Summit Day (Day 6)

We woke at 11 pm to what seems to be a nice clear night. Had a quick breakfast of biscuits and tea before strapping on our packs, which are the heaviest yet (carrying all our warmest gear). We left at 12:08 to a new freezing, pefectly calm and relatively bright night.

It’s the first day of the full moon and at 15,000 ft it’s like a spotlight in the sky helping to light our way.

We had 4 breaks en route to Stella Point, at the far side of the crater rim, opposite Uhuru Peak (our final destination). The crater looks like a sea on the moon backlit by the actual moon (I’ll post pix soon). We made Stella Point at 5:15.

An hour later, just as the moon was setting, the sun was rising and we reached Uhuru peak. All ten of us got there with very little problems. Liz had some nausea around 18k (as did some other team members) but they pushed thru.

We really couldn’t spend much time at this altitude (19,400 ft) so we snapped as many pictures and video as we could and enjoyed our time there for about 20 minutes.

At that point we started our descent back the way we came shedding clothes as we went. The change in temperature with the sun up and us descending was significant.

At 9:30am we were back in high camp dropping our packs and collapsing into the mess tent for lunch. As exhausted as we were there was still another 6-7 miles to go and 5,000 ft to kill.

At 11:00 am (12 hours after we woke) we strapped our packs back on and started our descent to Mweka Hut. That took another 3 hours down a steep and slippery path. But we got there, cracked open a bunch of celebratory beers, had dinner and I was asleep by 7pm while liz played cards with some team members and porters.

All in:
12:25 of climbing
15,000 ft of vertical
~17 km

Oh, and Charlie, unless I get eaten by a lion on Safari, I’ll see you on Tuesday.