Kilimanjaro Day 3

The morning of day three we awoke to the whole camp looking like an ice wonderland. Light sleet was falling, much to nervous excitement. We had been hoping for some snow, so we could 'train' for our other mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first two days were tough due the rapid accent (800m to 4200m in 2 days).

 We hit bad weather on day 3.  The day even though everything was covered in ice, started off quiet promising. Rachel and Sean had been up early and managed to catch a spectacular sun rise opposite Kilimanjaro.  Rachel called me and luckily I had managed to catch it on film.  

 

We got ready for breakfast and the rain started to set in.  Thomas our head guide informed us as we all sat huddled in the mess tent that we need to wait a short while for it to stop raining. 

 

 

 

 We were on our way shortly afterwards. We had to climb up a rock face 800m up in the now pouring rain, heavy mist carrying our soaked  12 kg backpacks with no ropes to keep us safe. It was shear madness and extremely dangerous.  This was just the beginning.  At the same time this was fantastically exciting.  As already mentioned I am terrified of heights, hate small spaces and anything that I have no control of actually.  I quietly thanked God for small mercies, because of the thick mist and heavy rain, we could not see how far we could fall to our deaths.  All the guys with the exception of one had rocked climbed and being involved in some kind of extreme sport, adventure, this made us feel safe.  Sean was next to me and guided me on the rock face.  Because our sponsorship for equipment had not come through we were climbing in our steel capped rescue boots.  This proved difficult when we had to wedge your feet into and onto 2cm ledges to balance yourself as you transfered to the next level. Our woolen gloves  were soaked and our fingers frozen, this made it difficult to dig your fingers into the crags and cracks to pull yourself out. The relentless rain made the rocks very difficult and slippery,not to mentioned loose.  You had to make absolutely sure that little rock you were about to hang onto was secure, your life depended on it. The guys were fantastic, even though we found out later they were as terrified and as worried as we were, they encouraged us and made us feel, this was just a Sunday afternoon play time.  When you look back at the 5 or so photos taken once we had safely scrambled to the top of the face plateau, it is very visible from the look of terror on everyones face that we had indeed looked into the face of danger, and no one was actually laughing.  All our gear that had been lent to us, which was promised to be waterproof had turned out to be useless.  All our summit gear was soaked.  We had even covered our backpacks with their own built in raincoats, which had failed us dismally. We were wet, tired and I am not afraid to tell you, but terrified at what lay ahead. The jovial behavior, the jokes, the look of shiny excitement in everyones eyes and faces, had dulled and reality was now sinking in, what had we let ourselves in for. I was having serious doubts as to our preparation.  For us just raising the funds in order for us to be standing here on the top of hell, soaked like drowned rats, had been a mini everest, this all paled now. Everyone sat exhausted in silence, in their own mad thoughts.

 

We walked for some time in the drizzle, the mist had somewhat cleared and in the distance we could hear our porters shouting to one another, their voices echoing in the mist, giving us hope that camp and shelter was not far away.  Gone were the lushness of the mountain, she had opened up a different world to us and would reveal so much more of her beauty and her ugliness in not too distant future. She would bare our souls and open wounds that in the end would only be healed as we sat on the summit, feeling God's powerful presence.

 

We all dinner without the usual gaiety. Everyone was exhausted. Thomas, Frank and Paul came into our mess tent for nightly debriefing. They started off by telling us that we had all impressed them with our calmness and the way in which we had handled todays challenge.  They also mentioned that this was an exceptional group. Groups had started to fragment at this stage with various individuals breaking off into separate groups or alone.  He said we were more like a family and supported each other. Luckily for us this would continue and without this family support none of us would have made it to the top. 


Sadly during our trip Thomas told us that many of the tourists, especially the Americans, spoke down at them and argued continually with them.  I could not understand how people could do this, here you have guides like Thomas, (summited more than 1000 summits,) and Paul and Frank (nearly 1000 summits between them) and you feel the need to question their enormous experience, then knowledge of the mountain. The times on the mountain where we could not see one foot in front of the other, they instinctively knew were to step, where the path was even though  there was not one.  When I reflect back, Thomas, Paul and Frank must have been angels that God himself had handpicked for our African adventure.

We then arrived at our camp for the night tired cold and wet, not a great combination.  All our backpacks even though they had a waterproof covering were soaked. Our down jackets had also got wet.