isthataleopard

Day Eight – 5th Febraury 2013
Jump Day! Or not….

After my rock and roll evening I awoke feeling more in control, a little sheepish but still pretty weak. Matt, full of energy that I would have happily bought, jumped up throw on a few more layers and checked what the g.o. was. He came back a couple of minutes later and reported that a thick fog hung over the camp and to chill out in the sleeping bag and take it easy for a little while yet. My bladder had different ideas so I threw the tent flap open and was met by a world of muted colour. My orange sea of tents had been reduced to icy, snow covered white tents, with teasers of orange sneaking through the cover. It was beautiful and daunting. The heavy fog, low dense cloud cover and strong winds were also whispering a forbidding story in my ears.

I still had some of my handy Uncle Toby’s porridge left so brought that with me to the cosy warm (relative) mess tent. I shared out my remaining packets to grateful diners and actually ate the entire bowl – maybe because there was no chewing required! It was by now no camp rumour, but blatantly clear, that there was barely any food and no water in camp. The water in the thermos was boiled snow and people were being encouraged to defrost their own snow in water bottles and put in some puri tabs for drinking water.

Under the instruction of my pilot, Phil, I had packed a very light day pack to carry in the glider and left everything else in my backpack to brought down when camp was dismantled. My day pack carried items that would assist me in flight and upon landing in the designated field and then driven home. I spent some time sorting this out and packing up bedding, feeling hopeful, particularly after hearing that the weather was much clearer at the landing site. Our two safety crew, whose decision it was to say yes safe to fly and or no unsafe, were already up at the take-off point taking observations and talking to the ground crew on conditions lower down. One main fear was that weather conditions over the rainforest would cause the gliders to sink, resulting in us going down in the forest. We all wanted to avoid that.

Finally the call came and Phil and I started trudging up the path to the take off point – which was Stellar Point. At first, on the flat ground, I kept up with Phil and his porter, but as we started to walk up that slippery slope of yesterdays cursing I fell behind. Once again, only after someone questioning my well being – the wonderful ever present Dr Aussie Matt – did I finally break down and then actually fall down, unable to draw in oxygen and finally having to use the ventolin that I’d been disdainful of when presented it eons ago back at the lodge. I sat there in the snow, wheezing and crying and feeling utterly pathetic. Luke whipped out some little plastic shelter that we all huddled in to protect us from the estimated -20 windchill factor that was trying to rip into us.

Eventually I got myself under control and struggled to the top where I was ordered to sit in the shelter while flight conditions were discussed around me. Sharing the little shelter with me was Jane, who was also feeling poorly and ordered in with me.

Before being quarantined away in our shelter I had managed to observe that the conditions looked positively putrid for flying though I really don’t know anything about flying conditions. There was a lot of milling about and discussion going on, but it wasn’t looking too positive.

Then came the moment of my heartbreak. The doctors all popped back in the shelter, looking grim, and told me that they were sending me down the mountain. They weren’t taking any argument about it and insisted that no-one was flying today. Oh there were tears, sobbing, deep, gulping tears coming straight from a broken soul. The doctors looked miserable but were adamant and in between broken hearted gulps I told them I understood their decision and had no issue with them. In an attempt to lighten my own spirit I suggested to them that those concrete pills they had been dying to hand out now be administered to me to shut me up. They wanted me to get moving pretty quickly as there were a few other people choosing to leave and they wanted us to head down as a group. In between sobs I said farewell to my now bereft pilot, I hoped that one of the camera crew or one of the guides would take my seat in Phil’s glider. Another few sobs and I said farewell to Adrian who told me then that he was worried no-one would fly off the mountain, reminded me of the achievement so far and to shut up or he’d give me something to cry about.

With that admonishment I set off down the scree slope. I think I must have stopped and looked behind me every 5 minutes for the first couple of hours of that descent, until I could see the take off point no more. I truly expected to see brightly coloured wings, gleefully flying down between the two peaks and I knew that if I had seen that I would have just sat down on that mountain and sobbed my soul dry. It took me another few hours to decide that I wanted to see that image, I wanted to see others achieve the dream that I hadn’t been fortunate enough to experience.

We all saw nothing. Nothing but a steep descent laid out before us. The first part down the scree slope leading to summit was absolutely horrid, I will honestly admit that I preferred walking up, to tripping, sliding and falling down. At the first hut, Barafu, we had been told that water and food would be waiting for us. Of course it wasn’t. At the second hut, 4 hours into the descent and no food or water there was still no food or water. Luckily one of my fellow descendees had a UV light steriliser and there was water in a nearby water tank so we filled what we could. The climb now started to get quite uncomfortable for me. I had gone to the take off point intending to either fly or head back to crater camp. My fellow descendees had gone to the take off point intending to fly or walk down the mountain, hence they carried and wore the appropriate gear. I was wearing snow boots, thermals and a mid layer of other various woollen products. I hadn’t packed a proper water bottle and had left most of my snacks in the backpack as my day pack, as mentioned previously was packed light for flying. It was also starting to get very warm. I had foreseen the warmth issue upon landing but didn’t expect to be dealing with it for too long before we were put into our buses and sent back to our lodge. The only concession I had made to warmth was to put a sarong in my day pack. Thank god I did! After about 3000m my walking attire became my black thermal leggings, my thermal singlet with sports bra underneath, white and black fluffy snow boots and a bright orange and blue scarf tied discreetly around my waist. One of my biggest regrets of the entire trip is not getting a picture of me in that getup. I know I looked ridiculous. Though it was potentially the sort of Paris Hilton wears to Paris nightclub type of ridiculous – well that was what I told myself to appease the humiliation.

