Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro-

Hiking Kilimanjaro was near the top of my to do list for the year. It’s the highest peak in Africa making it 1 of earths “7 summits”, which are the highest peak from each continent. (There are actually 8 summits because of the Australia/Australasia argument). This would be my first and potentially only of the 7 summits. Those who attempt all 7 (8) are very, VERY serious about climbing and either very wealthy or sponsored. Depending on which website you believe the number of people to achieve this feat in history is between 180 and 350. Kilimanjaro, though near the top of that list as far as altitude goes, is less technical and thereby more achievable than most. For this hike I am fortunate enough to be joined my my good friend and travel compadre Nolan Marx.

Nolan and I have done several trips together including Chicago, New Orleans, Green Bay, Prague, Munich, Amsterdam, Japan and he visited me in Sydney on my final week there. He became one of my favorite people to travel with because we have similar tastes and budgets, which while I was employed was a very lose idea of a budget. Traveling full time, and without any income, my bank account has only been moving in one direction- south. The first indication that my travel habits have changed was when the price tag for the guide service came in. Because I was on a 3 week safari, with limited communication prior to the climb, I asked him to handle logistics. I put up some resistance about the rate at first, but remembering the disaster of losing 3 sherpas on the Everest Base Camp trek, I figured going with a reputable company would probably be a good idea. Additionally, Nolan has some real mountaineering experience with a summit of Washington’s Rainier and attempt on Alaska’s Denali (another of the 7 summits) so he is very particular on not using a cut rate company because he understands what can go wrong on a mountain. Finally, I owe him the price tag because when in Tokyo I got us impossible to get reservations at Jiro’s Sushi Restaurant (as seen on documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi) forcing the most expensive dinner either of us ever paid for (It was worth it). The company for the hike was Team Kilimanjaro and I met with the guide in the hotel a day before the start. When I asked him how many people there would be he said 12. Assuming he meant hikers I said cool, “how many from Team Kilimanjaro?” He looks at me kind of confused and says again, 12. “Wow” I said, “each person getting their own porter is impressive”. He corrects me. No, not 12 hikers and 12 workers. Only 2 hikers, you and Nolan, and 12 of us working for you. “Boom!” I’m thinking, “THAT’S what I’m talking about!”… “oh, cool” is what I say.

Swahili is the national language of Tanzania and we were given vocabulary lessons right off the bat. At first we would pass someone that would say “jambo” or “mambo”. I would give them an awkward mouth closed Mona Lisa smile or even worse reply “hey”. Quickly I learned. jambo means what’s up. The common reply was just jambo back, or if your feeling it “jambo jambo” (what’s up what’s up). Mambo was more of a question like how’s things? The reply- “poa” meaning cool. If you’re feeling it “poa kichzi” (crazy cool). If you are REALLY feeling it the reply is “poa kichzi-kaman dizi” (crazy cool like a banana) which makes little sense in English, but sounds pretty sweet in Swahili. I added my own twist and whenever someone passed saying mambo, which was often, my reply would be “poa kichzi-kaman dizi-nice and easy”. These phrases were added to the unofficial mountain motto, “polé polé” (slowly slowly) and everyone’s favorite “hakuna matata” (No worries). Armed with a fresh and growing Swahili arsenal we made our way up the mountain.
We originally had a 7 day itinerary, but had to adjust down to 6 in order for Nolan to make his flight out in time. One fewer day was doable and wouldn’t hurt us, but meant a few longer days and an acclimatization hike. A 3 hour day, a 6 hour day, a 5 hour day and we’re getting there. Polé polé was the common theme. We walked slow and took our time. Up early for breakfast, a light lunch, early dinner and lights out. The service was good and the food “okay”. Day 4 blended into day 5 which was a shit ton of hiking. On the 4th day we started at the usual time of 7am around 13,500 feet. 6 hours later we reach base camp at 15,000-ish feet. The plan was to grab lunch, take a nap, wake up for an early 5pm dinner then get a few hours sleep for the 11:30pm (yes PM!) wake up call to summit. At 15,000 feet your body will do weird things. I had no problems hiking, was never weak, tired nor out of breath, no headaches, no fatigue and no worries (hakuna matata). My problem was sleep, I was handed a little dose of altitude induced insomnia. After lunch I laid in bed for 4 hours and couldn’t sleep, out of the tent for dinner and back in the sleeping bag. By the 11:30pm wake up call I got MAYBE 45 minutes, ate some porridge, a cup of coffee and onto the summit.

The route we chose, Rongai, is the road less traveled and we were able to make our own pace as we saw fit. After 2 hours on the summit morning, head lamps shining, we hit the junction to the Marangu Route and were jammed up in a sea of hikers with various fitness levels. They were going painfully polé polé. We got stuck behind a large group that if we stayed behind we would have ended up slitting our wrists with jagged rocks before getting to the top. They didn’t stop nor step aside to allow us to pass so we had to make a power move traversing through lose scree and soft dirt in order to get around them. This took a lot of energy and proved hard to recover from. I manage to get my breath back quickly, but the altitude got the better of Nolan and he took a beating the rest of the morning. To his credit he powered through and in true machine form managed a puke and rally in order to reach the ridge line just before sunrise. Another 2 hours later and we were standing on Africa’s rooftop of 19,340 feet among glaciers left over from the last ice age. There’s no shelter, nor safe haven from wind standing on top of a peak and the wind chill had to be in the -20’s/-30’s range. After 5 days of hiking we stayed up top a whole 45 seconds in order to grab a few frost bitten pictures before making the long decent. Very soon after reaching the summit the combination of sleep deprivation and high altitude started to grab hold. Add coming down from the adrenaline rush associated with summiting the worlds tallest free standing mountain and the only thought making it’s way through my throbbing headache was that of sleep. Whenever we would stop for a 3 minute break I snuck in a 2 minute nap in the dirt. I didn’t need a tent, sleeping bag, mattress pad or even flat surface, just give me a few minutes to stop walking and I was set. Finally 3 hours after summit, which was 9 hours from the midnight start time, 26 hours (15 of which hiking) with only 45 minutes of sleep mixed in and a total elevation change of about 10,000 feet we reach the lunch spot where Nolan and I both crashed. 2 hours later we are woken up to eat lunch which we have to force ourselves to do, then another 3 hours down to the final camp. I slept 12 uninterrupted hours that night and was fully charged for the final 7 hour day of hiking.

Not so fun fact: Due to global warming the ice sheet on Kilimanjaro has retreated 85% over the last 100 years and by some estimates it’s said to be gone entirely within 15-20 years. Yet another reason to get off your ass. Since posting my summit pic yesterday I had more “that’s on my bucket list” messages than any other time. A friend sent me a good link today about reasons to travel while your still young. It talked about a common and tragic phrase people always use “yeah, but” and the counter to that was poetic- “never were more fatal words spoken”.

Bob