Barafu Camp to Summit to Barafu Camp to Millennium Camp
Hiking distance: 4 miles to summit (7hours), 4 miles back to Barafu (4 hours), another 3 miles to Millennium Camp (2 hours)
Starting elevation: 15,300’
Highest elevation: 19,341’
Ending elevation: 12,560’
I’m down to just two thoughts now: “Can’t go on” and “Must go on.” Something tells me they contradict each other, but I don’t dwell on it because I can’t quite remember what a contradiction is. “Can’t go on,” I tell myself again. “Must go on,” I reply. Occasionally a new thought interrupts: “Must drink water,” I tell myself. “Too much effort,” I reply. As insipid as these conversations are, I’m grateful for the company. The voices in my head help distract me from the fact that my throat is painfully dry and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it, even though I’m hauling several liters of water on my back.
The rocky trail suddenly morphs into sand and scree. My boots get no purchase in the loose talus and instead slide uselessly behind me, like I’m on a treadmill. It’s like trying to climb a sand dune or go up a Down escalator. You’ve GOT to be kidding! I say to myself. I’m putting forth more effort now and making less progress. This obstacle shouldn’t surprise me, of course, because I had read about it in the trail guides. But it’s a surprise nonetheless because everything’s a surprise to a man with no working memory. The only good news is that this is the last difficult stretch before the trail levels out on the crater rim. The bad news is that the airborne dust, already thick, has become a sandstorm. Everyone is coughing horribly, and Mo’ is doubled over most of the time now. By all rights she should be on her knees in tears. But she’s still on her feet; still moving forward. Barely. Two steps up, one step back.
And then, abruptly, just as I’m nearing collapse, we arrive somewhere. The ground levels out. I see a little shack, I think – probably a first-aid hut – and a bench. Our group starts slowing down, spreading out. We’re stopping for a break, so Mo’ and I crumble on the bench and lean on each other for support. There’s a sign nearby. I shine my light on it. It says “Stella Point.”
Stella Point is where the Barafu Trail meets the crater rim. Although we still have another hour of walking ahead of us, we’re finally off the steep slope of the Kibo’s cone. From here we will skirt along the outer lip of the crater, on a much more gradual grade, until we reach the rim’s highest point, Uhuru Peak. If the crater rim were the face of a clock with the 12 pointed north, we're now at the 5 and we’ll be walking to the 8.
Leaning against each other on our “bench,” Mo’ and I grouse about how terrible we feel. I’m pretty certain that I had intended to tell her something when we reached this spot, but I can’t remember what it was. I’ll later recall that I had meant to inform her that Stella Point is higher than Russia’s Mt. Elbrus, the tallest mountain in Europe. I had also planned to make a joke here, but I forgot that, too. I was going to do my best Beavis and Butthead stoner chuckle and then say, “Dude! We are soooo high.” Instead, I just ask her if she wants a snack. She says no and asks me if I want some water. I say no. We stare straight ahead, waiting to be told what to do. A minute later Robert comes over and tells us what to do: Get up and start walking. We help each other up and shuffle forward like zombies in search of a brain.
Robert has been hiking right behind me ever since he caught me carrying my backpack. When I stumble backwards he braces me with his hands. When I fail to change course at the end of a switchback, he nudges me into the turn. This has freed Barak(a) to concentrate on Monica, so we’ve become a foursome. I’ve lost track of the rest of our group. Some are ahead of us, I suppose, and some are behind. It doesn’t matter. We’ll all meet up at the summit. It now seems certain that everyone is going to make it. To arrive at this fuzzy-headed conclusion, though, I have completely forgotten about Maddi and Frankie, who definitely won’t be at the top, and also about the slower trekkers who’ve been behind us since Barafu. I haven’t thought about any of them in hours.
After 20 or 30 minutes of trudging in silence, Robert wordlessly reaches up at my face and tries to turn off my headlamp without stopping me. After several failed attempts he swears under his breath and strips the thing off my head rather brusquely. Then he motions at Barak(a) to do the same with Monica. I’m a bit piqued that Robert didn’t just ask me to turn off my headlamp, and that makes me wonder if maybe he had done so – perhaps more than once – and that I hadn’t noticed. Either way, we don’t need our headlamps any longer. The sun’s not quite up yet, but the horizon is glowing pinkish-orange in anticipation, and the mountain is glowing back in response. Forcing myself to look up, I see a massive glacier – probably Rebmann – just a few hundred yards to the south, blushing faintly in the ambient light. Slowly…slowly…I begin to realize that we are now just moments away from a landmark event, one I’ve been looking forward to since first deciding to climb this mountain: Sunrise at the summit.
I’ve long presumed that witnessing the dawn from the Roof of Africa would be a glorious, fulfilling experience. For thousands of years, our ancestors have worshipped the sun – Giver of Life – and have joyously, reverently, greeted its daily reappearance. For the whole span of human existence, the sun has reliably returned every morning to chase away nocturnal predators, life-threatening cold, and the fearsome darkness. Druids sang to the sun, Egyptians built pyramids for it, Aztecs ripped out human hearts in its honor. It has been my assumption, then, that trekkers would at least stop to pay homage. We are, after all, trudging up this slope like supplicants to an altar. Surely we will all pause to gape, slack-jawed with awe, at the Great Golden Orb when, like a giant fuse, it ignites the very curvature of the Earth.
It is astonishing how far we still have to go at this point. After climbing 4,000 feet in just a handful of trail miles we've had to walk an additional hour just to gain the last few vertical feet we need to claim bragging rights to the highest point in Africa. Mo’ and I keep expecting to see the famous green summit sign around every bend, behind every pile of boulders, but instead we just see more and more trekkers. And then something changes. Monica notices it before I do. Some trekkers are coming toward us. They’ve been to the mountaintop, and they are heading back down to the land of oxygen.
Mo’ starts pulling ahead, even passing Barak(a). When I ask her to slow down and save energy, she does, but grudgingly. “I just want to be done,” she grumbles. Monica is not yet aware of her accomplishment. At age 53, she has just climbed Mount Freakin’ Kilimanjaro with a raging head cold. I don’t have the brainpower to tell her this now, but later I will remind her of the old feminist slogan about how Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels. It’s funny how I can have this thought yet not be able to assemble it into a spoken sentence. Maybe after a nap.
The sun is fully above the horizon now, and it’s irritating the crap out me. I want to look down to my right, into Kibo’s crater, but I’m blinded on that side by golden radiation. It feels intentional, like the sun’s trying to push my buttons. It’s so low in relation to our position that it’s shining up into my face. Potato-sized rocks along the trail are casting ten-foot shadows. I’m on the verge of cursing the sun aloud, of quoting Melville at it while striking at it with a trekking pole. That’s’ when I notice a small crowd up ahead that seems to have stopped moving. They are gazing up at something. It’s a big green sign.
Monica bolts like a barn-spoiled horse. There's no calling her back this time.
“Ohdeargod,” I say aloud, the words spilling out of my face, unbidden. “We made it."