“The mountain doesn’t say you are black, you are white, you are weak, you are strong. It’s one rule for everybody. If you give up, you die.”
~ Nirmal Purja
I could feel the cold wind stinging my face as it swept across the miles of Savannah and rose high up to this desolate place, freezing everything in its path. No blade of grass, rock, or insect hiding in the ground could escape its harsh greeting. And for me, the highest thing on this mountain for miles around, it was chilling every part of my body from my eyebrows to the soles of my feet. All the layers of clothing in the world couldn’t protect me from its cold embrace.
All around us the night sky covered everything, like a blanket, with the stars poking tiny holes of light through the darkness onto the surrounding towns and villages far below. It truly felt like I was at the top of the world.
As I kept climbing, every step stole my breath away as the air in my lungs vanished into the thin atmosphere. At 19,341 feet (5,895 meters), the air is so thin that you feel like you’re dying, and it’s because at that altitude you are, because your brain is being starved of oxygen.
I wanted to stop and rest, but my mind was on just one thought.
We have to keep going.
That was the night that I submitted Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the seven summits of the world. Mt. Kilimanjaro, or “Kili” as we called it, rises up 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) above sea level and 16,100 feet (4,900 meters) above the surrounding savannahs. This makes it not only the tallest mountain in Africa, but the tallest free-standing mountain from base to summit in the world. And if anyone tells you that it’s an easy hike to the top because there is no technical climbing, well, they are wrong. I thought that before getting to the mountain, but climbing Kili was the hardest thing that I have ever done.
How did I get to the top of a mountain halfway across the world from my home you may ask?
Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved the mountains. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia during my younger years and eventually graduated to climbing more serious and dangerous peaks like Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, in winter, and La Plata Peak, Colorado, in winter as well. The thrill of feeling the cold fresh wind on your face and seeing such a beautiful part of God’s creation was something that I loved.
I had made it a goal to eventually climb K2, one of the most dangerous and difficult mountains to climb in the world as well as being the second highest after Everest, and I wasn’t going to just walk up to it and start climbing. I had to start practicing, and at this point in my life I was ready for my first high-altitude mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro.
So, in late November, I hopped on a plane from my home of Accra, Ghana, and flew to Nairobi, Kenya, and then to Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania. Disembarking the plane, you would not think Africa’s tallest mountain was there as the airfield was surrounded by vast savannahs filled with elephants and lions.
But surely, in the distance, rose Mt. Kilimanjaro towering like a monster over the flat plains below. I couldn’t really comprehend that I would be going to the top of it.
The company I was going with, (You can’t climb Kili without a local guide, and I would not recommend it), picked me up from the airport and brought me to the town of Moshi, Tanzania.
A quant little town in the shadow of the mountain, this is where I rested before my climb and got used to the cooler weather compared to the brutal heat of the Ghana lowlands. I then met my guide Laraha, who would become one of my good friends, and prepared all my gear for the trip. You have to bring everything up there on the mountain, because there is no easy way to bring supplies. I would be climbing the mountain with myself, Laraha, a cook, and 6 local porters. This may seem like a lot of people, but it provides jobs for the people living in Moshi, and I couldn’t have done it without each of these guys.
The plan was for us to climb the mountain in 9 days taking the longer Northern Circuit route around the untouched back of the mountain on the Kenya side. The mountain sits on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, but most people just take the quick routes of 5-6 days up the Tanzanian side of the mountain and never fully get to see her beauty. I wanted a quieter more adventurous route, so that’s why I went to the other side, and it was definitely worth it.
Now, in other future posts I will write more about the journey, but today I want to tell you about the final day of the adventure. Summit Day.
After hiking for 6 days, we finally reached Kibo Hut Base Camp located at 15,486 feet (4,720 meters) above sea level. This would be our stepping off place for the push to the summit.
At this point, I had gone 6 days without showering, feeling nauseous, and using every bit of energy I had in my body to hike 37.3 miles (60 kilometers) and 10,348 feet (3,155 meters) of elevation in that time frame rather than the 8 days most people usually take to get there. Exhausted was not a big enough word for how I felt. I was ready to reach the summit. Yet still, as I lay in my tent that day waiting for the midnight hour to start climbing, I was nervous. An extra 3,741 feet (1,140 meters) was a lot of climbing left to do.
At 11 PM that night, I got out of my tent with Laraha and one of the porters, and we started on our way to the top. There was not another soul in sight. The other groups were waiting until 12 AM to start, so it was just us, the black volcanic sand, and the cold breeze blowing across the mountain. It was one of the darkest nights I have seen, but the stars were beautiful, and they lit up the path for us. As we climbed higher, I could see the nearby towns of Moshi, Tanzania, and Oloitokitok, Kenya, on either side of the mountain. It was absolutely stunning.
As we got higher, the slope got steeper and the cold got more intense. Up to this point it had been cold and even had snowed one night, but as we got high up on the peak summit night, the temperatures dropped to a balmy -4 to -13°F (-20 to -25°C) with the wind chill coming across the savannahs. It was so cold that everything on my body began to freeze, including my eyebrows. I remember wondering if this is what frost bite felt like.
The intense cold put me in a very peculiar predicament as the air began to thin and breathing became quite difficult. I had a balaclava to cover the lower half of my face, but the air was so thin that when I wore it, I felt like I was suffocating. If I didn’t, it felt like I would for sure have frostbite. In the end, I chose breathing over the frostbite and managed the cold as best as I could.
After what felt like hours, at about 3 AM in the morning, we reached the rim of the volcano (Mt. Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano). It was so steep here that I felt that if I were to lean backwards, I would fall miles down the mountain. I was so exhausted and cold at this point that I was sitting to take a breather every couple of steps. It was time for me to make a decision.
I never thought the climb would be this hard, but as I sat there on the rim of the crater I had to summon all of the energy in my body to keep going. It was so difficult that I really didn’t know if I would make it. So me, Laraha, and the porter said a prayer for our safety and decided to keep going. Without them I wouldn’t have made it to the top of that mountain, and I probably would have never made it off the mountain.
At this altitude, people that are not exposed to high altitudes often, like me, can succumb to High Altitude Sickness and pass away. And when you’re that far away from the nearest medical facility, this is a true concern. I didn’t feel great at that point in time, but I relied on God to help me safely get up and down the mountain.
After we crossed into the rim of the crater, the entire world up there changed. Everything, and truly everything, was covered in snow, ice, and a deep white mist that turned our visibility into about 3 steps in front of our face. At this point, Laraha became increasingly worried about frostbite as the sun still had a few hours to come up. It was up to us to keep moving to stay warm. So, we continued.
We pushed on passing more climbers finally as we approached the top, and we stopped near Stella Point. This is where I began to think we would make it. We huddled with fellow climbers behind a rock to drink some tea, the best tea I have ever had, and then pushed on a few more miles to the top as the sun came up.
With the sun came the warmth, but the visibility never cleared, so as we finally made it to the summit there was no view. But all I needed was to see that we had made it and to see the smiles on my friend’s faces. We had made it and we were still alive. We took a few pictures, enjoyed the moment, and began the long journey back down the mountain, a story for another day.
As we were up on that mountain in the cold dark night, I remember two specific things:
There will come things that are harder than you ever imagine, and if you do them alone you may not succeed.
God is everywhere. Especially in beautiful places like Mt. Kilimanjaro.
A part of me will always stay up on that mountain, listening as the whispers of the African savannah flow high up around the rocks and snow, sharing the wonders of He who created it.
