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“In Hazel’s Footprints” Kilimanjaro Expedition.
4th - 9th July 2005.
On Monday 4th July, 25 rather nervous and apprehensive people stood around at the Machame Route gate waiting while our chief guide Abel organised all the 52 porters, 4 guides, 6 assistant guides, 2 cooks and 4 assistant cooks into some semblance of order, making sure that they all had their fair share of the incredibly heavy and awkward loads which make up the logistics and supplies for almost 100 people on the mountain for six days.
It crossed my mind, and I’m quite sure many of the others too, how on earth we had let ourselves sign up for the expedition so many months earlier when we sat around one night deciding on fund raising ideas for the newly formed Hazel’s Footprints Trust and some bright spark piped up with “why don’t we climb Kilimanjaro like Hazel did and we will literally be following in her footprints?”. Over the next few months many victims – sorry volunteers – came forward, some with connections with Hazel from school, university, etc who wanted to do the climb for strong emotional reasons and others who just wanted a stiff personal challenge, which at the same time would raise money for a charity they were interested in. There were several different groups of four or five who knew each other well and usually knew some of the others a little and a strong memory of the trip for me will be how well everyone got on and inter-mingled, and even with the stresses on the hill, I never heard a wrong word or argument.
The Machame route we had chosen is a camping route and goes up the left hand (west) side of Kilimanjaro, looking from the Tanzanian side, for two days before crossing right-handed across the face just below the summit mass and then a final night-time assault to hopefully reach Uhuru Point (19,400 feet) on the top shortly after sun-rise on the fifth day, followed by a direct descent to Mweka Gate by mid-day the following day.
So, 25 chirpy souls set off from Machame Gate (1,800 metres) up the mountain through a tropical rainforest scenario (but thank goodness without the rain that day!!) with huge trees reaching away up into the sky on all sides of us on a good path, which those who had been there in 2003 with Hazel marvelled at, since they had had to slip and slide and slither through deep mud all the first day. Due to the improved conditions underfoot, we reached the first camp at 3,000 metres a good 1½ hours earlier than they had two years ago.
"Pole, pole!" - meaning "slowly" in Swahili - the only way to tackle Kilimanjaro.
The guide, August, aged 55 set the pace at the front at a very slow amble as any faster than that and you risk burning yourself out completely. As we climbed higher it was noticeable how much more stunted the vegetation was becoming and we could begin to see a bit more than just trees on every side.
One of the famous (infamous?!) long-drop loos which are such a feature of the camps.
Machame Camp was memorable for introducing the group to the joys of the infamous Kilimanjaro “long-drop” loos which are dotted around all the camp-sites and consist of a square wooden box with a hole cut out the floor and a very deep and smelly hole below and a couple of planks for foot-rests!!! An acquired but necessary taste!!! The ones higher up the mountain where there is no soil are perched on top of rocks and it has been known for people to visit them at night and turn left instead of right on exiting them in their stupor with disastrous results!!
Our first night under canvass passed relatively peacefully. However, a sharp frost greeted us the following morning to remind us of where we were headed and after a hearty breakfast in the large mess-tent and a ritualistic filling of the water bottles, we headed on upwards through scrub-land. Background headaches and sickness were starting to creep in and no more so than with myself and by lunchtime the sight of Joan’s piled high plate of food was too much for me and I was the first to succumb to mountain sickness behind the rocks. I know we were following in Hazel’s footprints, but there was no need for my body to mimic her early problems quite so accurately!! However this was
Meanwhile, largely unnoticed by me, we had camped at Shira Camp (3,840 metres) on an open plateau with wonderful views to the west over the Shira Mountains with a view the other way up to the massive summit top which looked very close due to the sheer scale of the mountain, but was probably still about 20 Kilometres away at that point. Through the night Leonce, Abel’s cousin, had climbed up to join us having just taken two clients to the top which allowed Abel to drop back down and organise the Durham DUCK climb who were starting out four days after us.
The next morning’s long trek was probably the most boring part of the climb scenery-wise and the endless hours up the plateau were spent playing word games which passed up and down the plodding line and did at least keep the brain active!! By lunchtime, with the
Barranco Camp is set in a very imposing valley with the summit towering over you on one side and the impossibly steep-looking “Breakfast Wall” which has to be climbed the next day looming over you from the other side. Once we were down at camp most people recovered appreciably and there were only one or two absentees from supper (a fact which really upsets the attentive mess-boys who serve the meals and they make sure that there is at least a thermos of hot water available in the tent of those affected so they can hopefully re-hydrate). Annie’s condition was giving cause for concern however as she was finding it very difficult to take any water without being immediately sick again and so began to associate drinking with the latter in her mind – mind you the taste of the water treatment using iodine or chlorine doesn’t do much for palatability even when you’re feeling good!!!
Barranco Camp, the summit looming over us.
Next morning the 1½ hour climb up the Breakfast Wall was not as daunting as it appeared from below, with a good track wending it’s way up through the rocks and plenty of good hand-holds to hang on by and provided us with a bit of variation from the eternal trudging with our poles which we had done for the previous three days. A highlight of this part of the climb was seeing the heavily laden porters scurry up past us like mountain goats, making us feel very inadequate as we slowly wheezed our way up!!
The precipitous Breakfast Wall with a few of the amazingly agile porters.