Snow boots are not comfortable hiking shoes and I was expecting a little village of blisters to decorate my feet after this descent, though I was being quite particular in pushing backwards as I stepped down to try and prevent such an occurrence. I was actually quite successful and I escaped with nary a blister to whinge about.

Finally after about 5.5 hours of walking we chanced upon a hut where we signed out and then saw a big mess tent with the Wings of Kilimanjaro banner draped across it – food and water finally! By this time I was at that stage after not eating for so long that you don’t think you can actually stomach any food, but I forced some of the pasta down, the guys had a black market beer and I scored some precious water. This was the camp where many people stay the night but we were pushing on. With our campaign over, and a comfortable night’s sleep and hot shower only hours away we decided that descending would hurt us going slow or fast, so we may as well go fast and get comfortable that much earlier. Danny was one of my fellow descendees and made the observation that for someone who looked so poorly the night before and this morning I was all but running down the mountain.

This is the added humiliation of any illness related to altitude, as hours later and a couple thousand metres down you feel like a different person. It makes you wonder if you were being a drama queen or a big sook or both! I know that I was genuinely unwell and that for me to stay I would have drained the medical resources that were needed to provide other people with support and that without food and water my condition would have become quickly worse. However the rapid change in conditions does send your mind reeling and it can be hard to ascertain what was real.

We found out at this camp that the porters were putting a blockade on any food and water being delivered to us. They were protesting about the misinformation and conditions that they were suffering. I can certainly sympathise with their plight and think that the tour company we climbed under managed the whole situation extremely poorly, but they were out of their league with such a large group, as indeed just about any other company would have been, as it is highly unusual – in fact record breaking! To have a group of our size climb. Having said that the porters tactics were extremely dangerous and if they had an industrial relations problem it should have been dealt with after their contracted job had been finished – unless they were in danger themselves. I can hear you saying ‘ah but this is Africa’ and things are dealt with differently. I thought so too but there were many local Africans who suggested to me that the porters should have waited until after our descent. Regardless we walked on feeling extremely concerned about the well being of those left in camp and for the first I realised that leaving the summit was probably the best thing for me.

There is not much more to say about that walk but after about 9 hours of descending we finally came out at the gate, having left our knees somewhere higher up the hill and effectively torn our quad and glute muscles to shreds. There were some pretty impressive blisters getting paraded around also. Thankfully and truthfully a little surprisingly a bus was waiting for us ready to take us to our showers and beds.
I took Danny’s advice and followed him to his cousins accommodation and promptly fell in love with the peaceful surroundings Tim and his family have created over the years. It was exactly the right place to come and recuperate after our adventure.
To provide a quick summary, yes I am so glad I went through this experience.
- I learnt humility in trying to raise cash for charities that I felt were going to have a long term benefit from our input.
- I learnt about loneliness in large groups and how to move outside your comfort zone to dispel that loneliness
- I learnt about my limits and my responses to them
- I learnt even more about my personal support network and how caring they are. My life would be a diminished place without these people
- I learnt about camaraderie
- And I learnt about inspiration and passion and how one man with those qualities can make a huge impact on people’s lives.

It was tough, uncomfortable, exhausting and sometimes just unpleasant. I’m not in a hurry to make the climb again but I concede that there are benefits to putting yourself through such discomfort and the rewards outweigh the negatives.

Postscript: For those of you who haven’t seen the 60 minutes footage the next day a powerful helicopter went to the summit (not many helicopters can go to that altitude) and did a drop of water and chocolate bars. But they still couldn’t fly and more people descended. The next day the weather was horrendous again and still the expedition couldn’t fly. Everyone now had to descend without reaching their goal.
Except one man…. I don’t know the full story but there was a unique individual amongst us, a Nepalese pilot called Babu. He ran ahead of us like a mountain goat and seemed as light and full of energy at 6000m as the rest of do at sea level. He is quiet, unassuming and the epitome of intrepid. He decided he wanted to fly off so he had a chat to his porter who agreed to stay with him. He assessed the weather conditions on his own and after everyone else had left he made the leap off the mountain, unaided by ground support or radioed weather updates. He strapped his porter into his tandem paraglider and sailed off the side of Kilimanjaro, landing safely in a field at the bottom. Hats off to Babu.

Final postscript: Thanks to Danny for many of the photos used in this blog – particlualry all the summit photos!

Day Seven: 4th February 2013
Drama and Protest
Along the hike we had all been quietly giggling that it seemed most of the porters had no idea what we were planning on doing once we reached the summit. I guess from their perspective it didn’t really matter, they had just pitched up to the gate after hearing that there was a really huge group going up and they needed heaps of porters. Unfortunately that lack of communication and information suddenly turned into a major problem on summit day. Most groups summiting Kili do not camp at the summit like we were planning to and while conditions at Kosovo weren’t great, bitterly cold, windy and very high altitude, it was almost a picnic compared to the conditions at the summit. The porters were simply not equipped with adequate clothing and bedding to camp at the summit.

