Summit Day

According to the calendar it was only 6 days ago, but from the warm shores of Zanzibar it feels like a month.


The trek was going very well. I was the only one of the seven to carry his own daypack (but my porter carried the tripod, just so he didn't feel unused) and I kept up with everyone step for step right up to Arrow Glacier (just a bit under 16,000ft). I had been feeling the altitude since Shira 2 (which was about 11,000ft) but I started low-dose Diamox (125mg twice a day). The rest day at Sheffield Camp (a stone's throw from Lava Tower) was good and the hike to the top of the Tower itself was all hakuna matata. Two Kiliwarriors hikers on the same route the previous week had to descend from here due to AMS.


Then we got to Arrow. I felt alright that day - it was a relatively short hike - but that night I hardly slept, opting to breathe (pseudoephedrine for a stuffy nose) than snooze (Ambien). At least the insomnia allowed me to get some kickass night exposures.


The next morning we were up at 4am so we could take on the Western Breach in relative safety. Frozen ground means lesser chance of rockslides. (Three American climbers died here in early 2006.)


I felt awful. It took me a while to get going.  My oxygen level (the ox in pulse-ox) was down to 74 - several points below the dinnertime reading, but i figured it was because of a cold finger. (Unscientific testing amongst ourselves revealed that a cold finger could produce a pulse-ox reading as much as 10pts lower than a warm finger. So, warm up those digits first!) I could only manage a few spoonfuls of porridge, which I knew was definitely a bad sign.



I finally got my pack on and slowly caught up to the others.

An hour ahead of us was another team that stayed at Arrow. We had heard that they were struggling - one member who had previously summited had to go down at a mere 10,000ft and the rest were dragging.


My hands were freezing as they gripped the trekking poles. The guides helped warm them, then suggested I simply give up the poles and walk with my hands in my pockets. I used the poles sparingly so far, so why start now?


Before long I fell behind. Asst. guide Hosea and my porter Ephet stayed with me. Pole pole. I warmed up after a bit, then I was too warm. I could feel my base layers getting damp. I can change at the top, I thought. At some point I gave up my pack. I can't remember if it was their idea or mine, but I was OK with it.


...


The others were maybe 10min ahead of me at a snack stop. They knew I was hurting and did their best to cheer me up. They took off as I waited for my tea to cool. (I don't care how cold it is outside, tea can still be too hot to drink.)


The porters dumped the remaining warm water into my camelbak and gatorade bottle, so at least I could get those warmed up. The bite valves had been frozen for a while. After 15 minutes of rest, I was at it again.


The rest were pulling away... and not far from catching the other team. But for me it was pole pole and very agonizing. The chronic shortness of breath felt awful. I was getting dehydrated and hungry.  And the porters started singing (actually, warbling) Celine Dion:


"Neee! Faaa! Whereeeeeeeveeeerrrrr you aaaaahhhh!"


"Oh hell no!" I yelled. "If they don't stop I'm gonna climb up there and throttle 'em!"


But I did find some nice rocks.


Sidebar: I'm turning into a bit of a rockhound, and Kili has lots of interesting rocks around it. When you're doing step-breathe-breathe-step-breathe-breathe, you have a lot of time to look down. The wretched feeling was tempered by some nice rock finds, including some a'a lava with olivite crystals in it. 

Even at high altitudes, I'm still a nerd.


Right, back to the pain and misery. I felt awful, but somehow I was still able to crack a few jokes.


"Pole pole, Alex."

"'I can't! You took em away!!"


There's still hope if I'm still a wise-ass.


...


Hosea and Ephet are gently pressing me. Hosea smiles about two-thirds of the way up and says there's no turning back. "No really, from here we'd have to carry you up and over instead of down." Great guide, but he's no Tony Robbins.


I'm still recovery stepping and looking at rock when, maybe 100 vertical feet from the crater rim I see a single red gummi bear on the trail. I wanted to eat the damn thing, but that would require bending over and getting really dizzy. The ravens can have it.


The rest of the team had reached the rim and I could hear them cheering me on. At this point I was on the verge of breaking. This was the most difficult thing I had ever done, and I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with it. I went with step-breathe-breathe and saved the emotional and psychological ramifications for later.


I got to the rim, but no one was there. Just me. Hosea, Ephet and a big hunk of ice known as the Furtwangler Glacier. Camp was 10min away, and the rest of the team was there.


I staggered in to camp sometime after noon. The others were sitting outside in chairs, waiting for lunch. I told them that they weren't half the tossers I thought they were since they were nice enough to wait for me before summiting.


...


Into the mess tent for lunch. I down some soup and a few nibbles of fruit - eating better but not shoveling it down like I should. We start talking strategy. Before I arrived, the others decided that a night at Crater Camp would be miserable. It was frigid and windy. I had hit the wall, and I think some of the others didn't think they'd be any better after a night at 18,800ft.


