Previous Post: Day 6 – Karanga To Barafu

• Distance to the summit from Barafu Camp: 5.1 km.
• Time: 6 hrs. 15 minutes to the summit; 2 hr. 35 min. back to Barafu Camp
• Altitude gain: 1225m/4019ft.

It was the climax of the trek – the walk uphill to Kibo’s rim at Stella Point and then along the rim a bit more to Uhuru Peak – but until after Stella Point, all  I have to show are:

• the GPS track and the heart rate reading generated by my Polar M430 and
• one single image – the shot below, which I took at 2:45 a.m.!

Wake-up had been at 11 p.m.  I had slept a little, and when I wasn’t, I was listening to the wind blowing hard and hoping it would not be doing that for the duration of our climb up the exposed slope of the mountain.  I had packed everything for the walk to the summit earlier that evening to avoid any last-minute panic.

My spare camera batteries were already in the chest pocket of my wool base layer.  Before exiting my tent, I packed everything I would not need into the duffel and locked up the zipper.  Our tents would remain standing for our estimated 9:00 to 10:00  a.m. return, when we would crawl in for a brief rest.

It was pitch dark.  I left the tent and went to the dining tent for tea and some cookies.  While we waited for the signal to start our midnight adventure,  bottles and bladders were filled with hot water.  Going up with the five of us would be the three guides and – to provide extra emergency support – two of the lead porters, Fella and George.

We started off shortly after midnight.  Already visible on the slopes was a string of headlamps bobbing up and down.  Occasionally, I would glance up and see something much brighter – a star above Kibo.  I focused on the legs of the person ahead of me and walked into the zone of light created by my headlamp.

The wind was still blowing hard from the SE, and we would feel its full force every time the switchback trail turned in its direction.  The temperature was below freezing; I had on multiple layers to keep in my body heat!

On the bottom, I had on my warmest fleece long johns, my nylon trekking pants, and my Goretex rain pants.  On top, the four layers included a fleece base layer, a wool layer, a synthetic insulation layer, and my goose-down jacket.  My head was covered with a balaclava, a wool hat, and the two hoods of my top jackets.  I would detach the goose-down hood and give it to Fella soon into the walk.

We took a few breaks on our way up.  Amazingly, we eventually walked past all but one of those strings of light that we had seen on our departure.  In retrospect, we made excellent progress even if we didn’t feel it then!  During one break, I did something I had never done before on a summit hike – I accessed my workout playlist on my iPhone and started listening to some music.  It really seemed to help and gave me something else to focus on.

At about 5:30, we got to Stella Point, the point on the crater rim where the trail comes up.  It was still dark, so I did not bother to take any photos; I figured I’d get some on the way back.  And then a bit of confusion  – one of our trekking group had flopped down on the ground thinking that this was Uhuru Peak!  We rested for a few minutes and moved on.

Thirty-five minutes later, we were at what all the travel brochures call the Roof of Africa!  There was one other party there already.  We watched as they went through many different variations of photos –

• of trekkers only,
• of guides only,
• of trekkers and guides,
• of everybody with banners,
• solo shots…

Meanwhile, we took in the 360º view from the spot we had been looking at for the past week.

Shortly after we arrived at Uhuru Peak, the sun came up, and the camera came out!  The sky was brightening with the just-rising sun.  I looked towards Mawenzi, Kilimanjaro’s other peak and got the image below.  It was 6:21 a.m.

Then I turned west to look at the distant profile of Mount Meru,  a trek to whose summit I had used as an acclimatization hike for this walk to Uhuru Peak.

Behind us, other trekkers were approaching Uhuru Peak and the signboard that marks the spot.  They would soon be waiting for us while we did a photo session, not unlike the one we were watching unfold!

And shortly after 6:30  – photo time for our Canadian/American summit team!

We were up by the signboard for about 15 minutes and by 6:35, had already begun our return to Stella Point.  Everyone had made it, and if anyone wasn’t feeling 100%, it was not evident.  Our Popote crew had taken good care of us on the way up, setting a pole pole (slowly, slowly in Swahili) pace and taking on extra stuff in their packs so ours would be a bit lighter.

If we felt elation at having “conquered” Kilimanjaro – such a military metaphor that harkens back to another age – then the Popote guys were relieved not to have faced any complications and satisfied that they had helped us reach our goal.

