We started our hike up to the summit of Kilimanjaro at 12:40 am today.
My gear consisted of:
Bottoms: Smart wool base layer, north face fleece pants, Patagonia hiking pants.
Top: Smart wool base later (thick with zipper), smart wool tshirt, north face fleece shirt, north face summit series windbreaker/rain jacket. I also had a ski jacket I had rented, waste as it was too hot and too bulky.
Pack: Deuter Futura 32 liter with snacks (see picture from yesterday), rain pants, 3 liters of water in a camelback with insulated hose (froze at the top even with hand warmers stuck next to it), Canon T3i SLR camera with a 18-200mm lense, first aid kit, extra batteries for flashlight and camera, extra socks, extra bottom base layer, sunscreen etc.
This or similar combo is perfect for a summit attempt of Kilimanjaro.
Freezing cold but with a gorgeous starry sky. Seems like most other hikers had already left Basecamp before us. We were trying to time the arrival time at the summit with the sunrise. We did manage to pass every single group on the way up, we must be motivated. We probably passed 15 groups.
Steep never ending switchbacks only illuminated by our headlamps. The air (or lack thereof) at this altitude had left us a bit winded. But looking at all the other groups we seemed to be in very good shape. Temperatures were blistering cold, probably minus 15 degrees celsius / 5 fahrenheit. Whenever you stop for more than 2 minutes you start suffering. The wind doesn’t exactly help either.
Hiking up we try to have fun. However at 5 am when my friend Riley and I started blasting music and dancing, the French climbers that were struggling for air at 5756 meters at Stella Point might have thought they were hallucinating. Even our assistant guide Steven thought we were a bit crazy.
We reached the summit of Africa at 5895 meters / 19341 ft. just prior to 6am and was greeted with a gorgeous sunrise a few minutes later. 5 hours and 20 minutes from tent to summit. Very impressive.
The summit is flanked by massive glaciers looking intimidating by their size and dark blue color. Or is it me that is looking intimidating in my cold weather gear…? Summit behind me
Spent some time taking pictures and also having a nice well earned shot of whiskey on the top. Oddly enough everyone else around looked at us as if we were crazy. They probably never participated in an Arizona mountain bike race. Pocket whiskey shots all the way… I brought them along from the USA.
After spending 20 minutes at the summit we started the very steep descend. It is extremely loose sand rocks and boulders all mixed up. Poles are handy here. My knees took a bit of a beating for sure.
Rested for 30 min, then grabbed lunch and packed our gear. Space is limited at base camp, so we had to be out 2 hours after the last hiker of our group finished.
In the afternoon we started our descend off the mountain. 15 km down to camp. Legs and knees were feeling the overnight hike up to the summit.
So I haven’t discussed injuries yet. Kilimanjaro isn’t a piece of cake. People die attempting to summit. Luckily we didn’t see such extremes. We did however see a few people taking the Kilimanjaro express. Which is the trail ambulance.
How they get people down the mountain on this thing is unbelievable. I wouldn’t even attempt to mountain bike certain sections.
We reached our camp ground and we were all fairly tired. We had been awake since 11:30pm the night before, hiked up to the summit of Kilimanjaro, and down, and to camp. A total of 25 km hiking. With cold weather.
Note: All blog text and pictures were done via smartphone.