Day 5 at Mweka Camp, 10,230 feet. I made it to the roof of Africa, summiting on Uhuru peak (19,453 feet) at around 5:30AM. Before leaving at midnight from Barafu camp, I tried to get some sleep but ended up getting more rest than sleep. It was windy as hell and my tent made this strange sound effect besides simple flapping, like someone pulling length after length of duct tape from a giant roll. I also got a nose bleed only minutes after writing about no altitude side effects. Still, at 11:30PM I was ready and enjoyed a cup of tea and some “biscoot,” or cookies before heading out into the dark. It was freezing and Manase and I both wore every layer we had, plus headlamps to light the way. Even in the darkness, the mountain stood clearly before us, enormous and intimidating. The trail out of Barafu climbs steeply and immediately up a talus slope before leveling off a bit for a more gradual climb on a compact trail. As we reached the top of the first rise, you could see the city of Moshi thousands of feet below, its green and yellow lights clear in the cloudless sky. Manase and I were making our steady polay polay pace but I realized it was faster than everyone else as we passed three groups on the way up. The moon was waxing at 3/4, and we were able to turn off the headlamps for a solid two hours. The climbing was really one step at a time now and I realized that I felt pretty tired. My toes were frozen and I kept wiggling them and stomping my boots to salvage some circulation, but with little success.

The wind let up a bit and I took in the beauty of nighttime shadows and moonlit illumination. The landscape was barren yet beautiful, rock overhangs and independent boulders picking up the light, breaking the horizon from the night. The stars were out in force but waiting for the moon to move on to really make a show. The trail became steep again for the final 1500 feet up to Stella Point, the false summit only 700 feet below Uhuru. It was at this point I started feeling the altitude more strongly. I felt slightly dizzy and a headache had crept up, strangely sitting at the back of my skull instead of up front or behind my eyes. Looking down onto the over 3000 feet of vertical we had made by Stella Point, I saw the headlamps of other climbers, little white dots that seemed to form a glow-worm or constellation of climbers against the dark. By Stella Point I was happy to be close to the summit, but feeling progressively worse. My stomach felt sick and the wooziness was there, but my breathing wasn’t especially labored, so I didn’t worry. I thought to myself that after a year in Senegal there’s no way an upset stomach was going to stop me. We kept moving and when Manase asked how I felt, he simply said, “Hakuna matata,” no problem, and we moved on towards Uhuru. Physical challenges like this can certainly hurt but also bring a rare form of emptiness of thought that I really appreciate. The singular purpose of getting to your destination and staying steady doesn’t leave room for any pesty internal dialogue.

Half an hour beyond Stella Point, we made it to Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. The summit sign was there just like in photos I saw online, and I had Manase take a shot of me to document the accomplishment. The feelings I had were limited because I was more concerned about feeling the cold and the altitude, but I did feel a sense of relief. We started out again at 5:40AM and made our way back to Stella. From this direction, the glaciers really took form, rising at least 30 feet from the rock, running hundreds of yards in length. Though it was still dark, the glaciers reflected the light of the stars with surprising intensity.

We began the descent from Stella Point, passing a weary-faced group of five. I felt better as we went lower and when the sun began to approach the horizon, and a deep orange and purple banner unfolded behind Mount Mweka, I really felt the sense of accomplishment and good fortune for a successful climb. By this time Manase had led us off the trail to the south by about a hundred yards so that we could enjoy a controlled slide down a huge scree field. It was almost like skiing—you take big steps, lean back and slide from one side to the other. I had my trekking poles and was pole planting before each turn, avoiding bigger rocks with relative ease. The sun broke free of the clouds, shining over Mweka, and casted a brilliant warm orange on the slope. The change in temperature was immediate and I took a minute to stop and really enjoy this incredible moment. If there is one indelible image that will remain in my mind from the trip, it was this.

We continued our slide all the way back to the first steep ascent of the trail and were back at Barafu camp by 7:00AM. What had been described to me as a seven hour climb and a three hour descent turned out to be 5 ½ hours up and an hour and a half down. Every other group I spoke to did the climb in 10 hours instead of 7. Accordingly, I was dead when I got to the tent and crawled in and passed out. At 9:00AM Katete woke me up with hot tea and breakfast. My whole body ached with the accumulated effort of the past five days, but I felt rejuvenated after the nap.

We packed up and started our long descent to Mweka campsite at the upper edge of the forest near 10,000 feet. Gravity really helps in going down and there was no more polay polay. By 1:00PM we reached camp and my knees were aching. Over the course of the last 13 hours we had covered 13,000 vertical feet. Not bad. At camp I chatted with Manase and a big group of guides and porters that were hanging out at our cooking tent, enjoying the Michael Jackson blaring from Robert’s radio. I’m not sure who thought I was stranger, the Tanzanians I was trying to speak Swahili with, or all the mzungoo, or other white people who stared at me from their tents. That night I slept like a rock and dreamed of scree skiing again.