From our vantage point next to the Uhuru Peak signboard, I turned towards that chunk of ice to the west,  a remnant of the Southern Icefield.  In the photo below, it is lit up by the rising sun.

And beyond the glacier remnant, there was Meru again.

A Little About That Uhuru Peak Sign!

The iconic sign at the top of Kibo on Mount Kilimanjaro figures in thousands of photos that celebrate good luck, personal achievement, and the will to see something through to the very top!  The signboard itself has gone through some changes over time.  After a few minutes with the Google image search function, I came up with these –

The Original Signboard

1. The original version of the sign with the boards neatly horizontal.  Given the stickers, it has been there for a while!

1.  By 2011, the sign had lost the bottom board.  While someone looking for a unique souvenir may be responsible, it likely got blown away in a severe windstorm.

Draping the bottom of the sign in this image is a set of Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags, always a nice touch on mountaintop shrines worldwide!

See my post: Blowin’ In The Wind: An Appreciation of Tibetan Buddhist Prayer Flags

3.  The Ramshackle Signboard

The board below was there before January 2012.  It now had all four boards again, all somewhat off-kilter.  The box at its foot had a registry book in it where trekkers would leave their names.  Yet other images have a larger registry box elevated from the ground and stretching across the entire width of the sign’s support posts.  This sign is the most common one in photos, perhaps because it coincides with the emergence of smartphone photography!

The New and Improved Green and Yellow Signboard!

 (2012-2014)

In late 2011/early 2012, the Park officials replaced the iconic sign with the new one pictured below.  It was not embraced with enthusiasm by the trekkers who made it to the top!  They did not want bland and neat – they wanted the old, classic, and iconic sign that had been there before!

The New Old Sign!  Since mid-2014

By mid-2014, the feedback had been negative enough that the green/yellow sign was removed and replaced with one which looked much like the first one above, right down to the askew third horizontal board.  There is no registry box at the foot of the sign, but someone has been good enough to fasten a set of prayer flags to the bottom of the posts.

Since my 2019 visit – a board with a painted Tanzanian flag has been placed on the sign.  it now looks like this –

The snow cover certainly gives the image an entirely different feel!

If you have a recent Uhuru Peak signboard image which shows more changes, send it to me at true_north@mac.com, and I’ll post it here!

So Where Are the Glaciers?

There is a bit of ice and snow at the top of Kilimanjaro’s Kibo, but not as much as I expected.  An estimated 85% of the glacial covering has disappeared in the past 100 years.  Amazing to think that most of the glacial ice just turns into vapour and not the streams I pictured pouring down the mountain’s slopes!

Here are three images of the glacier cover on top of Kibo.  The first shows how it looked in the early 1970s; the other two are satellite images from 2002 and 2019.

1.  Early 1970s:

2.  December 30, 2002

3.  February 19, 2019

Feb. 2019 – another angle

The satellite images show the ever-shrinking Northern, Southern, and Eastern Icefields and the disappearing Furtwangler Glacier near Crater Camp.

The image below shows the ice patch to the SW of the Uhuru Peak signboard.  I also took a photo of it when we first arrived – see a few images above for the shot.

Fifty years ago, there were glaciers on the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro with names like Diamond, Balletto, Heim, Kersten, and Decken.  And now?  Not much more than the glacial patch you see in the image above.

When we neared Stella Point on our descent from Uhuru Peak, I turned back to the north and got the next shot.  It shows some recent snowfall and what is left of the Furtwangler Glacier on the middle left side of the image.  I wish I had done better documenting what is still up there.

Here is an internet-sourced image of the section inside the box.  It was taken in 2014, and the perspective is a bit different, but it captures the Furtwangler Glacier nicely.  The Northern Icefield has receded somewhat over the past five years.  As for the Furtwangler, it is losing some of its current 15-meter (50 ft)  thickness each year.

When I first considered the various routes up to the top of Kilimanjaro, I was attracted to one that included a night at Crater Camp, located not far from the Furtwangler Glacier.  A trip report highlighting the absolute mess Crater Camp has become, thanks to the lack of sewage disposal, turned me off the idea.  Also, if an ascent of Kilimanjaro is already rapid by most acclimatization protocols, then a night at Crater Camp at 5700 meters just compounded the potential problems.

The image below – internet-sourced – with the person standing in the middle of the Furtwangler Glacier’s interior gets across the glacier’s thickness – perhaps 15 meters.  I am not sure when the photo was taken;  we can expect it to shrink another meter each year.  By 2035 it should be gone!

