Read On Africa’s Roof, Still Crowned With Snow

This is the last photo for this year as Donavan has other plans for the site in 2008. I enjoyed sharing the images. I received some very nice reactions to the photos and wish to thank everyone that sent comments. I also wish to thank the outstanding staff at BootsnAll for their kind stewardship of this process.

The final image was sent to me after our trip. I’d shipped a package of goodies to our head Tusker Guide, Bwana Stephen, with the intent to have him pass the stuff around to our 19 team members. I’d singled out this Green Bay Packer Parka to be given to Haji the porter that followed this 50+ year old all the way up the mountain with the rescue equipment. Even though we couldn’t speak to each other, we created a bond with smiles and sharing Snickers candy bars during breaks. He may well have been older than I but he could kick my ass on the trail even with a 35 pound load on his head! Thanks Haji.

This photo was taken just outside of the Mweka Gate Hut as the officials completed our summit certificates. Our Tusker Land Rover waited a few steps away ready to whisk us down through the gauntlet of souvenir salesmen and hawkers as we headed, joyful to be riding, to the first shower in 11 days.

We made sure to break-in our Asolo boots prior to the climb but they were basically new when we started the trek. As you can see, our trusted foot-gear took a vigorous pounding and left the mountain with true character.

Our final stop on the way down was Millennium Camp on the edge of the tree line. I confess that I never took any pictures. We could breathe, our hunger had returned, we knew we would sleep like babies and the realization we’d really climbed the mountain combined to leave us standing there in a sustained, wow. 

On the final day through the rain forest, however, I took many images like this one. After a week without any foliage, this was pure
Eden.

This is Barafu Camp. As you can see by all the tents, it has enough population for its own zip code. Most of the night summit attempts leave from here.

Shira, Lemosho, Machame and Umbre Routes all pass through Barafu to the summit.

We briefly stopped in Barafu for a candy bar and continued on to Millennium Camp for our last night.

The trek from the summit (19,340 ft) to Millennium Camp (12,300 ft) took 7 hours.

The oxygen rich air returned our cognitive spark that had been squeezed out high on the mountain. We could breath, eat and sleep…pure heaven!

This photograph has always intrigued me because of the primary colors (red, yellow & blue) with the morning moon and the Rebman Glacier peaking along the horizon.

We are half way down the scree slide as I looked back up the slope to capture this image. Running down the scree enabled us to get from the summit  !9,340 ft. to Barafu Camp 15,000 ft. in just under 4 hours, a distance that had taken 3 days to ascend.

Each meter brought increased oxygen and euphoria to our starved brains.

The stroll from the spot of the week 46 photo to the summit sign was maybe 150 yards. My son and I covered that distance, arm & arm, as I fondly recall and you would have thought we would be feeing triumphant, but the core feeling we experienced was one of over-powering relief.

We knew we didn’t have to climb anymore. Our mission had been accomplished even with the knowledge we had two more days to walk to the Land Rover. We hadn’t slept during our over-night at Crater Camp but we had almost no AMS symptoms other than the absence of hunger and nobody traditionally gets sick on the way down so we considered ourselves home free.

Everyone who sees this coveted photograph always asks, “How cold was it?”

Due to the altitude and lack of oxygen all I can say is that in the face of high 20′s and single digit windchill, “It was cold but we didn’t feel it”.

One of the fellows at BootsnAll sent me some photographs taken by a friend.

I have included one of his images this week because it was the shot I couldn’t take. My camera stopped working and, at 19,000+ feet, I did not possess the cognitive resources to render the simple fix it until we entered the lower, oxygen rich, altitudes on our way down the mountain.

This photo was taken at the top of the trail from Crater Camp to the summit ridge.

Pictured is Crater Camp (tents in lower center), a snow patch with a trail crossing vertically and the Furtwrangler Glacier. When I stood in this spot three years ago, there was no break in the glacier, just a solid wall of ice.

Pictured here, taken from inside our tent, is our waiter August at Crater Camp announcing that our dinner was ready in the mess tent. Behind him are the beautifully iconic Furtwrangler Glacier and one of the cinder cones protecting the Reusch Crater.

As I’ve shared in other posts this year, the long shadows and stunning topography is easier to contemplate and appreciate now, after the trip, owning to the lack of oxygen for our flatlander brains at 18,400 ft. At this particular campsite, we were quite content and happy to simply be told what to do.

Climatic truths are rendering the glaciers atop Mt. Kilimanjaro smaller by the day. This process has been unfolding for hundreds of years, yes, even before “global warming”. Although I think “man” could be a wiser steward of the planet, I’m of the opinion this ice was going to melt, in time, but also, in time, return and “man” will not affect the process greatly with energy credits or carbon neutral strategies.

As “man” continues to struggle with good stewardship, however, I have, and will always possess, the coveted photograph of, yours truly, standing triumphantly with the sublimating ice.

In 15 or 20 years, a picture like this will not be possible.