Kilimanjaro Day 5- Summit Day

Woke up around 1am feeling ecstatic and ready for the summit! After a tiny breakfast of 2 chocolate creme cookies and some hot chocolate, our group started up at 2am. The winds had died down overnight, but it was still a bit chilly. This was pretty much the scene for the majority of the night while we were hiking:

Dark trail, dusty boots and bright headlamps! 

I could feel the altitude from about 17,000 ft to 18,000ft. Jon mentioned something about lots of shooting stars in the sky, but if I tried to take my focus from the headlamp-brightened trail ahead of me onto anything else around me, I'd have to stop and then restart hiking. I couldn't multi task one bit! I did have some thoughts of 'Why did I sign up for this?' and 'Why am I doing this?'. Mentally- it was exactly like the long, hard, later miles of a marathon. 

But- all of that came to end as soon as we came up onto the ridge, stella point (18,651ft). I was so zoned into the trail ahead of me that whenever we reached the stella point sign, I was clueless. I had no clue what was going on or why that sign was there. Were we at the top? I had to pause and think ‘Oh, right, this is stella point, the point before we reach the true summit.’ 

The cold wind on top of Kili soon demanded me to put on every single layer I had brought up- which meant my rain coat over my down coat! I knew it was going to be cold- but not that cold!

The sunrise was better than any Colorado sunrise and sunset combined. The way it was reflecting off of the crystals of frost up top is something a camera cannot reproduce. I was absolutely captured by the beauty of the snow glaciers I had heard about. I’m pretty sure I took one too many pictures of them!

 After reaching stella point, I continued to the true summit, Uhru Peak (19,341ft.). My pace was brisk and I didn't even realize I was at 19k ft. I passed lots of people who were going 'pole pole' to the summit.

At 6:45am, I finally reached the summit of Kilimanjaro. I had this great feeling of accomplishment and happiness. Snapped a few summit pictures, and then walked around a bit up top to take in everything- the scenery, sunrise, congratulations, etc. The wind was still present, so we got a quick group photo once everybody made it, then headed back down. 

Last few steps to the summit

PC: Jon Kedrowski

I slowly walked back down to stella point- trying to take in as much as I could. Everything happened so  fast it did not feel like real life! Spent about 30-45 minutes up top.

Back down to stella point, a few of us started heading back down. I stopped and turned around to wait on a few others, and thats when I saw one of our guides, Shafii, running down (I suppose to catch up with us). Well… that gave me an idea! I still felt great (not sore one bit), so whenever Shafii reached us, I asked if it was possible to run back down. He said absolutely- infact, if it was his choice, thats how he would descend all the time! So we both ran down from 18k ft to 15k, back to camp. I could not have asked for a better way to enhance my Kilimanjaro experience. It was so incredible to be flying down the side of Kili after summiting! What took a good 4 hrs to hike up, took us only 30minutes back down. I thanked Shafii many times back at camp as we waited on the others to make it back down. Enjoyed a cup of hot tea and sat and chatted/rested up for the rest of the morning before packing up and continuing on down another hour or so to our campsite at a lower elevation for the evening. 

Back down to trees!

Enjoyed a dinner of pumpkin soup with rice and veggie sauce, and we all went to bed early as we had a bit of a full day….

Kilimanjaro Day 6, Safari, and Zanzibar next post!