On summit day they were expecting to turn around and head back down the mountain, or at the very least wait for us to return. When they were told that they also had to go and stay at the summit, well they were mutinous. Some guides and porters chose to continue up with us, but many others packed their small bags and left, walking down the hill without a backward glance.

We could tell there was something happening but didn’t know exactly what was going on, we weren’t sure whether we should stay or start climbing. All the while the wind is raging around us, so strong that the mess tent, right next to us, actually picked up high into the air and flew off the side off the mountain! It was surreal, amongst the drama and uneasiness, to watch this bright orange igloo shaped mess tent fly over the edge of the mountain, I can still see it now. I can also hear Gavin say ‘at least something got to fly off the mountain!’ as by this point, the pilots were all starting to get edgy about the flight with this powerful wind constantly biting at us and taking bigger chunks of our hope away with it.

Still unsure with what was going on we were all finally given the order to march, it was obvious that many, many porters were not coming with us and there was a sense of foreboding about the night ahead. It was at that moment that you realised how incapable and dependant you really were.

However thoughts about those issues were quickly replaced as we began the super steep, slippery, shuffle up the scree slope that leads to Stellar point. We had been requested to move slightly faster that our groups normal pace to try and make it to the summit by a particular time for a team photo. Consequently we tried to set off amongst the first so that we could achieve both our objectives, maintain our slow pace, but not hold up the team photo.

It was tough. Super tough. For the first time I saw some of the mess that people talk about, obviously as most people are walking in the dark, they drop hand warmers, use and leave toilet paper (and associated product) alongside the path. It’s truly barren, so as a female walking in the daylight but needing badly to wee it can be quite a hike to find somewhere where you are not going to scare people coming up the path. This lead to my eventual downfall.

It seems inconsequential but it would take me so long to walk to where I needed to wee and then do my business and then walk back that I was exhausted by the time this was task was complete. However during my personal time my group has had time to have a rest and a bite to eat and now are starting to get extremely cold so we start walking again as soon as I get back. I soon realised that I wasn’t eating because of this so made the absolute rookie mistake of trying to eat (my last piece of licorice!) and walk at the same time. FAIL. After that little experiment I ended up in tears unable to breathe – and the crying didn’t help the breathing issue all that much. It was funny what triggered the tears. I had been walking along feeling terrible and struggling to breath when one of the really lovely guys, Colin, called out to me ‘Pennie, are you doing OK’. It seemed that my mind grabbed this question with both hands to use as an excuse and allow it to shut down for a couple of minutes.

I got myself under control and humiliatingly Joshua, our guide, insisted on carrying my day pack as well as his own. We set off again after I had something to eat and drink and a little rest and we resumed our kobe pace. It didn’t take long to end up at the back of ant trail again, but we were all feeling pretty weary by now. The tail end Charlie today was UK Matt and he administered me with a quick tablet of steroids to help with the breathing and we pressed on.

The summit started taking on the characteristic of the rainbow you chase as a child, the closer you got to it, it would just slip a little further away. Only to then realise that it wasn’t even the summit that was slipping away! It was stellar point, which while very high and quite an achievement is not Uhuru Peak and the summit of Kilimanjaro. Our guide and a couple of others said that the peak wasn’t very far from stellar point and essentially flat to reach it. LIARS! Or perhaps it was all a matter of perspective…

Regardless Stellar Point finally complied and stayed in one place so that we could finally reach it. Gosh it felt like a victory! Surrounded by ice and snow everywhere we looked, the curve of the earth bending around us and Uhuru Peak visible and attainable. As we got out of the whipping wind we saw that everyone who had made it ahead of us were sheltering , huddled in the rocks waiting for Adrian and Paula so that they could set off for the summit and our victorious team photo. It was now quite late in the day and it was going to take awhile to walk to the summit and then we would have to walk all the way back down to camp, another two hours of walking at least. Just as I reached the group, an unfortunate soul came up to where I hadn’t even been able to sit down yet for a break and start urging insistently that we all start climbing to the peak. I didn’t respond to this with good grace or humour and the poor chap was essentially told to bugger off. I wish I could remember who it was to apologise to and use altitude as the cover all patsy for any wrong doing above 3800m.

After a very short break I did end up taking the advice of my poor adversary and set off for the Peak. By this time I was finding out what my body could do when I thought it was past exhaustion. It turned out that it could still push on, but not very gracefully. By the time I was halfway to the peak, I was cursing all the liars who told me it was a short, flat walk, I was actually just dragging my walking poles along behind me and while I was aware of the spectacular beauty I was surrounded by I didn’t have the strength to turn my head to look at it, but consoled myself that I would be looking directly at it on my return hike. I also remember being absolutely bewildered by other peoples energy as I looked at one soul who was merrily skipping around and exploring the glaciers while waiting for the group to catch up.

And now, at long last, I find myself staring at a bright green sign that states ‘Congratulations – you have reached Uhuru Peak, 5895m and Africa’s highest point’ It was a very emotional moment. The exhaustion, the altitude, the success combined with angst for our next goal, the camaraderie and perseverance, and the amazing achievement of the whole expedition.

