In May 2004 I successfully climbed Kilimanjaro (20,000 feet) via the Western Breach, an exciting near vertical rock climb in excess of 1,000 feet to the crater rim accessed via the Shira Plateau. I acclimatised by scaling Kilimanjaro's sister mountain, Mount Meru, or Socialist Peak, at 16,000 feet.
This expedition raised sposorship for MIND in recognition of their support for Mental Illness in the boroughs of Camden and Islington.
Attached below are a series of images from the expedition.
Enjoy!
Simon Ramage
Background to the off
The trek was supposed to have been completed with my mate Richard, who went on a works do the night before we set off. He was unfortunately mugged for his mobile phone, and broke his wrist as he fell!! So literally 8 hours before we flew out, he had to back out, and I went alone. Little did I know that everyone else had pulled out of this particular trek because of warnings of bad weather conditions on Kili at that time of year, and other cock ups. In the end, the company transferred one person from a trek up Mount Kenya, who was alone, and combined him with me and they thought Richard.
Below is the massive party that ended up climbing Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro!
This was the sum total of our party, consisting of a local guide, the expedition leader and 2 fee paying customers!
Tino, our ranger, kept us safe and sound from Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my! (a homage to Wizard of Oz dear reader). What's that i hear you say? "A tiger in Africa?!" quite right. It was actually hyenas, lions, leopards and wilderbeast I think we were avoiding.
Some of the wildlife
Images of rain forest on Meru
The party forge ahead for Meru
Meru in all its glory
Kilimanjaro comes into view
Clive points the way we plan to go to reach summit of Meru that night.
Sunrise over Kilimanjaro taken at dawn from the summit of Mount Meru.
Polly, looking pensively towards Kili from Summit of Mount Meru.
Me, dear reader, on top of Mount Meru, or the oh so coolly named Socialist Peak! Oh, and that is William with me with the cup of tea. How very civilised!
A view looking down on the semi active volcano crater on Meru from the summit
THE START OF THE ACCENT UP KILIMANJARO
After a short one day break to recover from the exertions of Mount Meru, which allowed for a short safari, the party of 4 assembled to select its small team of porters to carry up mess tent and 4 tents for us. Those assembled were hugely pissed off that there were only 4 of us when a normal trek would have around 15 to 20 people. This was because on average, each client is supposed to tip around $100 which would lead to upwards of $2,000 on each trek in tips to be spread out in descending order to those most senior. Lead guide, Senior guide, Chef and so on. The party below was the number expecting to come along! If you count them all, I think there are 35 of them or 9 each!!! William, the lead guide had to settle on 20 in the end, which was still ridiculous, but he had to protect his reputation in terms of securing their services for future treks.
For those who have done Kili, you will be familiar with the demands to go slowly at high altitude, and the shouts of "Poley, Poley". Well poley we went on the first short stage to the One Tree Camp. We all felt really good, and the trek lead was very pleased with our health. We gathered in the camp, and William, the lead local guide brought out his thermarest mattress which was ripped to shreds. Apparently, his sister, in the short window between trips and trying to help, had washed his mattress and hung it on a barbed wire fence to dry! When he was ready to go, she ripped it off the wire and rolled it up for him. This was what he was greeted with. William slept on the bare rocks for the rest of the trek!
William inspects the damage!
We heard our first Colubus monkey at camp, and then saw it high in the trees. My God it made a racket all night.
The monkey is there if you look closely at the centre top!
We moved on from base camp to climb high up onto the Shira plateau. It was at this point that we saw our first glimpse of Kilimanjaro, miles into the distance. I never did work out how far we actually walked to get to the final volcanic cap of Kili, but it must have been a good 40 miles I guess. It seemed to takes forever to get there (5 days of walking).
What an amazing site this was. We often used to get Rob to point precisely to where the Western Breach route up was.
The camps were, understandably, basic. However, one of the most crappy bits, literally, were the bloody awful out houses for doing your business. Just awful stinky holes in the ground with a shed built over them. We had to build up our inner reserves of strength each morning to rush in there and get out as quickly as possible.
Talk of a nuclear bunker. It looks like someone had an explosive morning evacuation in this dunny we all had the misfortune to use at the Shira camp.
The Trek company we went with was called KE Adventure, based in Keswick in the Lakes. They had an amazing track record of getting their clients up Kili successfully. Their average success was well over the 50% average normally quoted for getting to the top. One of the reasons Rob, our lead, was so successful, was his experience on Everest, and his habit of ensuring we always climbed high in the day, and slept low at night. This way, we improved our acclimatisation, and improved our chances of success.