We had been away up above cloud level ever since the first camp, but in the late morning the mist and cloud came swirling up the mountain and gave us a very damp and cold lunchtime halt just after the last water point on the mountain at a stream which is fed by the glaciers on the top of Kilimanjaro. Annie and Victoria Watt had struggled on gamely all morning but didn’t get in to lunch until very late and feeling very weak, so it was agreed that, with only a faint hope of being able to launch a summit bid in their condition, they should cut down to a lower camp and recover there and we would meet them there the following evening. By
What on earth had given me the right to presume that at 53 and with two Birmingham Hip Replacements I could expect to conquer the huge darkened shape which loomed above us? But, by now, I was fully mended and can honestly say the further up the mountain we had come the better I felt and later on that night I almost began to feel guilty that things were going so well for me as everyone else began to feel fairly severe altitude effects, particularly on this last summit bid.
We looked a sorry collection as we stood around waiting to set off and in fact Ben/Dave Russill couldn’t even get out of the tent as his legs wouldn’t work at all after maybe carrying too much weight in water the day before and yomping up a steeper bit in an effort to catch the rest of us up having spent the morning selflessly helping Annie and Victoria. Of the rest, Peter and Katie Scott Aiton were in fairly bad shape, but wanting to give it a go and most people had a headache. Team spirit came to the fore very soon with the fitter ones egging on those who were struggling as well as coping with their own deteriorating condition. It was an eerie scene with the night sky full of the clinking of everyone’s poles on the rocks and when you dared to look up the sinking realisation that the line of twinkling lights you could see away up in the sky were not star constellations, but climbers head torches several hours ahead of you. Katie eventually had to turn back after a couple of hours and soon afterwards Tabs Becker-Kahn went sick having pushed a bit too hard catching the rest of us up after trying to help Katie. She struggled on to halfway up the cone before giving best and being joined by Col Flynn who was getting chest pains having started the climb with a heavy cold and prudently deciding she should drop back down to camp. Every time we stopped for a rest people were falling asleep even on their feet and I remember thinking at one stage we would be lucky to get a handful of us to the top at the rate we were going, however everyone was digging deep within themselves mentally as well as physically and as the sky began to lighten the leading group reached Stella Point on the crater rim, followed half an hour later by our Old Harrovians, Will Bonas and Alex de Trafford who, although suffering greatly, just kept plugging away until they had made it. Last up, but probably the greatest achievement, was Peter who in spite of being sick at least a dozen times and being told it was maybe time to pack it in and descend by both his parents, ignored them and finally made the rim to a great roar and cheer from all the others gathered there.
The guide books all describe the rest of the climb as a fairly gentle walk of about ¾ hour to the summit at
At the top!!! On the Roof of Africa!!!
At the summit we took a quick group photo and decided we had better get the walking wounded off the top as soon as possible so we descended, some with the help of a guide’s arm, back down to Stella Point where we had a small, but very moving ceremony and scattered some of Hazel’s ashes into the crater while David Watt said a few kind words and we would like to thank Ben Newman for carrying them up so much of the mountain.
Everyone recovered quickly as we lost height and the fitter ones were able to enjoy some great scree running back down to camp whilst others were continually falling asleep and had to be woken up several times and put on their feet again, but everyone made it back down to camp by about midday to some very welcome eggy bread, hot drinks and an hour’s sleep, before we were on the go again for a further three hours to Mweka Camp down in the Tropical rainforest belt and God was it muddy!!!! Those of you who are still with us and of a mathematical bent will realise that we had done quite a few hours walking over the last couple of days – namely 25 hours – so I’m afraid small matters such as being in a mud bath were of little consequence to the majority of us!!! It was great to meet up with Annie and Victoria again and find them fully recovered and my relief as organiser was immense that we had got so many of us to the top and more to the point got everyone safely down to a low level again. Even Katie was fully restored by now having had to accept a carry from the guides due to her legs being so shaky only to repay him by bowking up down his back!!! The great thing about the group was there was no feeling of we got up, or we didn’t get up the mountain as altitude sickness is indiscriminate in who it attacks and you are either lucky or unlucky and those who were affected badly probably put far more into trying to fight their way through it than some of the others who cruised to the top relatively unscathed, but obviously have less to show for all their suffering.
We then walked the following morning for three hours to Mweka Gate only to find the buses couldn’t make it up the muddy road to us and so we had an extra 4 kms to walk after all that. Overall we had walked 52kms up the mountain and 27 kms down again making 69kms in total. The sheer scale is difficult to comprehend and Kilimanjaro has its own ecosystem and is usually covered in cloud from ground level and in fact in the 2½ weeks we were there we never got a clear view of it – which was maybe just as well!!!!
A couple of Kilimanjaro beers were too much for our mascot after his epic climb!!! He is to be auctioned off at the dinner/auction on October 28th so keep your eyes open for the pledge catalogue on the web site in early October.
To us the Keys Hotel in Moshi had become a lot more luxurious since we had last been in it – or so it seemed after 6 days on the mountain living in tents – and amongst mutters of "never, never again" we had a quick total up from everyone and reckoned the group had raised over 50,000 (although it will be some time before the final sponsorship monies are gathered in) for Hazel’s Footprints Trust which is an incredible total.
A huge thank you to all those who came and made it such an unforgettable experience and we would like to thank Abel, Leonce, all our guides, cooks and porters and the people of Marangu and Tanzania for making us so welcome. Whilst out there we met up with Katy and Dilly Allen of the Village Education Project (Kilimanjaro) and the HFT trustees have decided to make their first award under the Trust’s third aim and send £600 to help with purchasing text books in the five schools that their project covers as a thank you for the children giving Hazel so much pleasure when she was out there and if I may quote directly from “A Gap in the Life”:-
"Along the way we adopted three kids who came all the way with us. One was so cute and jumped down the path holding my hand & laughing – I’ve missed being around such loving eager kids more than I thought!".........." We met a girl who’s working out here teaching – she made me so jealous – yet I felt bad for all that when I’m having an awesome time – just made me remember the feeling you get from teaching a kid something."