The weather was great otherwise, brilliant sunshine and hardly any clouds. What if we summited that day and descended to another camp? The Ash Pit was a distant second to summiting. I kinda wanted to see it, but I knew that wasn't wise in my current state.


We got head guide Faraja in for his input. The park permit had some flexibility to it - we didn't have to stay at Crater. We could summit after lunch then take the long scree-filled descent to Kosovo Camp at 16,000ft. Only problem is Kosovo is a dry site and the porters would have to bring water down.


I'm leery of summiting - hell it was a struggle just to get to Crater - but I'm clearly outvoted. It seemed to have a perverse logic to it anyway. A little more suffering now would save a lot more suffering later.


I had to get down, but just after another 600ft of up.


It's settled. We're going. Holy shit.


We set off, with me trailing from the get-go. They could've put me in front - slowest person leads in search-and-rescue - and I was getting a bit miffed about being left in the back, but I digress.


Step-huff-puff. For 600 god-damned feet. Ephet packed some toast and fruit left over from lunch and implored me to eat. The pineapple was like eating a wad of tin foil dipped in vinegar, the toast was like buttered sawdust.


The others let out a cheer when they get to the top of the mount. They wait for me.


The last bit is more or less flat. Just a slight dip and rise over maybe 200m of rock and snow. They slow down a bit so we can get to the summit together. The team we followed up had already reached the summit and were moving away.


Finally, we're here.


Hugs and handshakes all around.


I wept.


No seriously, I wept. I left everything I had - and a few things I didn't know I had - on that trail and I just didn't know how do deal with it right then. (A week and several hundred miles later, I still don't. This is what some psychologists call a "typical male emotional response.")


I held it together as best I could for the photos. Now you know why the shades stayed on.

...


The up bit was over, now time for the down.


For a while I was just trudging along, with everything focused on moving. I had even abdicated my photo-taking to Hosea, who was actually pretty happy to play with my D80. He got some good shots too.


We started down near Stella's Point and it wasn't long before we encountered uphill traffic on the Machame Route. A lot of them looked terrible, a few I thought were even worse off than me. One asked which route we took. One of the Brits said Western Breach, and she said "wow, that's crazy." After a few minutes on the scree and soft sand of the route, I think the Machame hikers are the crazy ones.


We're almost skiing down, but that's not easy. Miss a step and you faceplant. Have a loose rock tumble under your foot and you're in ass-over-teacups trouble.


It's dusty and painful as we use muscles we hadn't needed up to that point. We could see Kosovo pretty much from the top of the descent, but it's little encouragement when those little orange dots stay little for hours.


At around 4:15pm, I get to camp. Several of the porters greet us. I get to my tent, open it and collapse on the mattress. And weep.


...


After a bit. I pull myself together. I take off my boots - this takes a long time at altitude, even when you're not completely spent - and slip on my sneakers. I limp into the mess tent and throw myself into a chair. The others congratulate me on my feat. They said it was hard on them, but for me to drag myself up and over after I had clearly hit the wall was something else. One of them even called it "heroic."


We start dinner, but the nausea of AMS has a firm grip on me. One spoonful of soup and I feel like I want to hurl. I pull the hood of my insulated "hefty-bag" jacket down over my eyses because even the sight of food makes me ill. Nevermind the headache.


...


After a miserable sleepless night, I hobble out to see the sun rising next to Mawenzi, one of Kili's three peaks. At this height, we're above most of the weather, so below us we see a sea of clouds. The sun appears orange as it climbs above the horizon to the surface.


It's stunning, And I'm too sick and tired to take a picture.


Andy asks me how I'm doing. I say not much better than yesterday. My nose had been runny for a while, but it was into full-blown congestion. I had also picked up a cough that I thought might be a cold. The headache was neverending. I was still spent. I told him I was thinking about just leaving the mountain and getting into Arusha that night. I summited, and I didn't think it was worth screwing up the rest of my vacation by staying out there any longer.


I didn't mention it at breakfast, but Scott gamely raised the possibility to Faraja for me.

The short answer: No.

The longer answer: The closest a vehicle can get is Mweka Gate, which was the end of our trek. (I knew a helicopter was out of the question.) If I wanted to get to Arusha that night instead of the next day, I was going to have to walk. Besides, dropping a few thousand feet would cure me.

We set off. I start feeling better. At around 14,000ft the headache was gone.

At a water stop, I ask Faraja about my episode. He says he was surprised I got ill. He thought I was the strongest hiker in the group - humping my own pack had made an impression - but altitude sickness isn't predictable. Sometimes you conquer it, sometimes it conquers you.

I think I won on a split decision.