Trekking Kilimanjaro

This was supposed to be an easy warm up for my attempt at Mt Everest next year. I was going in confident, I had just summited two much more technical 10,000 ft peaks in the last 2 weeks and my fitness was the best it had ever been! Bring it on I thought to myself!The first 5 days were classic acclimatizing hikes (and pretty boring in my opinion). We would hike for 5-6 hours, some days going up and others descending back down to a lower altitude. The 3rd day we got up to about 16,000 ft which was the highest I had ever been and I felt great, no symptoms. As you can imagine, my confidence grew, I was even getting cocky like this was too easy for me (my first mistake).

I got to the school huts at about 15,500 feet on day five (which is where we were going to start our summit attempt that night). The entire trip I hadn’t had any symptoms and I was ready to hit the summit. I slept till about 10 pm, got up and had dinner…eating was not my favorite time, the meals consisted of soup (which the guides claimed was a different kind every meal, but I’m pretty sure it was the exact same recipe, just a different color), then a stew of vegetables and other “delicacies”. We geared up and started the ascent. Earlier in the day I had asked the guides what the client record was for the fastest ascent to Gillman’s point (the top of the crater). They laughed and told me it was about 3 hrs and then proceeded to speak in their native tongue. Looking back now, they were probably making fun of me for being such an amateur as I had no idea what I was in for.I decided I would climb as fast as I could and try to get there in 3 hrs (my second mistake). We started out and I quickly took off from the rest of the group. Within an hour I couldn’t see the group and I was well on my way to Gillman’s point…we got to Gillman’s point without incident and all of sudden I was hit with a ton of bricks! As soon as we got to the crater we were no longer sheltered by the mountain and the winds were fierce making the temperature well below freezing. We took a break and drank some water and when I got back up to continue on to the summit, I couldn’t. My brain and body had suddenly decided to no longer communicate. I started stumbling, got dizzy, and then after about 10 minutes of walking at a snails pace, I bent over and threw up. This was my life for the next few hours.

I was now living all the stories I had heard of these fit and cocky climbers climbing at altitude too quickly. I laughed to myself cause that was all I could do. I had done exactly what I knew I shouldn’t have done and now I was paying the price…classic I thought!!! The next few hours turned into the worst of my life. I took regular “breaks” to vomit and muster up enough energy to keep going. My brain was shut off…all I remember saying to myself was “get to the summit, don’t give up”(even though every part of my body was telling me the opposite). I don’t remember much as I was delusional for most of the remainder of the climb, but I do remember seeing the sun come up and thinking this was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. We got to the summit, I posed for a couple of pictures (I even threw in a smile) and then started racing down.

I knew I had to get down fast as I was losing the ability to control my body. I threw up a few more times and after a few more hours of pure hell, I reached the huts. I lay down, dejected and embarrassed that my body hadn’t acclimatized and fell asleep.An hour later I woke up and felt a bit better at the lower altitude of about 15,000 ft. I ate a little bit of food and we started our descent to a lower camp.After a few more thousand feet I started to feel much better. I was shocked at how only a few hours ago, my body was shutting down and now I felt great! We were supposed to stay an extra night on the mountain at a lower altitude, but the thought of some more delicious ginger soup and sleeping in our tent at -15 made us decide to descend the whole way down. We said goodbye to our group and proceeded to run another 22km’s to the bottom of the trail. All told we did about 40km’s in one day. Include the fact I felt worse than I ever have in my life only 12 short hours ago, it’s safe to say the sleep I had in my hotel room that night was one of the best I have ever had in my entire life! I learned a lot from this climb, one of which, ego is not a good thing when climbing big mountains. I came back from Africa humbled in a few different ways. One, knowing that I was susceptible to altitude and two, that we are so incredibly lucky to live where we live.