Reflections from Kilimanjaro

Climbing mountains is bucket list sort of stuff for most people, and while the idea of climbing Everest or another 8000m Himalayan monster had sprung into my mind on occasion, it never amounted to anything more than a day dream while extremely bored at work, something to fantasize about to make the day go faster.

Earlier in March (2023), Trish and I bought a new house and moved states to Colorado. In the middle of the move, I found out about the opportunity to go to Tanzania in Africa and Climb Kilimanjaro at 5895m or 19341ft if you are American. I lit up the bat signal, the lads responded… game on, let's tackle one of the 7 summits and the worlds tallest freestanding mountain.

As an auspicious sign of our future success, and in typical fashion for all great adventures, Cleat and I had our bags get lost by the airline, It took 3 days to get them back, luckily we arrived 3 days before the trek, though it was disappointing to wear the same clothes in Africa for three days, I must admit, we got lucky with the weather and climate being very mild.

One thing I was really looking forward to, was disconnecting from the internet, and the 2 weeks we were in Africa, we only had the net for 3 days I think. The thought of disconnecting for most I think is too daunting, too much fear of missing out, maybe just pure addiction to social media. The longer I was disconnected, the more relief I felt. It is quite reassuring to know that social media isn't real life, I don’t need it, and my life is fine without it. Though I must admit, as someone who is a globe trekker, having it is a great way to keep in touch with your family and friends, but I don't think it is as important as we believe.

Although we arrived to Moshi, Tanzania 3 days early, we never got to see Kili until we set off in the van the morning of day 1. It was just constantly covered by cloud and mist, making it all the more mysterious.

Outskirts of Moshi, Tanzania

I can't reiterate enough, photos just don’t do the mountain any justice at all. One minute we were talking all sorts of nonsense in the van, the next we were all speechless when the clouds parted and we were greeted by the mountain.

First view of Kilimanjaro from the Van, day 1.

It towered over us, and I must admit, my first thought was, holy$%^& we are going to climb that! I did my best to contain my excitement, and not get worked up, we still had a 3 hour around the world van ride to our first gate and starting point of our week long ascent of the mountain.

Our journey started being greeted by the locals, kunguru in Swahili, or white necked raven in English. These massive ravens were rather curious, and we soon learned that they followed every group in the park, for a chance at something to scavenge.
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First gate with the lads

Kunguru (Swahili), the White Necked Raven. 

​And so we began, and after about 100m, we learned a very famous swahili expression, Pole Pole (poley poley), meaning slowly. I must say it was infuriating walking slow, we were all very excited and just wanted to crush the ascent. And we were being held back to this ¼ gait walk. Why must we walk so slowly… The walk is so slow and the gait so unusual, you felt like you were in a David Attenborough documentary about the march of the penguins, clumsily moving along with the grace of an apple being rolled along the ground.

March of the penguins has begun.

I want to get one thing out of the way before I forget, we took the 7 day 6 night Lemosho route. And from the first steps there was a lot of dust, I mean like moon dust, it gets everywhere, you will breathe it in, it will block your nose, irritate your eyes, and eventually make you cough. It was unrelenting,  bring something to cover your mouth (buff) and protect your nose from dryness (some sort of vaseline rub). Sunglasses are a must when it is windy as well.

First night was probably the coldest sleep we had, it was mega windy, and we were a bit exposed, after that, it was pretty alright at night time. The camps themselves, we were assigned tents and camp mates, I was lucky and got Chris, one of my closest friends, so at least I knew what I was getting, some got unlucky, like my brother in law, lets just say that he got stuck with a chainsaw, and was lucky to get 1-2 hours of a sleep a night due to his camp mate snoring so loudly, that it kept everyone else awake in other tents. This is why you should always bring ear plugs camping. Just to add a note, you can pay extra and get your own personal tent that you don’t have to share. Two people in our group did this, but do note, it's only a thin sheet of vinyl that your tent is made from, so if you get stuck 3ft from a snoring monster, you wont sleep either like my brother in law. Tents were paired together for the lavatory, so you had two tents about 4 people per private lav. All meals and meetings were held in the main tent/kitchen tent. Besides hiking and sleeping, this is where we spent all our free time making friends and telling endless dits about the day's shenanigans.
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Altitude, honestly for me, I felt fine the whole trip with regards to altitude, I actually live and sleep higher in Colorado than the first two days of the trek, so I wasn't worried at all. Rather unusually I slept really well during the whole trip. At home I sleep very poorly, 2-3 hours at most. On the mountain I was sleeping for at least 8-10 hours. It was great to be honest. But I feel I am an outlier there, as lots of the guys would start gasping for air and hyperventilating in their sleep for the first few nights and would awake with a racing heart rate, until their bodies adapted to the altitude. We probably spent more than half the trek sleeping around 3600m or 12k feet or higher..