Unfortunately there was no team photo taken, but there were many photos taken, Australia groups, Team Kobe, individual photos and one guy, Alex, who had a nude shot – I know because I was part of his wind break, at the rather unfortunate viewing end. Danny had the presence of mind to bring a photo of his wife and I was deeply regretting not being able to demonstrate the sentimentality of the moment with those that had supported me, but particularly for Simon who I wished more than anything was by my side during this achievement.

Finally the hole in my teeth couldn’t stand the wind chill factor being blown through my mouth every time I smiled for a photo so I started to make my way back down. Just as I was leaving the summit, the 60 mins guys, Ali, Andy, Chick and Nick made it up there and it was hugs all round, they had done an amazing job to reach the summit fit and well while working hard the whole way up and certainly with no special privileges shown and carrying more gear than the rest of us. Just after them the conquering heroes arrived. Adrian and Paula were mobbed as they tried to approach the summit and although Ads had been there before I could see it was still an amazing moment for him, looking around at where his passion and drive had brought us too and being able to share in the victories of nearly 100 people who he had personally inspired to make the climb. We asked Ads on the way up if he would ever contemplate this sort of thing again and he said ‘yeah, maybe the next time I get a rush of shit to the brain’. Hopefully the joy and emotion on everyone’s face showed him that the sacrifice had been worth it to us at least.

For all you weary readers the day is not over yet, hopefully my talk of tiredness is not affecting your reading stamina… please carry on!

I began the long descent into camp, halfway there you had to descend (which was nice for a change!) a walking path covered in ice and snow. It was slippery. It was a challenge I didn’t need at nearly 6000m after approximately 9 hours of walking. However it had to be overcome to get to camp, so I cursed, and slipped and grumbled my way through it. I was still mulling over how I could demonstrate to Simon that my thoughts were firmly with him when my eyes rested on the soft snow. I wrote out, with my walking poles, a brief but sappy, “I love you Si’ but couldn’t take a photo as my camera had died. I then had to part with more of my ever dwindling energy supply and write next to it ‘Danny/Gavin please take a photo for me’. Danny caught up with me about 10 minutes and of course hadn’t seen my message! So I trudged into the snow again and used my walking poles to write up a messy message and Danny captured the moment for me.

My reserves of energy were now essentially used up. As I got to camp I began calling out to my wonderful girls Kasey and Karla to find our tent. Many people were doubling up for tonight to increase the warmth factor in the tents. The girls and I were planning of tripling up and it was certainly pretty cosy in that tent. I found my pack, got myself into the tent and promptly started shaking. The doctors, with their endless stamina, were dropping by into everyone’s tent just to see how people were faring. Aussie Matt poked his head into ours and got a bit of shock to see three girls huddled together. After heartily approving the situation he was then informed that I was pretty cold and he went to rummage me up a survival blanket to lay under my thermorest to stop the cold seeping through into me. Unfortunately the cold had already claimed squatters rights over my bones and was there to stay.

The call went around camp that some food and drink was now available in the one remaining mess tent. The girls encouraged me to get up and in there for some sustenance and Karla wrapped me in her deliciously warm down sleeping bag. However, the walk to the tent was the end of the road for me and upon reaching the tent I crumpled.

People were looking at me with concern and putting me on a chair and asking questions. All I could do in response was stare at them. I knew that I should be answering the questions but my brain just wasn’t firing so I continued to stare and then crumpled some more. The doctors and AJ (Perth doctor and extraordinary woman combined!) were quickly on hand and insisted on putting vast quantities of hot (luke warm) chocolate down my throat. I was taken to Aussie Matts tent for a bit of an assessment by UK Matt and Luke. This involved ribald comments, shared body warmth and really nasty lollies to try and help my shivering and exhaustion – surprisingly all still carried out in an extremely professional manner.

I wasn’t noticeably improving so it was suggested that I remain in Aussie Matts tent for the night, for warmth and observation. This was fine with me, his thermorest looked cushy and warm, his sleeping bag looked positively tropical and his company was wonderful. Thankfully mountaineers have dispensed with the old theory of having to get naked in order to warm up (Simon breathes a sigh of relief) so thermals and a shared sleeping bag were my treatment plan. Dinner was brought to our tent flap and we were also delivered some precious warm water in a thermos – a rare commodity, but I’ll talk more about that later. Matt propped me up in front of him and ordered me to eat, but if you can imagine not even having the energy to chew your food then you’re close to feeling my fatigue. Poor Matt then spent a sleepless night as we tried to get comfortable in a bag designed for one, next to a constantly shaking girl. My shakes were uncontrollable and quite exhausting. It wasn’t until 2am that we realised I wasn’t in fact cold, but still shaking. Matt pulled out the malaria testing kit wondering if perhaps a malaria fever had snuck up on me. After testing me twice the result was a negative – but on the plus side it relieved Matt of having to squeeze in with me and he relinquished his sleeping bag and thermorest and took a few hours sleep in my gear. I continued to shake and carry on but also managed a couple of hours rest before the camp started awakening to jump day!