Below are a series of images of the high peaks we scaled on route to the final Arrow Glacier camp.
Rob and team walk towards the Shira Cathederal to climb high for the day. The "Shira Needle " is the point to the right.
Shira Needle
We approach the Moir camp at 4,600 metres (15,000 ft) and then walk on to scale the "Sharks Tooth" in the background which was a further 1,500 feet. We then came back down to try and sleep before walking onto final camp at Arrow Glacier.
Rob at the summit of the Sharks Tooth at dusk.
Me, on way to top of the Sharks Tooth. This was not a posed shot, I promise!!
From now on, it was serious business, ensuring we were all fit and healthy, and well acclimatised. We now walked onto the final camp before the summit push. This camp was at the ruined Arrow Glacier Hut at 5,000 metres (16,500 ft) ready for the midnight push in pitch dark, up the final 3,500 feet to the summit.
Before we set off, as usual, we had a hearty breakfast. It was like Britain in the days of the Raj. We always had to have our table set up and hot tea with toast and egg and bacon etc. It was crazy really.
Breakfast in the clouds. That is Meru poking its head above the clouds on the horizon.
The views to the final Kili peak were stunning at this point.
Need I say more? This was a superb view of the peak, and our route clearly mapped out.
This was not my photo, but gives the same image and a clearer idea of where the Western Breach lay. It is the snow covered fold in the rock face, to the right of the image, leading to the Uhuru peak on the right.
This camp was really crappy in terms of being a rubbish tip, and not a good place to be. The weather had really turned bad, and whilst the temperatures were well below zero, we had avoided snow. Now it came with avengeance and William had to go on ahead to make sure the Western Breach was passible. If not, we would have to walk around the peak to the Marangu Route, adding miles to our journey, and the prospect of far longer at high altitude, risking HACE or HAPE. William returned to say the route was open, so we made plans to leave at midnight.
The Final Summit Push
What a shithole! This was final camp at midnight, and the temp had now dropped to minus 12 C with a wicked wind taking the temp down to minus 30 C on the thermometers!
As I have mentioned, the Western Breach is a rock climb for 1,000 feet of the 3,500 summit push. We had no concept of what this looked like, being that we climbed this portion in darkness, with ropes and crampons. All I know it it was vertical, and bloody hard work. You now have only 50% of the oxygen in the air at this altitude, and whilst your brain says go, your body can only move at a snails pace. I went on the internet to see a picture of the Western Breach in daylight, and now I am glad we did it in the darkness, as it truely was terrifying!
I don't know why this guy is smiling! We were terrified.
We set off just after midnight to allow a party of fit looking Americans to go on ahead, and so as not to hold them up on the climb ahead. The weather was now really bad. Snow was falling heavily, and the standing temperature was reading minus 13 degrees C. However, there was a really hard biting wind had picked up blowing the snow into our faces. We were told the wind chill factor was taking the temperature to below minus 20 degrees C. We all had to put on our full face balaclavas to protect our faces from frostbite. We had to check all our equipment to make sure all of us were ready and prepared for the dangerous climb ahead:
Rob sat us all down and read out the list and checked our gear to check off if we were good to go. I have to say already that my sleeping bag was a rather light affair, called "Go Lite". This was because I thought, like a dick, that Africa was a hot country, and I didn't want to carry a heavy sleeping bag. In any case, mine said it had a comfort rating of up to minus 2 degrees C. Rob later told me, when I nearly got frost bite on Meru that this does not mean you can use it in anything less that 5 degrees C, and dubbed my bag "Go Lite and Die", so I had to borrow a spare!
Here goes the check list:
- Water bladders full? We all had water bladders fitted inside the rear of our packs with a tube attached to our shoulder straps and a teat to take on fuid. We all covered the teats with an empty film case to protect them from bugs that cause stomach upsets. You have to take on litres of fluid, because the air at 20,000 ft is very dry, and at below zero temps, every breath out expels water vapour, and nothing comes back in, so you steadily dehydrate, leading to Cerebral Edema. - Anyway ..... Check!
- Balaclavas on? Check!
- Spare upper layer? Check!
- Spare trousers? Check
Now it starts to all go a bit Peter Tong as they say in the business!!
- Gloves? Er yea, I've got these mittons I wear in London when it gets a bit nippy, says I. Rob looks at them and says I will get frost bite. Have I anything else. Er, yea, says I. I've got my M&S leather gloves as well. OK says Rob, you may get frost bite, but I will let it pass.
