my mind watches from the sidelines going "yeah, you can handle it." I'm in a total daze now. I mechanically pack my gear and leave the hut. I still stumble. I feel a tiny bit better. As in, I can swallow now and I can see. I can't bring myself to look at my feet, so I leave them alone. Now they hurt like someone smashed them with a sledge hammer and made me walk on broken glass. One of the porters gives me a pair of cons to wear and I am so grateful. I'm now wearing long john's that stick out from under my filthy yoga pants, thermal shirt, toque over my baseball cap and cons that are 5 sizes too big. I look like the entertainment at a 6 year old's birthday, rather than someone who just summited Kilimanjaro. Then the nausea hits. I stop dead in my tracks. Carly turns around from ahead and yells "what's wrong?" I yell "gonna puke!" and she nods and keeps walking. I turn, lean on a rock and puke my guts out in some grass, careful not to get any on the shoes. Everything comes up. Not that there was much to begin with. Rehydration salts, check. Soup, check. Bite of bread I attempted earlier...where is that? Oh yep, there it is, check. And...Kelly is empty! When it's over, I am more thirsty and dehydrated than ever before.
At Horombo, news traveled that we made it and the porters all congratulate us. Apparently it's very rare for an entire group to reach the summit together. They say "you are very strong" and I think that's pretty damn cool. I stick hot packs on my feet, put socks on my hands and sleep. Ben wakes me and gives me a plate of bread to try. I sit up and take a bite. I spit it back on the plate when I realize it's moldy. We usually toast the bread so you can't taste the mold so much, but this is inedible. I sigh and eat a stale cookie from my lunch the day before. I pass out as soon as my head hits the pillow and sleep until morning.When I wake, I feel better than I have in days. I eat breakfast. I brush my teeth. I'm alive. Ben and Greg say that I was making noises in my sleep and opening and closing my eyes. Must have been one good sleep.
We head down the rest of the way. The walk kills me. My feet are so rough, I can barely stand. They offer me a ride from the parks office, but I say no. I'm doing this all the way. I don't know how, but I make it to the bottom. When we finally get to the gate at Marangu, I'm done. We sign in and here I realize how few people actually make it to Uhuru. Tons of people bowed out before they even reached Gilman's. Some only made it to Kibo. Wow. I know they say only 1 in 5 people make it to the top, but it's really something to see the actual names, ages and destinations all on a page before you. When I sit at the bench, I can't get up. We are presented with champagne with lunch to celebrate. Carly pops the top off and we toast. It's a good feeling. Carly, Greg and I buy shirts that say "Just Done It, Kili" and "Uhuru Peak 5895M" on the back. Yeah, we're that cool ;) We get certificates that say we made it, complete with registration numbers and everything!
We all stay at the YMCA that night. When I peel back my socks, my feet are a whole new genre of horror. Blisters everywhere. One heel is raw. I mean RAW. Open way beyond skin. I cringe. I am sure I will get an infection and they will have to amputate right below the greater trochanter. I just know it. Ben looks at me and cringes and says "Kelly, your feet are rotten" and I nod. They are. The shower I take that night is the best shower I have ever had in my life. The water is dribbly and there is no pressure, but it's HOT. I stand there, letting it trickle over me and feel better than I have in a week. When I come out, I'm a new girl. Well, except for my feet. They're still rotten.
Ben and I take 2 hours to pack for our safari tomorrow. We have no energy. We stare at our bags, then at our stuff, then at our beds. We wander around the room like zombies. It's like telling 2 people with full frontal lobotomies to solve an algebra equation. Finally, we do a really shitty, half assed pack job and crawl into bed. We lay there, staring at the wall. We talk about how insanely hungry we are, but how we're too tired to get food. When I fall asleep, I wake to sharp pain every time I move my feet. Even the blankets on them hurt. Carly finds out later that she has nerve damage that is possibly permanent and 3 broken toes. All in all, we are exhausted, battered, bruised, starving and haggard. In looking back at the climb now, I think that's what made it so awesome. It was hard. Damn hard. But we did it. I take photos of my feet as badges of honour. I say to Carly, "So Owens, whadda ya say the Owens-Christie expeditionary team challenge the beast that is K2 next year?" and grinning, she says "Fuck off Christie" and we both burst out laughing. Consider Kilimanjaro...conquered.
