I did the six day Marangu Route trek up to the summit. The first four days were easy, a walk up. I was a bit worried initially because I was still a little under the weather from being sick and I didn't want anything to get worse once I was at a higher elevation. I was fine though. The summit day was super hard. We started at Kibo Hut, the last hut before you attempt the summit. It's at 4700 meters(15510 feet.) We started at midnight. It's a 3-4 hour walk up a steep frozen scree to about 5800 meters or 19000 feet. The scree is so steep you have to use switchbacks in order to gain elevation. The last 30 minutes is a scramble up equally steep rocks until you get to Gilman's Point. The point after the scree. By that time I was completely exhausted and frozen. It was in the negatives, snowing, and windy on top. Everything on me had a coat of ice on it, including my beard. The last 30-45 minutes to the summit are on the Shira plateau. It's a fairly even walk only gaining about 100 meters in elevation. But it's barren, frozen and windy. It's 19 thousand plus feet in elevation for this walk, so each step required it's own will and determination. I remember dragging my hiking pole behind me because I was too tired to actually use it. We reached the summit, (The Uhuru Peak sign) at 0430 AM. An hour and a half before sunrise and it was snowing. We were there for about 5 minutes and we decided waiting around there for sunrise was not a great idea. We started descending and made it back to Kibo Hut around 0700, catching sunrise on the descent. Of course the day wasn't over for us after that. After an hour or so break and eating breakfast we started our descent down the mountain. We walked from 0830-0900 from Kibo Hut (15550 ft) to the first hut on the mountain (8910 ft) where we arrived at 2 PM only stopping once for a 10 minute break. Needless to say, summit day on Mt. Kilimanjaro is hardcore. But I made it, and achieved my main goal in Africa. Hopefully I find another challenge worthy of a fundraiser while I backpack through here. I don't think there's anything here that can challenge me the way Kili did though.
