To the Roof of Africa

	On the fourth night, we went to bed at about 5pm and slept til 11:30 when we were awakened to breakfast and then took off in the dark for the summit. The idea is to make it to the top to see the sun rise. The primary goal for everyone is Gilman’s point, which is at the end of the hardest climb of all and for all practical purposes is at the top of the mountain – just not the at the highest point. The highest point is Uhuru peak and is about an hour and a half from Gilman’s point. If you make it to Gilman’s point, you get a certificate, but if you make it to Uhuru, you get a gold (color, not metal) certificate.
For this hike, we put on all our layers and carried our flashlights. Unfortunately, my flashlight somehow got turned on in the backpack and drained the battery. Like the space cadet I am, I forgot to bring the extra batteries I had packed in my suitcase for just this eventuality. It’s a real bummer because I had bought a really cool headlamp that had LEDs instead of light bulbs which allowed the batteries to last 20 times longer than normal flashlights. So as the hike progressed, my light got dimmer and dimmer and became more of a glow that showed others where I was rather than a beam to light up my path.
	The other groups were hiking up at the same time we were and all of them had their flashlights so that you could look up the trail and see lights where you were heading and then look back and see the lights where you had been. I’m sure from Kibo huts, the trail of lights would be pretty if any of the porters wanted to actually wake up at 3 in the morning to watch it. The trek reminded me of a pilgrimage and it felt even more so when our guide Nicholas started singing hymns in Swahili. Every once in a while, he would give out a holler and the guides in the other groups would answer with their hollers. If we didn’t feel so cold and miserable, it would have been a downright religious experience. As it was, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a cowboy riding herd at night singing to the cattle to keep them from getting too skitish in the dark.
By then the cold and the altitude were getting to both Bob and me. Occassionally I’d look up at the clear sky, mesmerized by the stars. But I’d hafta look down quickly or lose my balance and go tumbling down the mountain. It was very steep and we were zigzagging across the scree. For the most part we just held our heads down and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. At some point, I could no longer suck water from my pack because it had frozen inside the hose.
We got above the scree and were scrambling over some big boulders about 150 feet from the top when we came upon the old Englishman sitting with his guide. He was totally exhausted and couldn’t go another inch. We stopped and talked to him for a few minutes and our Nicholas pointed up to the flashlights above us and told him they were at the top and that it wasn’t all that far from where we were. We all talked him in to walking the rest of the way with us, and he did!
By the time we reached Gilman’s Point, the eastern horizon was glowing and we could just barely see Mawenzi peak sticking up above the clouds to the east. I had a lump in my throat and would have cried if my body had enough water to spare. The feeling that my brother and I made it to the top of Africa is indescribable. I was delerious. I had my serious doubts along the way, but we actually did it! The hike to Uhuru was not as hard but we were feeling the effects of the altitude and our bodies were complaining. We were happy to finally reach the peak but I felt it was a bit anticlimactic after the feeling I got on reaching Gilman’s Point.

Hiking Back Down