Climbing Kilimanjaro: Machame Route
During my climb of the Machame Route on Mt. Kilimanjaro (began January 21st, 2008) I kept a journal of my experience on the mountain. Here is what I wrote in the journal (with certain exclusions).
Day 1 – Machame Gate to Machame Hut
It’s the morning of our second day of the trek. Last night my headache was too bad to write. I’m not quite sure why it was so bad, we are only at 9,300 ft. At any rate, I feel much better today, hopefully I won’t feel it again.
The first days trek took us from the Machame Gate to the Machame Hut. There are quite a few people on the trail with us. Most are doing 6 day treks. We went very “pole, pole” or “slowly, slowly”, but this was probably good. It seemed that our guide and porters were struggling, not as fit as in Peru it would seem (they are also much taller than those in Peru). The trek was not terrible, but I could feel it in my knees as I tried to sleep. Sleeping was not so bad and I am enjoying my sleeping bag & pad. I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (I drank a lot of water) and the moon was beautiful. It lit up everything, hardly a need for a light. David thought it was morning well before we were intended to wake up from all the light.
The next few days are easy compared to yesterday, and that was not particularly bad. We did the 7 hour trek in 5 hours total with 4 hours of hiking. Perhaps we will take day trips to see more of the mountain.
Day 2 – Machame Hut to Shira Camp
We wake up and get a great breakfast. The hike takes us out of the jungle and into the moorlands. The terrain is quite rocky in certain parts and I am feeling quite well. Again, we do not stop for water breaks like the other groups, likely due to our good pace. I am beginning to enjoy our pace, we make good time but are not exhausted. Many groups pass us, but we arrive before them as they stop to break. It reminds me of the tortious and the hare. Once at Shira Camp we meet 2 Norweigen girls. I begin talking to them and ask them to come on a side trek with us out to the Shira Needle, or ‘cacerno’, as the locals call it. Thomas, our waiter/porter is a 23 year old who has pretty good english. He accompanied us as our guide on the side trek. The trek takes almost 3 1/2 hours, the same amount of time it took s to reach camp. The girls didn’t tell their guide and he was worried when we came back. I had a case of diarrhea, which left me feeling quite bad the rest of the night. I took some medicine and woke up feeling much better.
Day 3 – Shira Camp to Barranco Camp
The trek takes us from 3800 meters up to 4600 meters at the Lava Tower and then back down to about 3900 meters at the Barranco Camp. The treak is mostly barren other than boulders strewn all around the trail. We go on a side trip up to Lava Tower where we eat lunch with the Norwegian girls. Feeling confident after doing almost a double trek the day before, we decide to scale Lava Tower, which took a bit of climbing skill. It was a lot of fun but very exhausting. The trip down from there gave us a chance to use our poles, which was quite good as my knees were suffering from the downhill trek. I got a bad headache once again once arriving at Barranco, which has not subsided much, even as of this writing. Each night I don’t feel very good and then each morning I feel fine. It has resulted in me eating little at night. Tonight David and I took a Diamox pill, it felt like all I could do to stop the oncoming problems.
Day 4 – Barranco to Barafu Camp
The original idea of a 7-day trip was cut back to 6 days. The trip from Barranco to Barafu was short enough that we could just stop at Karanga Valley, the intended stop for lunch. The trip from Barranco to Karanga took us directly up the wall facing camp. An intimidating presence, we managed to make it up without much trouble. After arriving in Karanga, we waited for quite a while for lunch, so long in fact that we were driven out of camp by the afternoon rains that creep up the valley. Once we got to a pretty decent altitude (~4100 meters), the rain turned to hail and snow. Luckily, our rain gear worked quite well and we stayed dry. Honestly, what terrible luck, just when we didn’t want to get wet it starts to precipitate. After arriving at Barafu Camp we just wanted to sleep but they fed us again. I had regained my appetite and managed to eat quite a bit. Dinner ended at about 7 or 7:30 pm, leaving us just 3 hours of sleep before the summit.
Day 5 – Barafu to Uhuru Peak to Mweka Camp (Summit Day)
This morning I woke up at 11:00 pm so it was technically last night. At about 12:15 pm we got on the trail. The moon was big and bright (the reason we chose this date for the climb), but for some reason the stars looked sparse to me. David thought there were many, who knows. I was feeling pretty good, even though my legs were a bit cold. David on the other hand had taken his malaria medicine (Malarone) on an empty stomach, making him feel quite dizzy.
As much as I tried to push him, he just couldn’t make it. So Joshua (our guide) and I continued on, while David headed back to get some more rest. It wasn’t long, however, before the freezing weather, lack of sleep and painful trek caught up with me too. Roughly 3 hours in, I started feeling quite sick to my stomach and had a headache. Almost every 30 minutes or less I would ask how close we were and Joshua’s responses were getting shorter and shorter (I think he was a little perturbed).
Each step was taken for itself. It was so painful that to even continue the only thing I could think of to lessen the pain was something that would hurt me more. My pain was diverted mentally for the time being. My vision was blurred and my balance was definitely off, yet I managed to push on to Stella Point, the place where everyone says if you make it to then Uhuru Peak (the summit) is a sure thing. Far from a sure thing in my mind at the time, the best description of the trek thus far is from Jon Krakauer, when he said ‘Kilimanjaro is grueling.’ After reaching Uhuru Peak and taking pictures I found an irresistible joy and smile consume me. All I wanted was to share my happiness, once again reaffirming ‘Into the Wild’, happiness is only real when shared.
Day 6 – Mweka Camp to Mweka Gate
The completion of the trip was a steep and rapid descent to the Mweka Camp where we stayed for one night, followed by a 2-3 hour descent to the Mweka Gate where we caught up with our driver, received our certificate and tipped the porters, cook and guides. All in all it was an extremely enjoyable experience with a few challenges (like the fried food), but certainly rewarding.
