Part 3: Passions — Ascent of Kilimanjaro

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a cat-like creature at heart. Happiest curled up by a warm fire, with a good book, a glass of decent red wine at my elbow, and some music playing. I don’t do wet, I don’t do cold, and I usually avoid energetic.

So it surprised even me when, a couple of years back, I volunteered for a nine-day hike through dripping rainforests and freezing valleys culminating in an ascent on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

The climax of the trek was a night climb from a camp high up the mountain, which required over seven hours of phenomenal effort to reach the top of Africa’s highest mountain, at 19,344 feet (a shade shy of 6,000m). This was achieved at temperatures below 0°F, in swirling mist and snow.

I signed up to climb Kili for charity, thinking Tanzania in December would top off my tan, and the exercise would help with pre-holiday weight loss. Even better, I could do a good deed and raise funds for my favorite charity at the same time. Win-win all around, really.

Ours was an eight-man team with the world of finance well represented: a trader from Morgan Stanley, a desk assistant from Deutsche, and an IT expert from Bank of New York. The others included a liver surgeon from Liverpool, an HR specialist from Switzerland, a financial adviser from Marlow and a guy who did something for GE but I didn’t ever quite understand what. And me.

Kili is a marvel – you encounter all kinds of weather and terrain, from rainforest to savannah to frozen slopes. All have their pros and cons – rainforests are, naturally, very wet, and you squish along through mud with wet gear and boots; the cold at the top bites into your very bones, and the high altitude makes many hikers ill.

Apart from the glories of the mountain landscape, we had other excitements. Our guide spotted a lion track in our path on day two, and for a while it seemed that we had Big Cat company on our trek. The group became rather more compact after that sighting. We saw beautiful flowers (impatiens, protea, gladioli), wildlife – mainly antelope and monkeys, as well as a furry colorful caterpillar called a mopane worm, which our guides told us was edible. (No, we didn’t).

On day three, the trek got progressively colder – marking the first night we’d slept in sub-zero temperatures, and the first morning there was ice on the tent. Here, we discovered that cleanliness on this sort of trek is an achievement, and comfort is a luxury – hot water being one we had to forego for the duration.

A major stopover on the mountain is at Barranco Wall Camp, reached after a punishing hike through barren, rocky and bitterly cold terrain. Barranco is a wall for good reason – slippery, narrow, rocky ledges formed the route, and we had to put away our walking sticks and scramble along on hands and feet. (It really wasn’t a good spot to discover that I suffer from vertigo).

Between Barranco Wall Camp and the final Barafu Ridge Camp (16,000ft/4,600m), we had a further tough day’s walking, during which most of us started to feel the effects of altitude. Symptoms include stomach cramps, nausea, disorientation and nose-bleeds. We all suffered to varying degrees, but fortunately nobody was incapacitated. Full-blown altitude sickness can kill, and even lesser symptoms can prevent the most determined hiker from reaching the top.

At Barafu, we rested for several hours. The guides talked us through what we had to do, and split the group in two – a fast group, and a slower group for those more likely to struggle with the cold and altitude. I was pleased to be picked for the fast group, as I was the oldest one selected, but also felt rather daunted. We dressed in multiple layers to keep out the freezing cold, but it seemed to seep through everything and chill us to the marrow.

When we set off at midnight, the stars extraordinarily bright, lit by moonbeams. We still needed headlamps because the route was rocky and steep. The tension was palpable, the determination more so.

After three hours of climbing and laboring upwards, we were almost zombies: Time telescoped, and I was unaware of it passing. The fourth hour became more difficult, with breathing or coordination being the available choices. We couldn’t do both. Oxygen levels at this altitude are around 50% of normal. It showed.

Seven hours of trudge and toil later, we reached Uhuru Peak at dawn. It was -2°F. We jubilantly posed for photographs at the top, having stowed cameras next to our skin for warmth, because cameras, like people, do not function well in the cold or at high altitudes. The feeling I had at that moment made the experience beyond worthwhile.

We felt a huge sense of achievement, and elation helped us to fly on the descent, which took a day and a half of further exertion from a very tired group of people. Our guides were delighted with us – everybody made it, even in the slower group, and a mood of celebration embraced us for the whole time we headed down the mountain. But if you ask me the best moment of the whole trip, I would have to say it was having a hot shower for the first time in nearly nine days when we finally got back to our hotel.

As for the future, I decided to revert to my former cat-like status immediately after the Kilimanjaro adventure. However, my Kili tentmate has been sending me brochures about Aconcagua in Argentina (22,829ft/6,962m), and I find myself strangely tempted…