We were soon back down at Stella Point and walking past a group of just-arrived trekkers celebrating the success of this stage of their journey.  I spoke there with an American trekker who had spent the night at Crater Camp with his wife.  She had exhibited worsening altitude sickness symptoms for the past few hours, so they were making their descent to Barafu Camp.  Their guides were carrying their packs.  Unfortunately, they had left their walk up to Uhuru Peak for this morning.  Now they were on their way down without having done it.  That must have hurt!

Like the signboard up at Uhuru Peak, this new copy of the old one has also replaced the unpopular yellow/green version that only lasted a couple of years.

The Return To Barafu Camp:

And then the descent.  If walking uphill on scree is awkward, it is even more so on the way down.  We would lose 1200 meters in 2 1/2 hours and eat a lot of dust being kicked up.  You have two choices –

•  get in front of the line so no one is kicking up dust ahead of you, or
• take a break every once in a while to put some distance between you and those ahead of you.

I found the first option to be the better one!

The photo below was taken perhaps fifteen minutes into our descent from Stella Point.  Already visible in the image is Barafu Camp, with its tents just to the right of the flat hilltop in the middle of the picture.  You can even see the summit trail crossing that stretch of flatness.

On the way down, I peeled off successive layers of clothing, top and bottom.  It was a beautiful sunny morning on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, a lot different from the cold and windy early morning we had spent on our way up to the crater rim.

By 9:00, we were all back in camp, receiving congrats and a cup of juice from one of the porters who had remained in camp.  The juice went down easy and reminded me that I had not hardly had anything to drink for the past nine hours!

Before leaving camp at midnight, I filled my one-litre Nalgene bottle and my two-litre bladder with hot water.  One litre of water weighs 1 kg. or 2.2 lbs.  I had carried 3 kg./6.6 lbs. of water up the hill.  Of that, I drank 1/2 litre!  I carried 5.5 lbs for nothing!

We spent a leisurely morning at our campsite, relaxing in our tents or basking in the sunshine.  My boots and base layers were drying out in the sun.  My water intake had also increased to compensate for the lack of intake over the past nine hours!

The trail to the ranger’s hut and the registration book passed right by the Popote campsite.  I watched as a large group of maybe twenty trekkers filed by.  They were going to sign in at the hut.  At midnight, it would be their summit time.

As I scanned their faces, I was sure I saw one or two trekkers who looked at least a year or two older than Mark and me!

From Barafu Camp To High Camp:

We left Barafu Camp shortly after noon.  The usual post-summit itinerary for groups who have done the Lemosho, the Machame, or the Umbwe routes is to descend via the Mweka route to Mweka Gate.  It is a 16-km/10-m walk to the end, and, given the morning’s massive energy expenditure,  the distance is divided into two days.  Trekking groups will either stop for the night at

• High Camp (aka Millennium or Rescue Camp) at 3827m/12,556 ft. – about 4.2 km
• Mweka Camp at 3106m/10,190 ft.  –  about 6.5 km from Barafu

and then finish the trek the next morning.

Our target was High Camp, increasingly the site chosen by trekking groups thanks to an accessible water source.  It doesn’t hurt that it is also an hour or so less far than Mweka Camp.

• At 6:30 a.m., we were at 5895 m at Uhuru Peak
• by mid-afternoon, we’d be at 3827m at High Camp!

Everyone was in high spirits as we set off.  Someone commented – “Just think how we’d be feeling  going down if we hadn’t made it to the top!” We all agreed it would hurt to have invested so much time, energy, and money and not quite – for whatever reason –  getting to the summit.

About twenty minutes into our afternoon walk, I looked back and got a shot of Barafu camp.  After that, I put away my camera and focused on the steady downward path.

I had burned up almost 5000 calories getting to the summit and then returning to Barafu in the morning.

The afternoon proved to be much less stressful – though that 519 kcal figure seems much too low.  Then again, it was a very easy downhill walk!

By 3:00, we were at High Camp and – as always – found the Popote camp all set up on our arrival.  Most of the crew who did not make the ascent enjoyed a few hours off at Barafu while their guests set off at midnight for Uhuru Peak.  Now they had one more morning of hauling, and their job would be done.

Next Post: Day 8 – High (Millennium) Camp to Mweka Gate