kilimanjaro

the next day I flew to Kilimanjaro to start my climbing adventure with the Wharton leadership venture program.  Wharton leadership ventures are meant to be team based activities in the middle of nowhere to test your leadership skills in the unknown and under stress. I have been postponing writing this post as I do not know how to put into words this experience.

logistics – I arrived at the kilimanjaro airport late on Thursday night.  I met a bunch of Wharton people at the airport and we all headed to the hotel where we would be staying before and after our trek.  I lucked out and was randomly assigned one of my friends (one of the few people I knew ahead of time on the trip) as a roommate at the hotel.  We later found out we would be tentmates as well on the hike which was super exciting!  Friday was a logistics day where they split our group in half – two teams of 12.  Our team was definitely the more introverted group but great none the less.  We spent Friday defining team goals, getting to know each other, learning about hydration and hiking techniques from our American guides from Earthtreks (Dan and Bill).  I also had my first challenge of the trip:  trusting the guide when he told me I had to take Diamox even though the doctor would not prescribe it for me due to a family allergy.  trust started early on in this trip out of necessity.

leadership ventures by nature are meant to be ambiguous and thus we were not told much information ahead of time.  After an evening of reshuffling gear/suitcases to match the requirements – one backpack on us and one bag no more than 25 pounds for the porters to carry (includes sleeping bag, clothes, food, etc), we were all excited for the next morning! 

saturday morning, we piled in vans to head to the start of the trail and the beginning of our adventure.  We would be taking the route starting at the machame gate.  The plan was to take 6 days to get up (with one day longer than normal as an extra acclimation day) and then 1.5 days to get down.  On our way to the trailhead, we got our first of many box lunches – complete with odd sandwiches, fried chicken, hard boiled egg, juice, cookies, a piece of candy and another mystery item.  Lets just say, I was more excited for my bars, gels, energy jelly beans and blocks I had picked up at REI before leaving the states. I knew this was going to be a long trip food wise if this is how it was starting.  To my surprise – it did get better!

at the gate, we finished last minute adjustments, stretched (yoga style), final real bathroom stop, had Africans try to sell us stuff (but they had to stay on the other side of the gate), signed in, received instructions from our leaders of the day (each day two members of our team were designated as leaders of the day to guide the team to our next location and dispense logistical information).  We also met our African guides and the porters (who carried some of our baggage, the tents, food, etc).  we could not have done it without them.  For our group of 26 people (including American guides) there were over 100 porters – crazy!! I will explain more in a bit. 

day 1 we hiked for a little over 5 hours through a temperate rainforest to a small clearing where camp #1 was located (machame camp).  The hike seemed reasonable and I think the excitement got us through.  although, when we got to camp, we were exhausted. we ended around 10,000 feet.


day 2 we continued up a ridge leaving the lush forests and the trail got steeper.  today involved some scrambling - aka use of hands and feet to make it through.  this day was about 8 hours long of hiking.  i was actually surprised that legs were not what was getting tired hiking.  they held up better than expected.  we ended up at around 12,800 feet.

day 3 we headed southeast around kilimanjaro's main peak.  the hike took us close to the famed breach.  we took a side tour and climbed to the top of lava tower - so cool! (see pics).  we hit a peak of around 15,000 feet that day and the descended down toward our camp site.  minus the stomach bug (thank god for cipro even though they made me suffer for 36 hours first) and the 10+ hours of hiking for the day. it was awesome.

day 4 was a rest day for us and by rest i mean recovery 2 hour hike.  we stayed at the same campsite but this was an opportunity for most of us to have a light day before the next two days.

day 5 was a hike for about 5 hours to karanga valley camp.  the trail required climbing some cliff faces - which made us truly appreciate nature.  as i mentioned earlier, as a leadership venture, we rotated who was the leader of the day.  day 5 i was leader of the day with one of my classmates, bryan. our objective was to communicate info to the team, keep them motivated and accomplish our goal.  definitely took more energy to do that!



day 6 was a "short day" as we only hike 2.5 hours to barafu high camp - which is the camp we start from for summit day.  this was pretty high altitude and so we were moving pretty slowly.  we took naps in the afternoon and then had dinner so we could prepare for our night departure for the summit.

day 7 - SUMMIT day!  we left around 11:30pm to start our hike to the summit.  we used our headlamps to see most of the night although certain portions we turned them off and walked by moon light which was simply stunning.  the hike up is a little bit of a blur - i had some acute mountain sickness (aka hard to breathe) so i just kept putting one foot in front of the other to keep moving.  my water bottle froze over - too cold up there and i remember being freezing which was weird because every other day i usually wore less layers than most people. i remember seeing the sunrise as we approached stella point - which was the end of the major uphill section.  it was beautiful.  see pics!  once we reached stella point around 7:30 i believe we still had another hour hike to get to uhuru peak, the highest point.  along that hour long hike we saw some crazy glaciers, amazing views of africa and the crater.  getting to the peak was breathtaking - literally.  we arrived as a team which was a great culmination to the last few days.  i owe a huge thank you to everyone on our team for all their help making sure we summited.  there were about 4 of us that were not doing swell so apparently there was a point that we might not have made it up since they were afraid of us being at such high altitude for so long.

after the peak, we were not finished.  we had to hike down (in a way easier, in a way harder) past where we had camped the night before.  going down meant more oxygen, but very few of us had saved up energy (physically or mentally) for the long trek down.  we hiked downhill for about 7 hours that day. needless to say, we slept like babies that night.

day 8: the last day on the mountain.  we started off the day with a dance/song from the africans.  this was one of the songs (not from our trip, but actually some of the guys were the same!).  our guys were more animated.  after getting on our way, we hiked downhill for about 3.5 hours.  once we got to the bottom we had lunch and a gear exchange where we donated some of our stuff to the africans who they did a raffle for who got to decide which gear they wanted first.  hiking poles were popular despite the fact that they all made fun of us for using them on the trip.

most underappreciated items until we were on the mountain:
1. thick socks
2. hiking poles
3. the views - simply amazing
4. perfect weather - we had limited rain which was super lucky

while i would not claim to be an outdoor person by any means, this experience was amazing.  the views were unbelievable and i never knew it would be so easy to become one with nature.

also, the most exciting part of finishing and getting back to the hotel: a shower!  i dont think i have ever gone that long without a shower before. gross.

while my pictures are ad hoc throughout the trip, the below youtube video (from some random other trekkers) gives a pretty good overview of the experience.

note: i could probably write a novel on this experience, but for the readers sake i tried to keep it manageable.