- Crampons will be needed, have you got them? Er, I thought the guide said they were optional. Rob says they are, dependant on conditions, so where are mine. Er, I haven't got any. OK, says Rob, you will need to borrow a spare set. Let me look at your boots. Oh dear, he says, your boots are just basic hiking boots that can't take a crampon. You'll have to go without. Hold on tight!!!!!
- Head torches attached and tested - Now I felt confident, I had looked at all the models available before setting offf, and felt they were vastly too expensive at £15.99 upwards. I therefore thought it would be a great idea to double up the use of my Maglite pencil torch as a head torch by buying a head sweat band for £2.99 and placing the pencil torch in it! Rob looks disapprovingly at my invention and the weak beam of light it casts. You are an idiot Simon, but again, it will have to do!
- Spare batteries? - Again, yes, here are my ailing rechargeable batteries, untested, but in my pocket. Well, said Rob, keep them close to your warm bits to keep a charge in them!
With great disapproval, I was passed as OK to go, and off we set. We started up the approach to the vertical rock climb, all invisible to us in the dark. We passed a slow party ahead, which is some going when we were only walking at snails pace. We then were just about to approach the first step on the vertical rock (see photo above) and Pop! My Maglite, come head torch went out. I had my spare set, so I put these in. Nothing! I asked my massive entourage of 3 if they had any spare. Yes, said Polly. Still nothing! I then shone a head torch on the bulb and saw why. The bulb had shattered in the freezing temperatures! Polly very kindly offered me her tiny metal encased pencil reading torch. This would not fit in my natty head band, and I needed both hads for climbing, so I put it in my mouth!!!!!! Yes, dear reader, it was minus 20 degrees C and I had a metal torch in my mouth! Guess what? Yes, it started to freeze, and with it my teeth, lips and tongue! I had no choice but to return it to Polly and proceed blind! To do this, I moved up right behind Clive, and just followed his every hand and foot movement, and trusted entirely to luck I would hit the same hand and foot holds. To be honest, at this stage, I felt so bad, to fall to my death would have been a happy release. I also realised that I could't take on any water, as my tube from my pack had frozen solid. I was chewing on it to crunch the iced water up enough to get some fuid on board. It was getting desperate. We had been climbing for nearly 6 hours now, and the temperature was dropping still further. Rob announced that it had dipped to minus 30 degrees C! My hands were frozen and I couldn't feel my fingers. Rob inspected the fingers and told me I had the beginnings of frost bite! I was told to place my hands under my armpits to warm them up. But I needed them to climb, so got out my faithfull M&S gloves and doubled up!
We reached the crater rim before dawn in pitch black, and I confess, I wept like a baby, but hear this is quite a common reaction when you are so close to death and realise you are going to live!.
Due to now climbing straight up the final approach, I never got a chance to see the actual crater in daylight, like you do on the Marangu route from the other side. Therefore, please allow me yet another plageurised photo from the internet to show you what was actually a stones throw from my position as I reached the crater rim.
Apparently, when first climbed, they found a frozen leopard in the crater rim, but this is wierd, as no land based mammals can survive at this altitude. Probably why it was dead then!
Now it was simply a case of waiting to catch our breath, and then a short skip and a jump to the top! Well, less of a skip and jump, more a crawl and gasp! It looked like a simple climb which normally, say in the lakes, would have taken 30 minutes. However, at 20,000 ft, the last few hundred feet actually took nearly 2 hours to complete.
Here I am at last at the top. Success!
The views were utterly amazing. Here is a view across to Meru. we climbed a week before, poking through the clouds. You can see the curvature of the earth from this altitude.
This was the most spectacular of the glaciers on top of Kili. They are fast retreating, and scientisis rekon within 20 years, there will be no permanent ice on top of Kili due to global warming.
The story did not end here, as it is only recommended that you remain at the summit for no longer than 30 minutes. However, unfortunately, the guy you see in the photo in the purple trousers, was another local guide on another party. He collapsed soon after this photo with suspected Cerebral Edema. Rob, our tour lead was a qualified medic, and he dropped everything to care for him, and forgot all about us. After about 90 minutes, he looked up, and saw me slumped on the ground with my head in my hands, and screamed at William to get me down as soon as possible. My feet did not touch the ground as I was whisked away towards Stellar Point and thrown down the endless scree run to safe altitude, where I collapsed in a sweaty exhausted heap with the mother of all headaches.
That was that dear reader, and I hope you enjoyed the trip!
Here are a few pictures I took on my trip of local flora, which I hope you appreciate:
This is the Protea, the national flower of South Africa. It is massive, which does not come over in this photo. I would say about 2 ft across in size! It is rare to see them flower, so this was amazingly lucky.
No comments:
Post a Comment