We started for the summit at midnight and walked by the full moon following the winding switchbacks in a long snaking line of more than a hundred of trekkers. Along the way we were serenaded by 3 accapella singers. It was amazing and completely unexpected -- with so little oxygen, maybe I imagined it!
Lead by the “blue moon”, it took about 6 hours to reach the first point at the summit – Stella`s Point.
We knew we would all reach the top once we got this far. Only 45 minutes to Uhuru - the highest point.
The moon was setting and the sun was rising. Both so close that you could reach out and touch them … if you had any energy to reach – I stuck with polĕ – polĕ, one step after another. The light of the sunrise on the glacier was a sight I can never forget – a full range of blues and pinks
Whoopee! Now the time we’d been anticipating for more than a year – unfurling the 2012 International Year of Co-operatives flag on the Top of Africa. We took our time with lots of photos of this memorable moment.
Okay, so we had made it! Now what ………………..Oh geez...now the way down ….
Not sure we carefully considered the fact that as high up as you climb you
must descend. The Summit is a
combination of rock and thin sand-like dirt.
We sort of skied down (telemark style) the first 1.5 kilometers.
After that it was back to polĕ-polĕ till we arrived back at base camp at
10:30 a.m. It had been an incredible
ten-and-a-half hour journey. We had seen
the full moon – the blue moon- and the sunrise on the Top of Africa!
From now on, when we see a full moon, we`ll feel a flood of emotions and
amazement to wonder at the beauty of nature and our good fortune at having seen
it so close up.
After a brief rest, we continued down the mountain, feeling stronger and
more lucid as we got more oxygen at lower altitudes.
Affinity Credit Union, Saskatoon, provided
toques for all our Guides and Porters. Myrna Bentley arranged this before she
had to withdraw from the climb. These
hats will keep them warm on their next climb
Our team started together and ended together –
all having seen the Top of Africa! What
an incredible experience.
Just before the end, there was a wonderful viewpoint to look back at the
challenge we had completed:
It was the same Kilimanjaro we’d seen from the airplane just 8 days earlier, or was it.... we had a new appreciation of what it takes to meet the challenge and new understanding of the beauty and majesty of the Top of Africa.
We were extremely lucky -- we each had some minor high-altitude symptoms but no major problems, not even a blister!
Hope you enjoyed reading about our trek, we enjoyed writing about it.
Ingrid, Jo-Anne, Lydia
MORE TIDBITS YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN:
Most striking image:
Prayer flags battered by the wind on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
How was the weather?
We were extremely lucky and had sunshine mixed with clouds every day except one....
we were in a downpour on day 3. When we
got to camp, we were all wet, cold but incredibly ... not cranky. Although maybe there was a moment when Lydia
& Jo-Anne sat helplessly on their duffle bags on a piece of plastic and
realized that a lake was forming under their tent. When the rain stopped, we hung our gear out
and remarkably, nobody slept in a wet sleeping bag and all our clothes were dry
to start the next day.
What was the best decision we made?
To hire our own biffy.
What critters did we see?
2 colobus monkeys, 2 very fat mice, 5-6 varieties of birds. Some of those
few birds we saw are rare and endemic to Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru. We saw a race of Montane Whiteeye that is
endemic to Kilimanjaro and Meru, the fat little Alpine Chat is endemic to East
Africa and found mostly above 3400 metres so not many habitats for him, the
Banded Green Sunbird is only found in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania,
the white necked raven is not so rare.