It was an interesting night and one that I have thought back on repeatedly since descending. I truly feel that if there had been nobody offering me support and care, then I would have found some extra reserves and pulled myself through. However, feeling more exhausted and colder than I had been in my life, I lowered my survival barriers when it was apparent that there were other people who were going to take care of those needs for me. I am ashamed that my psyche took this path of least resistance as in doing so I impacted on the energy reserves of other people who were themselves cold and weary. I concede that I was unwell, with an unknown affliction, however it is highly possibly it was just a form of exhaustion brought upon by not consuming enough food and taking breaks in the summit ascent. If so then more shame rests on my shoulders as they were factors I had control over but mismanaged. Sharing a nights warmth with a person is a bonding moment, at least for the weakened party, and I will forever feel a debt of thankfulness and appreciation to Matt for the selfless help he provided, all in good humour and great spirits. On a positive note I learnt much about my limitations and responses to those, physically and mentally, and one can only develop a stronger sense of self after these challenges.

Day Six: 3rd February 2013
3900 – 4950m
Time to get serious…

So today is pre-summit day. We have a long climb to get where we are going, but that’s fine we are going to do it at Team Kobe pace. Today, despite leaving amongst the first people we are quickly displaced by nearly everyone and end up at the back of the pack – so far back that the doctor on tail end Charlie duty, Matt Knox today, gets the privilege of not only listening to our smut and carry on, but of reaching his destination in record breaking slow time as we shuffle ever upwards.

In fact we are moving so slowly we force the doctors to abandon their routine of having one doctor in the middle of the pack and two doctors at the rear providing sweep. Taking one look at our rude good health they quickly decide that two doctors will not be needed here and the other one hurries forward to be at the rear of the actual pack of climbers, instead of being with the reverse breakaway group we have become. Reading this I realise it all sounds very exclusive, but we noisily encourage others to join and see the team kobe light and at dinner time we are (never last) spread out and around socialising with all the other interesting people on the trail who happen to walk faster than the slow shuffle of an elderly person with two broken hips.

At one point a porter walks past who is part of the kitchen team, he is carrying a massive wooden spoon with which they mix the soups and stews. Of course given our history of coming into camp last we feel we rightly deserve to carry the wooden spoon and claim our title as Wings of Kilimanjaro ‘wooden spooners’ . The porter fends us off and protects his burden and races forward away from our group, and we can’t be bothered trying to stop him.

I haven’t mentioned food yet and those of you who know me, even partially, will be wondering how I am coping with food on the trek. To start with I brought a lot of my own food as snacks – I brought a variety, however the stand out winners were my Darryl Lea licorice, Uncle Toby’s instant oats (brown sugar/cinnamon/golden syrup flavour combo), and Salt and vinegar delites. The licorice proved to be a huge win as it provided a strong taste, was meaty to chew on and had a good restorative combination of sugar and salt. The oats meant I could get something easily in my system at anytime provided I had hot water, always available at meals, and meant I didn’t have to eat the other options if weariness or illness meant I couldn’t stomach them. The Salt and vinegar delites retrospectively would have been the best of all snacks, again restorative salts, strong taste and decently crunchy however in my concern over weight limits I only packed in one box and pretty much nailed the lot on day one.

Meal times were much anticipated. As most of us were good health we didn’t suffer from any lack of appetite, much to the caterers despair. Plus we had the doctors breathing down our backs telling us to eat, eat and eat some more. The morning brought watery porridge, cold toast and an odd assortment of cold eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers and some other random things I couldn’t identify. Thankfully hot water and milo were always on hand and with my specially packed thermos I was able to enjoy sharing a nice hot chocolate at points along our walk.

Lunch seemed to be forgotten about most days, though we were sometimes handed a little lunch of muffin, biscuit, juice and sometimes peanut butter sandwich on stale bread. There was one delicious (according to me) lunch that seemed to have the group divided in opinion – I think it was day four or five and they served us a lovely broth which included plantains (similar to banana). Some were horrified and some loved it – my guess is the horrified people are of that evil breed that don’t like pineapple on their pizza.

Dinner was a three course affair every night (except once we reached the summit). It always began with an unidentified soup which was always hot and yummy, moved onto the main and then some sort of fruit for desert. The mains could be eclectic – one meal comprised of a spagetthi Bolognese, which got me excited, until I realised they had used fish in their Bolognese. One dinner some style of hot chips was served up, and for all their mushiness were really quite tasty.
Basically it was all quite palatable and kept the scurvy and altitude illness at bay while we walked up the hill. We didn’t know how good we had it until summit day, when everything got turned upside down…..

Our walk plan had been very different to that of many people who climb the mountain, we took longer, camped in some different areas and were going to approach the summit during the day rather than night. Tonight we were to camp at a place called ‘Kosovo’, which was slightly higher up than the normal pre-summit camp of Barafu. We started to encounter our first return summiters on this walk – people who had gotten up around midnight and made the trek from Barafu camp to the summit and were then trekking straight back down to Barafu that day. They looked…well, like hell really.

We all nodded sagely, and quietly, cockily said to ourselves, ‘went up to fast’, or ‘not quite fit enough’ but I know we were all inwardly shaking at what tomorrow held for us and how our own bodies would hold up to the challenge.

