Day 6 – Barafu camp
The hike today was short (3 hours) since we had to start again at midnight. Barafu is at 15,200 ft or 4,600 metres so it was harder to breathe here.
We went to bed at 7pm and got woken up at 11pm for a midnight summit start (which turned into 12:15am). They brought us porridge and tea but Mike and I were both feeling nauseous so we only had a couple of bites. Luckily this subsided by ‘go’ time. It was an amazingly clear night (one day before the full moon on Feb. 15
th so the sky was lit up) and we didn’t even need our headlamps for most of the way. My playlist was working so it was one foot in front of the other, while humming away to my 80’s music. Farah and I were stopping lots for pee breaks since we were trying to drink the 3L recommended. It was a tough slog but we all managed to make it to Stella Point (5700 m), which is about an hour away from Uhuru Peak, the very top! By 7:15am, we’d made it to the Peak, tired but happy. I had one more stop on the top for pee (froze my butt off!). We were lucky with the weather, as I think it was only -5 degrees and it can be -15 to -20 but my extremities were still cold and I had to keep telling myself to wiggle them. We stayed for the requisite picture and then back down we went…I felt relieved and elated and thought the descent would be easy (it was supposed to take 2 ½ to 3 hours). Once we hit Stella again, we looked down and realized the descent would be more difficult than we thought…it was super steep and we were already watching people slipping and sliding everywhere.
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| 2 of our porters |
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| Last meal before the nap |
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| The slog begins |
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| So close! |
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| It's getting cold |
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| We made it! Ski goggles were needed, and while I may look ridiculous, they kept my face somewhat warm. |
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| Happy Valentine's Day! |
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| Back to Stella...and it's easy after this, right? |
The exhaustion started to set in. I made it down a few steps, sliding and slipping and I think I fell once. I then had to take a break on a rock - my head was spinning and the headache started to creep in. Our guide told me to take some Diamox. I did and also swallowed an Advil (and spilled half the package on the ground in the process). We went a bit further and then I had to rest again. The tears came and it wasn’t even a matter of exhaustion anymore…I just so badly wanted to close my eyes and sleep and wasn’t sure how I would continue. The headache was getting stronger. Mike gave me a cookie and I took one bite and threw the rest away. Later, our guide would tell me that’s when he knew something was wrong. Ha! Am I that predictable?
Our guide, Paul, grabbed my backpack, one of my poles and linked arms with me. He then started dragging me down the hill; we were literally running with him bracing my slides with his body. We continued this pace for a while…we only stopped so I could switch sides and grab his other arm. We must have gone a few hundred metres when we suddenly stopped; he turned to me and asked how I was. And suddenly I realized that I was okay. Sure, the headache was still there and I was very tired but my head wasn’t spinning anymore and I felt like I could walk on my own. Guess there is something to this altitude pandemonium afterall. ;)
Mike caught us with us when we were almost back at Barafu (I was walking on my own by this point)…touching that he’d run down the hill after me on Valentine’s Day! We got back to camp around 11:15am. It’s still crazy to me that we’d hiked for so long on so little food and sleep, never mind the low oxygen levels.
Farah joined us a short time later with the other guide and poor girl had had a tough final couple of hours…she’d run out of water and the guide who had come with me had all of the extra in his backpack. Shoot. She had to get rehydrated in a hurry. Since we all had strong headaches, they wouldn’t let us nap, citing that a move to lower altitude was crucial. We had a quick lunch, packed up and continued onwards to Millenium Camp, which is at about 3700 metres (still can’t believe we went from 4600 to 5900 and back to 3700 in one day!). By this time, we were all exhausted. Memories of the day were blurring together and the jubilation we’d felt seemed so long ago.
After an early dinner, off to bed we went!
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| It's hard to see here but the descent was steep. We actually didn't take any other photos on the way down. |
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| Celebratory mango juice back at camp |
Day 8
We woke up feeling so much better! We left just after 7am, with Mweka Gate in our horizon. I think it took us 4-5 hours to get there but I can’t really remember. We had a small celebration with the group when we got there and then got in the van for the journey back to Arusha. Funny how sleep and food can give you a better perspective; we felt so much better today about our accomplishment.
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Last breakfast - had a good sleep!
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| This woman was still smiling and had actually made it to the peak. |
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I think the bush is better, especially when you're afraid of falling into the hole. This was a public toilet on the way down (these are few and far between).
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| Almost at Mweka Gate |
- - longer routes are better – more time for acclimatization
- - success is very weather dependent – we were lucky to have a clear summit night but I’ve heard that if the weather if bad, many more are not successful
- - bring lots of electrolyte solutions to add to water – you’re drinking so much water that this helps to jazz it up
- - lots of snacks are good too – chocolate, energy bars – while we had lots of food from the company (and it was good and included meat every night), it was nice to eat some familiar food along the trail
- use a water bottle thermos – I had never used one before but I used it for summit night and the bottle didn’t freeze so I could drink some at the top
This was a once in a lifetime experience for me. I think Mike’s already planning his next summit, hahahaha.
