Duncan Clarke, Acacia tour leader set off for his adventure to climb to the ‘Roof of Africa’ – Mount Kilimanjaro. This is his last blog as he reaches the summit at 5895 metres.
Part 4 – The pay off!
We carried on around the rim of the crater. I couldn’t tell because it was dark at the time but there was a massive volcanic crater just to my right hand side. There was a bit of up and down but the track was much easier to negotiate than the one before. The sky was starting to get a bit lighter as the sun was about to come up so we could see where we were going a bit easier. Our pace slowed a fair bit towards the end, but about 1 hour 20 after leaving Gilman’s point, I saw the famous summit sign come into view.
At 5.50am I set foot on the highest point of Mt Kilimanjaro. There was one other hiker and her guide there just before us and we took some photos of each other. I got some together with Mzui and some by myself. Not to mention the photo with my Snake Park T shirt. Mzui pointed out some of the features around the area. He named the glaciers and other peaks both near and far. It was nice and clear and the area of sky where the sun was about to come up was streaked with cloud. Mt Meru, normally an imposing figure over Arusha, looked like an average sized pyramid in the distance.
After about 10 minutes we started our way back down. Almost as soon as we set off the sun came up and splashed light on everything around us. The white of the glaciers and the ice all around looked incredible. I was really grateful that we had such perfect condition for the occasion. Heading back along the crater rim we saw the American brother, without his sister. She had had too much difficulty breathing and turned back before reaching the rim.We took about an hour to get back to Gilman’s point. As we took a break there, my three American room mates arrived at the crater rim. It was 7am, they had taken 8 hours to get there from Kibo hut.
We descended the steep slope again and arrived back at Kibo hut at 9am. I had two hours to sleep then was woken for lunch before we headed back down to Horombo hut. Our day of hiking finished at 3pm. It had been a very long, hard day but I was very satisfied with what we had done. After all, reaching the summit was what it was all about from the outset. If I hadn’t been able to get there because of altitude sickness, injury or some other unavoidable event, I wouldn’t have been too disappointed. To make it up without any issues along the way, without my guide even to have to provide any extra motivation, I was very happy with my effort. I was well aware the conditions had been excellent- no strong wind, no rain or snow at all. I had been very lucky in this respect.
I learned the following day that the three Americans had made it to the summit as well. They
had only arrived back at Horombo hut about 10pm that night. So they had hiked from 11pm on Wednesday night until 10pm Thursday night. Understandably, they were completely exhausted. I was so proud of them. If you had have asked me when I saw them getting to Gilman’s point, I would have bet money that they wouldn’t have made it. They really proved to me that with a bit of grit and determination, people can push themselves to do amazing things.
After our final night at Horombo hut, we went all the way back out to Marangu gate on day 5. As we were now descending, Mzui put me in the lead and said to go however fast I wanted to. It felt good to stretch the legs out a bit and keep a nice quick hiking pace heading down. After getting to the gate we signed out of the park and got our transfer back to Springlands hotel, where there was a double bed and hot shower waiting for me. I said thanks and goodbye to Mzui and his team, giving them a nice tip to say thanks for all their hard work. To say these guys have a difficult job would be the understatement of the century. They work in an unforgiving and sometimes dangerous environment and have my eternal respect.
Looking back on the experience, I am very glad I invested the time and money in climbing Kili. It could have been quite a different experience if the weather had turned bad, if I had succumbed to altitude sickness or if any number of other things had happened. It just so happened everything went my way and it turned out to be one of the most- if not the most memorable experience I have had in Africa.
They say “If you can’t climb it, drink it”.
I’ll be doing both, thank you very much.
Written by: Duncan Clarke – Acacia Africa Tour Leader