Terrain, day 3 the terrain started to become a little more difficult for myself, and day 4 it became really hard for me. Without discussing my private life online, I’ll just say I have a medical condition which affects my pelvis and left leg, very badly. And the steepness of the terrain, made it very hard going for me. Days 4,5 and 6 (Summit) I walked with a guide only  for 5-8 hours a day, just the guide and myself, the group was too fast for me to keep up with

So while it sucked not to be with my mates and new friends on Kili, I also kind of got my own private guided trek of the mountain. So while it was lonely, and took away any cameradie I could have experienced with the group, as usual, I found solace in my own company and just used the isolation to forge my spirit, as always. As my teacher Kacem Zoughari likes to say, many people may walk the path, all striving for the same “purpose”, but you have to walk it alone.

Now for a change of pace, I want to talk about bunnies! That's right, rabbits.
Depending on the day, you typically did 2 med checks a day, sometimes 3. Because it is very cold, you need warm hands for the Oximeter they stick on your finger (O2 Saturation reader), they use bunny rabbit water bottles to not only warm the device, but your hands also. But wait, the best is yet to come, at night after dinner, just as you are leaving to go to bed, everyone is given their own bunny hot water bottle to throw into their sleeping bags. I know it sounds ridiculous, but just having that little bit of comfort for 20 mins before sleep was great, I found it too hot to keep in there all night, I think most of the lads would agree with me, but I believe the ladies on our trip would disagree. Long story short, the bunnies were a nice treat.

I know it doesn't look bad, but honestly this pace is so hard to walk at, you don't get a full stride and you really feel the need to want to stretch out and go faster.

Day 4 was a real struggle for me,I couldn't keep up, the group was too fast for my leg. I tried my best to the point of exhaustion to keep up, but it just made it a lot worse for me, to the point of exhaustion. Our goal for the day was to walk high to the lava tower, then descend and sleep low. The terrain was alien, like something out of a Tolkien novel, the road to Mordor.

Evening of night 4 the clouds dispersed and we got to see Kili again in all its heavenly glory. Our camp was positioned at the bottom of a 300-400m tall cliff face, where we learned we would scramble up it the next morning. I resigned myself to the fact of being left behind by the group as soon as I wasn't able to keep up, which happened after about 150m of elevation. No photo or video I took shows how steep and impressive this part of the trek was. I really enjoyed the scramble, even though it was hard for me, and I was absolutely blown away by the porters ability to climb this with no hands, carrying so much weight.
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Our home away from home for the week. Super comfy and not a bad place to crash.

The way to Mordor

The Lava Tower

3-400m cliff we Scrambled morning of day 5

Crowded Cliffs

Rest of day 5 after the scramble was pretty easy, about a 4.5km trek, mostly flat, except for the last 150m of elevation. It felt good to finally keep up with the group again except for the last bit. We rested early, and got up around 11pm to get ready for the 12am start on the summit.

I was able to keep with the group for about 2 hours on summit morning. Around 2am I started falling more and more behind, I was freezing cold, no matter how hard I worked and what layers I had on, I couldn't get warm. My guide checked my temp, then removed his own jacket, took 3 shirts off and then put them on me, my rental puffer jacket zipper had broken, and it would not close, he threw the shirts on over me, to get me warmer and keep my jacket closed.

The reason I was almost hypothermic was simply that my leg was swollen so much, that my blood flow was restricted and was pooling in my left leg, leaving not much blood flow for my other limbs and core. Every step I took was agony, like being stabbed in the thigh and hip crease on every step, coupled with nonstop and uncontrollable shivering until the sun rose.

Kili at night, towering...

Jay Morton, exploring the alienscape and taking cool photos for us.

Guides and porters from a different company, playing checkers with bottle caps, where there is a will, there is a way.

Chris putting holes in himself

Sunset on Kili day 5

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Kili Sunset day 5

Sunrise on summit day, 200m of elevation to go.

Uhuru peak, the highest point of the worlds tallest freestanding mountain.

Glacier on the summit

Now don’t let any of that fool you into thinking I am some sort of tough or stoic bastard. I would not have summited or even made it through the night without Jonas, my guide, I genuinely believe he saved my life and also got me to the top. I am forever indebted to him.

I summited about 60 mins after most of my group, the only people I beat to the top had bad D&V or pneumonia. My official time for summiting was 7:27am, about 7hrs 20 mins after setting off. It was pretty hard being at the top by myself, I had no one to share the moment with. I am not one to praise myself or the things I do, but I honestly was expecting to feel some sort of accomplishment, but instead, I kind of just felt lonely being there by myself. I took a few photos of Uhuru Peak and the surrounding glaciers, then started the descent.
The path you take down is a scree slope of about 800m-1000m of very soft sand. For me my leg was toast, it had no strength left and was super tight. While almost everyone else in my group got back down in about 2-3 hours (around 9am), it took me until 1130am to get back, I was totally smoked. 
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Iphone compass Elevation, I have zero idea which is more accurate, the phone or the sign.

