July 20
13000 feet – 13200 feet
2.2 miles, 5 hours
I woke up early this
morning and was so very cold. It took me
a minute to realize that my heater (aka Marc) had left the tent. Darn him.
I was forced to put on more clothes and get up, considering it was so
chilly. I went to join him for tea in
the mess tent.
The night before, Max had
briefed us (as he did every night) about what we should wear and what time we
would be beginning our hike for the day.
This morning, we were to begin at 9 or so, just to make sure more people
had gone up the wall since every climber in camp and all the porters had to do
the SAME thing this morning. So I had
dressed in my long undies, pants, my warm hat, and my glove liners were shoved
into my pocket. I was ready…sort of.
We had a new porridge
today, one that had a different base, and we didn’t like it. We spent a few minutes trying to figure out
how to tell the cook we liked the other one better, which I accomplished later
in the day with no problems. I’ve always
been pretty good at that sort of thing.
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| Looking up the Wall - the porters climbed it with gear on their heads! |
And then came the
wall…Remember how I said I was terrified?
There were so many people going up that darn thing that terror went
right out the window. Looking up, all I
felt was exhilaration. Sandi said I was
smiling the entire time and Jen called me Girl on Fire. Because there were so many pauses in awkward
positions, Jen also referred to the wall as the “405 at 5:00 PM” which was sort
of accurate – it was like being in a traffic jam.
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| Girl on Fire! |
But oh, the wall. I took my gloves off rather quickly,
realizing that touching the rocks bare-handed was much better. I knew my skin would suffer, but I didn’t
care. As soon as my bare skin touched
those ancient stones, I could feel her.
I kid you not – the mountain had a heartbeat. And it wasn’t mine that I was feeling, but
something much deeper and slower. It was
the most amazing thing. The drop off we
crossed, the slender ledges we had to traverse, they had nothing on the feeling
of HER, which got stronger to closer I came to her.
I LOVED that wall. If nothing else, the wall taught me that
worrying was pointless. You can be
terrified of something and it will be the most amazing thing that ever happened
to you. I will refer to all obstacles in
my life from now on as mini-Barrancos to try to hold on to that feeling.
It took two hours to get
to the top (800 feet) and at the top of the wall, I screamed my thanks to Cody,
my trainer, without whom I never would have made it. We all had our moments there, at the top of
the wall. Sandi was lost in thought, Jen
was introspective, and some of the best pictures of the entire climb were taken
in those few moments.
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| The group at the top of the Wall and the top of our game! |
Noel was there (the 72
year old Welshman). I kissed him. I’m a kissing fool on Kilimanjaro.
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| The Kissing Fool of Kilimanjaro |
James found us some
obsidian today just past the top of the wall – two chunks that I can take home
for the kids. Ancient volcanic glass –
really cool and very lovely.
The hike was not long
today, but it was strenuous. It started
with the wall, then we got a rather gentle decline and incline again. Max mentioned that all we had left was a trip
down into the river valley, then back up to camp. He didn’t mention it was a VERY steep down
and a VERY steep up to get there, which was probably a good move on his part.
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| You can't really see the steep, but the way down started on that opposite ridge there... |
Down was treacherous – the
path was worn away to loose red dirt and the hiking poles did nearly nothing to
help. Instead, Anderson pointed out
where I could hold onto trees, worn smooth from the touch of thousands of
hands, to help me down the trail. The
trees were lifesavers and very unique.
Crossing the river at the
bottom of the valley was easy – it’s dry season, so it wasn’t that wide. And then we had to go up. WAAAAAAY up.
I mentioned a couple times on the way that you should never look up to
see how much was left – always look down for the sense of accomplishment! Sandi said the mantle of cheerleader had
suddenly passed to me, which made me laugh.
I just spent the next hour focused very intently on Anderson’s
boots. When he stopped walking, I could
stop, too. And he didn’t stop walking
for a very long time…
At some point, I had taken
off my long underwear. Since I had worn
them under my pants for the first part of the day, I had not bothered to belt
my pants – they stayed up just fine. But
when the long undies came off…well…things got a bit difficult. At one point, I heard Max say to Marc “Marc,
pull up her pants.” This still makes me
laugh. Like six inches of my flowered
panties was going to embarrass me when I smelled worse than a wet dog. I replied to Max that I’d lost like 12
pounds, so of course my pants were falling down! I found my belt later once we got to camp.
Once at the top, all we
could see was clouds. The camp stretched
to the edge of the cliffs, then the drop off was concealed by fluffy white,
making it feel as though we were camping in heaven. It was amazing. Also a bit disorienting – it took a bit for me
to figure out how to walk straight when the world just sort of ended…
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| Karanga Camp in the Clouds |
We met up with people we
knew, which was quite joyous! Peter,
Claire, Phil, and Bruce from Big Tree Camp were there and it was lovely to see
them. Other faces were familiar. It just felt good to know we were part of
something so extraordinary.
Lunch was carrot soup,
chips, and cucumber salad and I think it was the best of all the lunches. I was so hungry, which was great, since my
appetite had still been flagging the past few days.
I finagled a bowl of warm
water and tried to take a bath in the camp toilet. Please keep in mind that the zipper was
dodgy, so they had faced the toilet toward the mountain slope, where no one
could really see in. So I left the
zipper up, put the water bowl on the toilet, got naked (except for shoes) and
proceeded to take a very messy bath. I
even put on deodorant afterwards and clean long undies. It felt great. Jen followed suit and while she was washing,
I went to the mess tent and soaked my feet.
Heaven, I tell you, Heaven.
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| The view from the toilet enclosure! |
We started organizing our
bag for summit night, considering once we got over 15,000 feet we were probably
going to get a little loopy. We hung out
the rest of our still wet laundry to dry, then had a Summit Summit in the mess
tent, where we all brought our snacks and medications and divided them up
amongst each other to make sure we would all have what we would need for the
following night. It was very
entertaining.
My face and my fingers
started tingling in earnest today, another side effect of the diamox. It feels like ants are crawling over your
skin and is a little disconcerting and really annoying, but without the medication,
I might not have made it as far as I did.
Small price to pay, perhaps?
Dinner was tasty, but too
close to lunch, so most of us weren’t that hungry. Our after dinner briefing for the next day
was great and I found myself wondering what I was going to do once I didn’t
have Max telling me what to do the next day – how was I going to function in
regular life without the plan?
Tonight was our last long
night of sleep before the summit attempt, so we capitalized on it, though I did
get up to wander a bit before we really went to sleep. I went out to talk to Anderson about the
stars. Southern Hemisphere stars are
different than ours. I recognized
Hercules, but I didn’t know the others, so I wanted to know if there were names
for the constellations in Swahili. There
aren’t, much to my disappointment, but Oscar did teach me the word for star, so
it wasn’t a complete loss. The sky is so
beautiful anyway.
And the mountain watched
over us the whole night. The closer I
get to her, the more loved I feel. I
feel enfolded in her, like she cares for every living thing that walks on her
slopes and she has something important to teach us if we give everything we
have and everything we are to her. I
gave her everything and she gave me so much in return. It was very spiritual, I tell you – I’ve
never felt the presence of a spirit like that before. She had been there for millions of years and
will still be there after we are long gone and she knows that and loves our
fleeting lives anyway…words can’t really describe it, so I know this sounds a
little weird.
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| Kilimanjaro herself. |
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