Standing on the Roof of Africa

After seven arduous days on the Machame Route, we successfully scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro, and on a memorable date no less! We both agreed that it was one of the most difficult challenges we have successfully completed and it took every ounce of strength we had to do it. Our trek, which departed on Sunday, was originally planned to take 6 days, but after experiencing symptoms of acute mountain sickness by Day 3, we opted to extend our trip to 7 days. Here’s a quick recap… Day 1: We departed Machame Gate at an elevation of 1800m with our guide (Adam), assistant guide (Dao), and fellow climbers from the Netherlands (Tom and Marielle). A team of porters, 13 in total, preceded us to our first camp, Machame Hut, at an elevation of 3,000m. Day 2: After a very healthy breakfast of porridge, toast and eggs, we started off for our next camp, Shira Hut at 3800m. This day was a little steeper, but we were all feeling well when we arrived and narrowly missed a hail storm which began just as we arrived at camp and were safely in our tents. Day 3: This was a big acclimatization day. We would be climbing up to the junction at 4400m and then planned to continue on to the Lava Tower, an addition 200m in elevation at 4600m before heading down to Barranco Camp at 3800m to sleep. Unfortunately, the increase in elevation did not agree with most of us. We arrived at the junction for lunch with headaches and Christine experienced some nausea and sickness at 4400m. We made the decision to skip the Lava Tower and head down to camp for the night. Scott was feeling a bit nauseous at dinner and Christine continued to get sick that night. At the end of the day, we decided to break up the following day’s hike into two segments, essentially adding one more day to our overall trip. Day 4: Still nauseous and unable to hold down breakfast, we continued on. Our first obstacle of the day was the Barranco Wall which led us up to an elevation of 4200m. We had a short day of hiking and arrived at Karanga Valley in the early afternoon. Most groups continue on to Barufu in the afternoon and begin their ascent to the summit on this evening, but we instead camped at Karanga for the night, regaining our energy for the days ahead. Day 5: Another short day of hiking up to Barufu Hut, where we arrived in the early afternoon. We had a nap and an early dinner before preparing to start our ascent at 11:30 p.m. Day 6: It was an arduous climb, but 8 hours later, we had successfully scaled the final 1200m to Stella Point (5700m) and onto Uhuru Peak (5895m), the highest peak in Africa and the top of the highest free-standing mountain in the world! We returned to Barufu Hut after a 4 hour descent to singing porters and a warm lunch…it had been almost 20 hours since our last meal! Unfortunately, we were all too exhausted to eat and crashed in our tents for a few hours before we packed up and continued our descent to High Camp at 3900m. Day 7: Only a 5 hour walk down to Mweka Gate this day seemed longer than we wished, but we were so happy to arrive back in Moshi in the evening to have a hot shower and a real bed!

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