As it was the climb on this day was pretty tough, through a moonscape of rocks at a steep incline for over 6 hours, it was physically pretty tough. It was stunning and exhilarating walking alongside and then finally looking over Mowensi Peak, Kili’s second peak. This valley between the two peaks is the area in which we are to fly through after jumping from Stellar Point. The pilots were all keenly observing the weather between the peaks and some concerns were being voiced over the irregularity of wind patterns (I think that’s what they were concerned about anyway…).

When we got to camp Kosovo there was barely energy left to get to dinner, let alone give myself a baby wipe bath. However I knew that over the next couple of days I would barely have the energy to breath and wouldn’t be up to changing my outfit between the extreme cold and lethargy, so a bath it was. I put on layer and layer of thermals knowing that my skin wouldn’t see the light of day for some time.

By now I was sleeping in two pairs of thermal leggings and my ski pants, two thermal tops, two mid layer tops, two neck warmers – one to stay around my neck and the other to be pulled up around my ears and back of my head, my beanie and don’t forget the thin undersocks, plus the thick over socks, plus the down booties borrowed from the wonderful Karla. With all this on I barely fit inside my ridiculously inadequate and small sized sleeping bag. However it is necessary if I want to last through the cold nights and get some good rest.

Tonight the camp is rocked by massive winds, before we get to bed two of the toilet tents blow over and are only just stopped from being the first of the party to fly off the mountain. Thankfully no-one is inside at the time, though the comedic value would have been high. I notice the toilet tents because I was on my way to the toilet at the time, so I find myself inside hovering over the port-a-potty and holding onto the sides of the tent for dear life. It’s exhausting!
I don’t spend a lot of time asleep tonight, I’m too busy listening to that howling wind crash into mountain around us, looking at my watch and thinking of the poor summiters who are even now in this weather making their climb towards the summit and feeling intermittently feeling nervous about the climb and shivering inside my tent. If I knew what was coming I probably would have slept even less!

Day Five: 2nd February 2013
3900 – 4200 – 3900
Can I say Chaos again??

As I stand looking up at numerous hundreds of porters all trying to proceed up a very steep goats track in the rocky cliff, and getting stuck in traffic so trying to find alternative ways up a cliff – of course with no harness and approx. 20kgs on their head, my thought was today is the day someone gets hurt.

As usual we broke camp at much the same time and left together, porters, guides and walkers all heading to the next destination. This meant that all 800 of us hit the narrow goats track at much the same time and the resulting chaos was truly African! All you could do was stand there, laugh and come up with an alternative way through otherwise you’d be there all day.

I was merrily climbing some rocks to get around some congestion when I heard a loud call above me of ‘ROCK!’ One of the guys climbing ahead had dislodged a large rock and it was heading towards me. I helpfully stared at it for some time before realising that I was going to have make a call on whether to move or stay put depending on the rock’s trajectory. Luckily for me my delayed synapses had stayed put, not through clever calculation of rock speed, distance to cover and angle of fall but more from ‘deer in the headlight’ syndrome and the rock cruised past my right shoulder with no-one touched.

Miraculously, after 75 minutes (over 1km), we all made it through the cliffs alive and unhurt and continued our kobe pace as we headed ever upwards. It was interesting walking with this band of pilots who of course were all interested in the weather patterns. As one of our, now expanded (others had seen the kobe light!), team is a weatherman he was loving watching the formation of the clouds from above. Watching these small puffs of white clouds early in the day slowly grow heavier and higher as the day went on and drift over the top of us and gently recede like a tide washing in. I also learnt some fun new terms like ‘venturi’ and ‘rotor’ all of which were apparently important considerations when jumping from the top of a mountain attached to strings and cloth.

People frequently talk about the amazing porters on these trips and you listen dutifully and nod your head and say yes aren’t they amazing. However when you are walking along slowly, struggling for breath and with a slight headache, using your hands to scramble over rocks and feeling your tummy rumble with hunger and a porter saunters by whistling or singing, carrying your14kg backpack and his 7kg backpack, calling out motivation to everyone and eagerly accepting the small snack you’ve offered because porter rations are not as glutinous as walker rations, you stop and have a moment of quiet reflection. They are the single most motivating factor up there and what can really affect you is when you start to see the porters falter and you think oh my god if they are not coping how can I possibly be coping, but of course I am well fed, well clothed, well hydrated and have consumed more drugs than at any other point in my life (with the possible exception of pre and post back surgery). Those of you reading this who have climbed will understand, those of you who have had the sense to stay below a couple of thousand metres, perhaps this helps paint the picture of the wonders that are the porters/sherpas.

Before I left for Kilimanjaro I was warned by numerous people that the litter situation was epidemic. Something that always confused me, for surely the people so inclined to be part of natures majesty that they are climbing a bloody high mountain, would be respectful of its aesthetic appeal and long term environmental sustainability. So it was with trepidation that I started the climb expecting to be horrified – and when you’ve spent years following workers around and preaching the benefits of waste management you become wired to notice the smallest bit of litter. So, you can picture my joyful bounce when I realised by Day Five that I had barely seen any significant litter throughout the entire trip. There had been a bread crumb like trail of one particular lolly wrapper I had been collecting since day one – I hope they hadn’t been expecting to find their way home with it –but I never did come across the person eating that lolly. There has been a push in recent times to keep litter off the mountain and they have been doing a relatively good job.

On our way to camp today we were going at our usual super slow pace and we realised that meant we were seeing more of the landscape than many other people who were trundling through at a faster rate. For instance there was one particular rock formation today that was a reasonably anatomically correct version of a womens anatomy. The fella’s I was walking with thought that this was wonderful, there is no such thing as a grown up is there? And we all fell about laughing as the descriptions became cruder and cruder. Our poor guide didn’t know what we were on about until Danny, fluent in Swahili, gave Josh an outline of what was capturing our attention, then we all fell about laughing again when we saw his expression and excited chatter to the other porters nearby (not that there were many, we really were tail end charlie’s by this point..). There was also a good outline a tortoise not long after this, which we all felt to be a positive prophetic vision. Slowly slowly wins the race in many forms.
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There were some amazing views across to Mt Meru today, with it’s peak just sneaking over the top of the cloud. Depressingly it still seemed higher than we were and we knew time was running out so there had to be a lot of altitude to be covered in not many days.

As we were eating dinner tonight someone pointed out that the cloud at the base of the mountain had lifted and you could see the lights all the way to Moshi and Arusha, someone else joked it looked so close you could just order a pizza and have it there in 30 mins.

Happily I finally figured out that for my phone to get reception I had to be a little more assertive and instead of expecting it to know that I wanted it to pick up signal, go into the settings and tell it where to pick up signal from. My industriousness paid off and I was rewarded with four text messages from Simon! Happy, happy days, it was such a wonder and comfort to receive contact from loved ones off the mountain and gave you proof that someone out there was thinking of you! Although I knew I had a strong support crew on the ground and they were all sending ‘get to the top (and bottom!) safely’ wishes every day. The only downside was that my phone stubbornly refused to call or message outwards so Danny was called in again to help me send a text out from his phone.

Day Four: 1st February 2013
3800 – 4900 – 3900m
Team Kobe is formed!!

Last night I was warm and sedated! What a difference a good nights sleep makes! Western medicine is going to get me up this mountain – hats off to the explorers from the 1800’s who did it without the pharmaceutical sponsorship I am thankful for today!

It was a great day today, huge but gratifying. I set out this morning with Danny, a Tanzanian pilot who runs a camp out in the bush, Gavin, an aussie weather guru, Greg one of the American contingent and Colin part of the British link. We were guided by Joshua, my adopted guide from the day before who sets a lovely slow pace. We worked well as group, we all felt good but were keen to stay that way and decided that moving super slowly was going to assist us in maintaining our well-being.

For those feeling well today there was the option of a big climb up to Arrow Glacier, it was advised that if you felt able it was going to assist in your acclimatisation. Coming up to Lava Tower and I’d been setting a pretty slow pace but the guys advised me they were happy with it. They had spent the day before with people who wanted to walk much faster and it just didn’t gel. Everybody needs to be at their own pace on this sort of hike, so better that the faster ones head on and the slowbees stay back.

Once we got to the place called Lava Tower – oddly because it was just that, a huge tower leftover from active volcano days – people could choose whether to continue up for a few hours to Arrow Glacier or head straight down into camp. There were a couple more people who went down today with the bacterial illness being tossed about. My poor pilot was suffering by the time we got to the Lava Tower. He was quite ill and looked poorly so choose to go onto the camp instead of the 4 hour diversion up to the glacier. The Aussie doctor Matt was also suffering badly however he was given no choice and had to climb to the glacier with the rest of us, I really felt for him but he always had a smile on his face and was still helping others.

There were people climbing the Lava Tower and I can only assume that their geological knowledge was not too strong, as the type of rock they were standing on the edge off 50 metres was pretty brittle and known to break off easily. I stayed firmly attached to the path, deciding that my risk taking dance card was full for the week.

We all did well on the climb up – moving at tortoise pace, hence the christening of our team name ‘Team Kobe’ Kobe being Swahili for tortoise.
The pace Joshua set was almost one step pause, one, two steps pause, one step pause, we didn’t puff at all – unusual at that altitiude – and we were passed by everyone but we were in high spirits and felt great. The 60 minutes crew did quite a bit of filming up there and it was hilarious to watch the porters who didn’t realise what was going on walk back and forth through the filming with toilet buckets to be emptied!

While the walk up was great, what didn’t feel so good was the walk from Arrow glacier to camp. It was steep, long, downhill and demoralising after having gone so far up. Danny and I both had a sense of humour failure on the way down, however as we got closer to the camp the views became quite spectacular. It was like walking into an ancient world, surrounded by these giant selasia plants, with massive ravines and waterfalls running alongside us. Having said that the glorious ancient world looked so much better once we sighted our sea of orange tents! It had been a long and exhausting day, and it is easy to forget what you are in the middle of when you are weary so I tried to take some time out and enjoy the surrounding view. That is after I had my dummy spit not being able to find an empty tent given we got in so late. To be exhausted and then have to kneel on the ground at every tent you came to see if there were bags in there pushed certain snappy buttons. I’d done this 15 times before being rescued by Danny who had found a couple of empty tents.

