Mount Kilimanjaro: The Grand Finale!

 If you follow my on social media, you already know that I summited Mt. Kilimanjaro and reached the highest point in Africa, in fact, here is a picture to remind you....

What you don't know, however, is what it took to get there.

Let's start with Day 5 on the mountain. Day 5 is a weird day. You get up early, you hike only 4ish kilometers, and then you arrive at camp and sit down to lunch/dinner. You're probably thinking what a nice short day, gets lost of rest before the summit....yes and no. After lunch you have a little down time, and then you go to sleep at 5 pm, so that you can wake up around 11 pm to head to the summit.

At lunch/dinner our guides tried to prepare us for way lay ahead, a long slow journey to the top. They told us to wear all of our clothes, seriously they said all of your clothes, to make sure that we drank a liter of water before we left, and that there would be no breakfast (breakfast would've been at 11pm), only snacks. They also told us that they were bringing us extra help to get up the mountain, it became a whole staff event because our cooks came with us to the top. 

It was very hard to plan what to take with you and what to wear, because you just didn't know how you were going to feel. Was I going to be nauseous? Was it going to be hard to breathe? Was I going to get cold? I decided to wear my 2 thickest pair of wool socks, my skiing balaclava, ALL of my pants (5 pairs in total), 3 shirts, my winter puffy coat, and my rain jacket. I packed a few snacks, and made sure I had enough water. Then I tried to sleep. Before I knew it, it was go time!

It was 11/12ish and pitch black. We put our packs on and headed up the mountain. We were going from about 14,500 ft of altitude to a little over 19,000 feet. I told you all in a previous entry what Pole means, well we truly were going pole pole (slowly slowly). I stayed towards the beginning of the group, because you get to make more stops. Here is a view of the night climb up...

Yes, we were headed allllllll the way up there. As we climbed upwards, the altitude getting higher and higher, some girls started getting light headed, some were nauseous, some started giving their backpacks to our guides to take up for them. I was good though. Luckily I never felt nauseous or super sick at all. 

One of guides, Killian, was blasting music as we headed up which definitely helped as we put 1 foot in front of the other, very very slowly. 

Eventually daylight began to break and we saw one of the most beautiful sun rises ever, this photo doesn't do it any justice

This was about half way maybe, you'll see in another photo that the peak behind us, gets a bit smaller. 

We continued up the mountain for what felt like an eternity. It took us 9 hours to reach Stella Point, which is the top of the mountain. 

From Stella Point we would continue on for about another 30 minutes through the snow at 19,000 feet to reach the highest point in Africa, Uhuru Peak. 

I almost didn't go. I almost stayed with a couple of the other girls at Stella Point, I was thinking 'hey, I technically made it, why should I go on' but I am oh so glad I did. 

The hike to Uhuru Peak was pretty easy, and along the way we saw sooo many GLACIERS! They were so blue and beautiful, and there were like 5 different ones you could see around the crater. 

The snow was so frozen on the top of the mountain that made weird little frozen snow mounds. 

Once we reached the peak, spirits were high and everyone was so excited. We took pictures and looked around, but we were only there for a few minutes. You can't hang out at the top for too long, because there is much less oxygen and the chances of sick increase by the second. 

Which means, it was time to go down. Before I left for Africa, I'd heard about how hard it is to come down the mountain, but nothing prepared me for how exhausted I was. After hiking super slowly to the top for about 10 hours, it was now time to descend, very very quickly. 

The dirt going down the mountain turns into a kind of loose dirty ash, and it was easiest to slide my feet down until they stopped using my poles for support. My quads were burning, and all I wanted was a break. I fell a few times, and also gave one of our guides my pack to carry. This guide was my downward saviour. He was young and chatty, and also a great protector all those times that I fell. 

Once we get back down to the camp that we had left about 12 hrs earlier, our journey wasn't over. We had to pack up, and continue to head down the mountain. This day was by far the longest and most exhausting, but in the end, oh so very worth it. We landed on a new camp where we would stay the night, and then the next day we would have 7 miles until we were back in civilization. 

This camp had all new trees that surrounded our tents and gave us a nice view. It was a pleasant chance from the snow and rocks that we had seen that whole day. 

We had a nice full dinner and everyone slept very soundly. We were ready for our final descent down the mountain. Not too far in we started to get more and more into tall trees that seemed to be reaching for the sun.

I became obsessed with all of the new vegetation I was seeing, including this tree that has black flowers on it. I'm still not sure if they are truly black or if maybe there were just dead, but I loved seeing them as we passed by. 

Before we knew it we were back in the jungle, and in the jungle there are monkeys. It took awhile but we eventually saw a family of monkeys high up in the tree above us. There were about 6 of them, and they had long white bushy tails with black and white faces. As we passed through the jungle the trees became bigger and rounder, and the trail became flatter and muddier. 

A sign arose in the distance, we had made it all the way back down the mountain. We did it, we successfully summited Mount Kilimanjaro!

Like we did at all of the camps along the way, we had to sign in at the bottom of the mountain. This would ensure us our certificate of summit from Tanzania. Our gracious guides threw us a mini celebration which included champagne, cake, and snacks before we would load our busses back to the hotel.

That night they threw us a big bash with a whole roasted goat, and gave us all our certificates. 

We said our goodbyes to the team that took us to the top, and we called it a night. Some of us were continuing on to go on a safari, some of us were going to other places, but I was ready to go home. The next day I relaxed by the pool and got a massage. I reflected on what I had just done, and headed back to the US with a new outlook on life, that EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE!