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Roof of Africa
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Was it as awesome as you thought it would be?
Oh yeah! And then some! Worth every step. Every dollar. The mountain was extraordinary! And though this is billed as a "hike" - it is - but trust us when we say that it is definitely a mountain to be respected and a trek to be reckoned with. The first few days are deceiving but this just isn't your average walk in the park. We chose a route that is less populated, which turned out to be the truth and really enjoyed that aspect of it. The scope of Kili is hard to take in. We walked from the north side on the Kenyan border over and then up and then down the south side, which was fantastic because we got to see different parts of the mountain which actually are vastly different in vegetation and landscape.
We summited a day early on leap year day: Feb 29, 2008. Which turned out to be auspicious. The winds that had been lambasting the mountain for the past several weeks just suddenly died. Yes, it was cold and got colder the higher we went. And certainly there were the "normal" winds at the top - which are equivalent to an arctic clipper but all in all we hit this lucky window where the night was probably as warm as it could be and the winds as low as they could be. The stars were so close we felt like once we reached the rim of the crater we'd also be standing amidst the planets. The moon, though half full was strong and bright, we barely needed our headlamps to walk with. (We left our camp at about 12:20 am and climbed through the night). It was definitely a hard, long, steep, tiring climb. At the top there were rocks we had to climb around, over and at 4:00 in the morning at 18,700 feet - that's not the easiest thing we've ever done. Everything is in slow motion. I'ts like you look at your leg and say lift. Step. PUsh. Next. Breathe. And the oxygen becomes less and less. But it's exhilarting and in a twisted sort of way just incredible fun!
Once you reach the crater rim, it's almost like a cruel joke because this isn't the top. It's just a point. There is about a 2 kilometer walk further up to 19,350 feet which begins with a stroll along the inner edge of the crater which is a sketchy path of solid ice about 8 inches wide. On one side a rock wall, on the other a sheer ice ride down into the crater itself. Then after that obstacle is navigated, you trudge, and do I mean trudge. It's like everyone is 95 walking with a walker. No more ice, but at this point you are so near the top there is nothing to prevent the summit winds from slapping you silly with a cold fierce blow. Tiredness by now is pretty extreme. But then there it is. Took another 7 minutes to walk to. Which is funny because the same distance we could have sprinted to in about 45 seconds at sea level - but there we were. We arrived at 6am. In the distance the horizon had been lit up and as the stars faded the dark of night had been replaced by the beautiful glow of the first dawn. The huge glacier lit up in a rainbow of blues and oranges. It was stunning. What made it more special is that no one but Ben and I and our guide was at the summit in these moments. We had it to ourselves for almost 20 minutes.
This adventure was definitely a top 5 of our trip - and likely a top 5 of life More thumbnails ...
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