After freshening up and downloading my good humour software I went into the mess and played UNO with a couple of the guys who were waiting for dinner. I decided that UNO was the perfect mountain climbing game, not complex for your altitude muddled mind – match the colour, match the number and voila! It was funny though, there was so much chaos at dinner time and it could be hard to find a seat in the mess tent. So often you got there early and staked your claim – however the dilemma began when you realised you had gotten there in the daylight, but now it was approaching night and you had left your head torch in your tent. Do you relinquish your prized dinner position so that you didn’t trip and fall of the mountain on the way to bed, or do you go and get your torch and see what you can find when you come back? Yep that’s right food is much more important – you stay and then try and jag a lift with a head torch bearing colleague after dinner!

We could see where the climb was taking us the next day and it looked hectically steep so I opted for an early nights sleep again. Although quick mention must be made of the night sky. Tonight was one of the clearest nights we had, and being so high with no cloud, no dust or light pollution, created a night sky that was just… well, touchable, is what it felt like. I don’t think I’ll be privileged to see a sky like that again and the dancing stars will stay in my memory for all my years.

Day 3: 31st January 2013
3800m – 3900
Struggle city….
With many, many people in a tiny tiny area, there is one thing bound to get passed around quicker than gossip…. Bacteria.

Day three was my day for it. In hindsight I was blessed as just about everyone contracted some sort of bacterial bug along the way but mine came through on the shortest and easiest of all the days. Some people went down quite hard with it, weak and ill with really bad diarrhaea, one girl, poor Sydney, actually needed a drip. Mine was more annoying than anything else and coupled with another night of poor sleep I had a day of feeling pretty average. The doctors gave me hydralite and cipro (antibiotic) and some immodium and I was good to get on with the next day. The docs also did the rounds of the mess tents warning people that nasty germs were on the prowl for unsuspecting victims, they even gave us a lesson in proper doctor handwashing – who knew I’ve been doing it wrong all these years!

As often is the way when you’re ill your mood flags. My phone hadn’t been working so I wasn’t able to get a message out to or in from Simon and was feeling a little alone and sorry for yourself. I was already starting to get very worried about how my gear would cope with the cold as it just didn’t seem to be cutting the mustard.

On the up side as we got to camp quite early and the sun was shining, I was able to get undressed and warm in my tent while I had my baby wipe bath. It was bliss and allowed me a bit of time to have a snooze also.

Some people were feeling very energetic and as this camp was surrounded by some large hills, a few people took the opportunity to unroll their gliders and go for a test run which was fun to watch. There was a lot of skill amongst the pilots in this group. There was another group of people along who are making a movie of the entire production and are using a helicopter drone to get some aerial shots – this caused the porters heads to crank upwards! It’s pretty fun technology and hard not to look at, but they specifically didn’t want us looking at the drone as it would ruin the ‘natural’ aerial view they were after.

Into bed early to nurse the upset body and get ready for the coming huge day. There was a quick self-lecture in staying positive despite feeling poorly and I actually slept pretty well that night.

ay 2: 30th January 2013
3000m-3800m
Settling in…
As expected my nights sleep was disturbed, due to the cold, but unexpectedly also from funky dreams. Curiously many other people also had some pretty weird vivid dreams – not sure what was in that soup last night!

I started my Diamox this morning, a tablet used for glaucoma, but frequently recognised now as helping the body through the acclimatisation process. Happy side effects include peeing copious amounts frequently and weird, sharp tingles in the feet and hands. Getting 100 people plus porters to the top of mountain was only going happen with the assistance of western pharmaceuticals.

There were three young doctors volunteering their time as we climbed the mountain, English Matt, Aussie Matt and Scottish Luke. These guys had a massive job on their hands and I’m sure it felt like an overwhelming responsibility at times. I remembered packing for myself before we left and that was enough of a challenge, ensuring you had everything, but imagine having to pack for yourself , and all relevant medical supplies to keep 800 people safe from the torments of the mountain.

We got up and started walking again, this time they promised only a short 3 hour walk, which turned into a nearly 5 hour walk. Learning for the day – don’t get fixated on times, just keep putting one foot in front of the other and when you see the sea of orange tents, then you’re finished.

The walk today was beautiful, leaving behind the monkeys and forest for a more fynbos look, with lovely flowers (lobella), heath vegetation, groovy rock formations and stunning views. It was steadily uphill, with some very steep sections. I was adopted by two guides who obviously thought I was moving a bit too fast and they kept encouraging me to drink water, move slowly and take rests. There were some other guides/porters walking near us and they were singing and shouting and dancing the whole way – while carrying packs on their heads and moving quickly!

Once we reached those glorious orange tents, we were fed some lunch and then all of a sudden an impromptu song and dance erupted with all the guides/porters. It was amazing to have hundreds of male African voices joined together out of sheer spontaneity – and frustration, it was apparently spurred on by having trouble setting up one of the igloo tents. The 60 minutes crew were able to get some good footage and have a bit of a dance amongst that amazing choir.

I am still feeling fine at this altitude, only issues relate to Diamox use so far. Karla, one of the lovely girls on the trip (from Perth!) has offered me her down booties to wear at night to help with having cold, cold feet, bless her heart. It certainly made a difference.