Day 6 – Summit Night (Kibo to Gilmans Point to Uhuru Peak)

This is it – the time has arrived.  The Porters gave us a gentle wake-up call at 10.30 pm (Tuesday).  Getting dressed was made easy by the fact that we’d gone to bed wearing most of our summit gear.  After we’d had a warm drink and filled our water bottles it was time to depart.  As we stood around for those final few moments before we set off I began to wonder, with some nervousness, what we were about to encounter.

We started our ascent at midnight and it was cold but fortunately we all had the right gear for keeping warm. Throughout the trek we’d been trained how to walk slowly (Pole Pole in Swahili which means slow slow) which meant that it was no surprise when we set off in single file walking very slowly with our Guide, Gardi, leading us. In addition to Gardi we also had 3 other Guides and our Trek Doctor who during the trek would prove to all be invaluable to our success.  The walk follows a very steep shale path that zigzags up the mountain.

It’s fair to say the walk of 6.5 hours in the dark and cold was absolute torture – I can compare nothing to it.  We walked for 1 hour periods and had a 5 minute rest at the end of each hour.  My water had frozen and my snacks had gone rock hard.  At one point during a 5 minute rest period I lay on the path not sure if I could continue let alone get up (see picture below).

However, from day one I always had the belief that Hilary and I would both succeed but I didn’t know how.  Looking back I believe it to be a combination of 4 things:

1.  The people we walked with (Nicole, Sarah, Tracey, Fiona, Jenn, Rupinder & Kirsty) were simply sensational. The teamwork between all of us was in abundance and everyone helped everyone.  A group of friends that will always have a place in my heart.

2.  The mind is stronger than we think.  If you have a strong mental approach to challenges you can achieve anything you want.  In the end it was the mental approach that helped get Hilary and I to the final summit.  A strong mind can overcome deficiencies in physical strength.  Have faith in what you can achieve.

3.  A strong relationship between Hilary and I.  We’ve been married for 26 years so you could say we know each other!  It was this knowledge of each other that helped pull us along.

4.  Finally, I firmly believe that God wanted us to succeed.  I know that I got strength from his presence.

At 7.45 a.m. we saw the sun rise whilst we were above clouds and it was stunning, a memory I’ll never forget.  After we’d stopped to take photos of the sunrise it was time for the final push to Gilmans Point which we summited at 8.15 a.m.  In many respects Gilmans Point was an anti-climax!  It’s a very small area that somehow didn’t have the grandeur of what I’d pictured a summit to look like!  Some of the heroic team who had got to Gilmans had been suffering from various degrees of Altitude Sickness but their determination and help from Kirsty had got them to the top – an amazing achievement.

After we’d had our picture taken our wonderful Doctor, Kirsty, asked us all individually “Do you want to go on to Uhuru Peak”.  Kili has 2 recognised summits with Uhuru being the highest of the two. I have to be honest I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do but Hilary said yes before I did and Kirsty (our Doctor) had previously said to us that if we have just once ounce of energy remaining that we should give it a go.  So the answer was, YES.  Only 6 of the starting 8 went on to Uhuru Peak, but that doesn’t mean the 2 who didn’t go on failed – they most certainly didn’t and achieved an amazing feat.

Hilary and I then walked (almost crawled) on to Uhuru Peak, the highest point on the mountain. The walk between the two peaks is about 1.5KM and follows the edge of the crater.  This short distance took us over an hour of very slow walking and lots of rests.  At this time our two Guides had taken our rucksacks from us so that we’d have less weight to carry…..thank you guys.  During the final stages of the walk to Uhuru my iPhone started to ‘ding’ with text messages which meant I had a signal so could call the Children back home – this was a joyous moment interrupted me blubbing down the phone in between gasping for breath!

It was a lovely feeling to see Nicole, Kirsty, Tracey, Fiona and Rupinder (who had all gone ahead) cheering us to the Peak.  It was a moment to cry with joy and yes there were lots of tears.  Neither of us suffered from Altitude Sickness (I’ll tell you how in another blog!) which was a massive bonus.  Reaching the top of Uhuru Peak was a moment I’ll never ever forget – I was now standing at the highest part of the Worlds Highest Free Standing Mountain.

At the Peak the oxygen is 50% less than the body needs so we could only stay at the top for 20 minutes.  After the all important photos had been taken we started to make a faster but still slow descent to Gilmans Point.

We’d done it!

Best of all though was that we’d done it for Sparks.

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Thanks for reading.

Dave

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