7 July 2023: Kilimanjaro Day 6 - Summit Push!

Straight from the journal written on summit afternoon:

They woke us up at 10:30 p.m. on July 6 to get ready for our summit push.  We had "breakfast" at 11 p.m. in the dining tent.  This was the one REALLY bad food choice... they basically had spaghetti with the same curry mushroom sauce and veggie soup.  I didn't say this already, but I basically had less than an hour sleep with all the camp noise, so I was not feeling the curry or spaghetti at all.  Thankfully, they came in later with some toast and eggs, which saved the day.  However, I still had trouble eating.  We set off from camp around 11:30.  At the stroke of midnight, they sang "Happy Birthday" to one of the girls in our group (who was summiting on her birthday).  The walking was fairly easy in the beginning, and I was way too warm in my layers, so I shed my puffy jacket.  After we passed Kosovo camp, it started to get colder much faster.  

At some points, one of the climbers in our group who was up front setting the pace would take 3 steps at a time and stop.  At this point, we were moving very slowly and freezing.  One of the guides asked 4 of us to join a faster team.  We kept trudging along, but the breaks were limited to 2 minutes at a time, so, enough time to use the bathroom, eat a quick bite, adjust a layer, but no combination of any of them.  Somewhere around 17,000', I dropped a mitten and fast walked back to get it, and was completely winded.  This is when it hit me that the altitude is no joke.  Shortly after, I tried to take a sip of water from my camelback, and it was frozen solid (3:30 a.m.).  They had filled all our bottles with hot water, so it went from tea temperature to solid in 4 hours.  From 17,000' to about 18,500' was the worst for me.  The air was very thin and cold, and the balaclava was too thick to breathe through.  I was watching JT's feet, making sure he was steady and ok, but also doing a personal assessment of why I put myself through this!  Momentarily, we got to the crater rim at Stella Point just before sunrise.  We were finally able to turn off headlamps and see, but that's when we got into the extreme winds, which blew so much ash in my face, I'm still crunching on it.  I actually did ok from Stella to Uhuru, because I knew it was only .7 km, or 700 meters, or ~7 football fields (in Canada). [2025 - wow, I was good and sarcastic even after this climb]  They say one hour to the summit for those .7 km... We did it in about 30 minutes, reaching Uhuru Peak at 7:00 (or slightly before) on 7/7.  I think that's pretty cool.  [We didn't even plan it that way, just a fun coincidence]  We had a big hug and wow moment, JT probably thought I was crazy before, but this trip removed all doubt.  We stood in a short line for photos, then had to head down.  With the way we felt, there was no chance we would be doing the crater or glacier.  We absolutely sailed down the mountain.  

Many times my legs were shaking just trying not to slide all the way down the now-thawed scree.  This was rough also because I was now way too hot in all my layers.  We got back to camp in only 3 hours (7.5 hours up).  When we approached camp, several of the crew met us to congratulate us and sing - at least I think - I got it on video... I don't remember much.  We crashed in our tent for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was probably closer to an hour before the rest of our group got back.  Side-note- on our way down, we passed our entire group.  All 9 summited!  They served us a good lunch, the usual stuff, but I was having lots of congestion and coughing, and was tired.  You would think it would be like a huge celebration, but we were all so tired it was silent.  After lunch, we had to strike camp and hike further down to High Camp (Called Millenium camp by some) at 2.5 miles to 12,959'.  This was full zombie mode fro me - I barely remember the hike.  JT and I got another hour of sleep when we arrived, then had dinner.  The mood was much more elated.  I still haven't realized what we did, but the feeling of having done it is starting to hit me.  At the end of dinner, they brought in a cake for the birthday party!  Impressive they got it all the way up here without ruining it.  Also, cell signal here.

Back to 2025 - 

It's really hard to add much to this story 2 years later, but a couple of things I would do differently if I were to go back - 

We did the summit push at night, because that's what 99% do.  Allegedly, this is for a few reasons - one, the scree that we were slipping and sliding down on the way down is more frozen and stable overnight.  Once the sun hits it, it gets a lot more treacherous.  Two, they say it's easier psychologically for people because you don't see anything (I think that's a lie).  Three, they want you at the extreme elevation for as little time as possible.  You'll note, they marched us down to under 13,000' from 19,341'.  That way, if anyone is experiencing altitude problems, they are already on their way back.  Even knowing all of this, I think I'd do a daytime summit next time.  I don't function on little sleep, and eating in the middle of the night and then climbing was really hard for me.  I think I would have done much better on a full night's rest.  Particularly with how loud camp was, and trying to go to bed so early, I got no sleep.

I think I would have been more persistent about doing what I needed to be successful.  I was soaking through my layers with sweat on the descent because they didn't want us to stop.  At one point, I did put my foot down and remove a bunch of layers, but my water was frozen, and I was sweating a LOT... So, if my brain had been more functional, I would have done that to make the descent better for me.

One thing I didn't comment on in my journal - which, I guess I didn't even write down was how shocking it was to watch the evacuations.  We saw many (I believe 12) helicopter evacuations on our summit day.  We saw people being carried down the mountain by porters, and tons of injuries.  For perspective, JT and I are both incredibly active people, and a lot of folks decide on a whim to climb one of the world's tallest peaks without any experience.  This is no joke, people die up here... So, please keep my stories in context of, we aren't your average tourists.  If you're hoping to climb this mountain, please do you research and learn and be sure you're in physical condition to do it!

Now to a fun fact - You've seen lots of different titles for Kili in these posts - Kilimanjaro, Mawenzi, Kibo, and Uhuru.  

Kilimanjaro is the entire mountain.  It is thought the meaning is a combination of Swahili words meaning White Mountain - particularly notable at the Equator where this is the only snow you see.

Mawenzi is the second peak, which means jagged.  This is an extinct volcanic peak.

Kibo is the higher peak of Kilimanjaro.  It is thought to mean Spotted due to the black rocks in the snow.

Uhuru Peak is the name for the summit.  This name was adopted in 1961 when Tanganyika became independent from British colonial rule.  It is Swahili for "Freedom".  This is also the origin of the Star Trek character, the first leading Africian American lady in a series named "Uhura."

This was the beginning of the summit push.  I didn't realize how bad this photo was til WAY after.  Sorry JT.

My view most of the night - notice the trails of lights going up to the summit.  There were so many, I eventually turned mine off until we started flying past people.

This really was an epic sunrise.  I'm glad I got to see it!

We are almost at the top!  The light hitting the glacier was amazing.

Our summit group!

We finally got the sign for some photos to ourselves.

We look somewhat happy, ha!

This was the small crowd at the summit by the time we left.  We actually got there when it was empty, but... it took a minute to soak in the experience and get the photos.

The snows of Kilimanjaro way above the clouds.

Some views on the Glaciers.

Look at little Mawenzi way down there, and another group of climbers almost at the summit.

Here's our group descending in the scree.

Another view of Mawenzi.

SCREE.

All the way back to camp and my nalgene was still solid.  It started as boiling water, was kept inside my pack, and still provided no water from about 2 a.m.

This felt productive at the time, knocking all the ash off of the shoes... You should have seen our shoes the next day...

This is the summit push and descent to base camp on the Garmin.  Note we made lots of switchbacks on the descent that we didn't do on the ascent.  This was to save our knees in all the scree.

This is the descent from Barafu to Millenium Camp.  The zombie mode hike.