Gross freaky leg!

After a 2 hour rest we headed off for bottom camp, I have to admit, this was terrible, the path was man made, it made no sense, just a poor mix of concrete and cobblestone, but like it was dumped with no planning, and apparently this is the good path for medical stretchers…It was just hard going. At bottom camp, I went to bed early to read and be by myself, which is kind of strange, as I was just complaining about being myself… I just needed some time to gather my thoughts and calm down…

In the morning we set off, it was about 10km back to the bottom gate and park exit. It was all downhill and slippery in parts due to the clay/mud track. This was the only time on the whole trek that our trusted guides and porters took a few spills, the mountain seems to take its toll on everyone eventually. This is where I would like to emphasize that you really need to listen to your guides, they are experts who have summited hundreds of times. We saw an older gentleman (from another trekking group), insisting on walking his way, where he wanted to go, and let’s just say, in the span of 60 seconds, we saw him fall 5 times and eat the ground hard every time, because he knew better. Once the bottleneck he created provided an opening, just by following my guide, we were out of there in no time, and we didn't fall once. Listen to the guides.

The final 10k was through a really pretty rainforest, I was the fourth to the bottom, I was surprised the main group was about 50 mins behind me, the die hards were first, I think it took me about 2.5hrs to cover this 10k, if it wasnt slippery in parts it would have been a 2 hour walk easy.

Funny story time, at the bottom, these kids were washing everyone's boots, whether you wanted them to or not, they did it anyway, then wanted money of course…. I think Chris ended up paying like 3 times for his boots to be cleaned, as he paid one kid, but another did ​the work, then another claim they did it…. Not a bad little racket they had going, I think those lads must clean up quite well!!

The porters were absolutely amazing, the fitness they displayed was incredible to see. They carried 15kg packs on their backs and then 18kg on their heads using no hands, they would practically run uphill ahead of you and have camp set up before you arrived. It was really impressive. They earned every dollar they made from bloody hard work, never complained and were always smiling and singing. I was more than happy to pay them very generous tips, they deserved it and more!!

We had a really crazy crew of people from all around the world, Australia, USA, Lebanon, Tajikistan, UK, South Africa and Spain. Amazingly everyone got on really well, supported each other and I believe some great lifelong friendships began. Many laughs were shared, it was a great group!

It was the hardest thing I have ever done given my medical condition, Every step from day 3 onwards was agony, I walked it alone with no one to share it with, part of me feels bitter about this, but part of me knew this was par for this course, everything I have ever done in my life has been on my own, why would I expect this to be any different. I don't feel any sense of accomplishment about it at all, I suppose I am too Australian to have tickets on myself, I must admit though, I did doubt if I would make it come day 4, I was so slow and in so much pain. I have never quit anything in my life, and I wasn't going to start on the mountain.

A mentor I have from another life, someone who has been instrumental in reshaping my thoughts and beliefs after falling ill after moving to America is John McPhee, a retired Delta Force Operator and Sgt Mjr. He is a legend in the Special Operations community.

John McPhee Team SOB swag on, got to represent the people and companies you love!

I made it using advice John gave out “there is nothing so hard, that you couldn’t do it today!”  I survived without quitting, because I started living in the moment, not worrying about tomorrow and just focussing on one step at a time, and “letting it go”. Every time it was too painful to carry on, I just said there is nothing so hard, that I couldn’t do it today, and kept pushing myself to the next checkpoint. John McPhee absolutely got me to the top of the mountain, I said that mantra hundreds of times during the trek, it worked for me. John, thank you for getting me to the top.

Jonas, my new friend and personal guide on the mountain, thank you for saving my life and helping me summit, I couldn't have done it without you.

Jay Morton, thanks for leading our trek. You were outstanding, a true gentleman, always squared away and super funny, though I don’t understand your fetish about spoons… I can’t wait to adventure with you again mate, it was quality!

Jay with his Spoon

Lastly, I want to thank my fellow Kili Conquerors, you are all a bunch of weirdos, but I love each and every one of you. I hope this isn't the last of our shenanigans, but the start of many more to come.

I highly recommend the Kilimanjaro trek with Elite Exped, run by former SBS soldier Nimsdai Purja, of 14 peaks on Netflix fame. Jay Morton being former British SAS was outstanding and I cannot wait to hit the road with Jay and the lads again for some more cool adventures.

My takeaway is this, be kind to everyone you meet. If you want to do something that others think is crazy or beyond your means, don’t listen to them. Get training, get advice then get moving and crush your goals, no matter what they are or wherever they are, because “there is nothing so hard, that you couldn’t do it today”. 

Gray

The mighty Jonas and myself, at the bottom gate. This man is amazing. Thank you Jonas for getting me there!