- SUMMITING -

“That which is easily
attained is lightly esteemed.”
– James B. Galbraith.

There are several routes by which one may summit on Kilimanjaro from the Machame Route. The most difficult is the Western Breach. We knew that, but we did not, in spite of research, know how hard it would be.

Jimmy and I had read guide books that spoke of a “short scramble over the scree” at the end of the climb. It didn’t sound too bad. But while that short scramble may not seem like much to an experienced mountain climber, it turned out to be hard and, at times, frightening for us.

Simply put, the Western Breach is a place where one could die or be seriously injured with a small misstep.

We rose at 11 p.m. and set off at five minutes after midnight on the morning of Friday, Jan. 18, 2002. We were dressed warmly, in layers, and each of us wore a headlamp to light the way.

We started off in the usual order: Eligius, Harry, me, Richard, Jimmy, Tom and Brent. Melchiory, our assistant guide, brought up the rear.

Our line moved very slowly. At 16,000 feet, the slightest exertion causes labored breathing. Not long after we started, I began to feel a little nauseous. Galbraith said later that he did, too.

Soon, I began to pray someone would say uncle before me and call for a rest stop. No one did, so, gasping, I asked for a stop. Everyone quickly agreed. No one in the group ever argued against stopping for a breather.

Eligius never let us rest for long, though, and I realized why later. We had a long, long way to go, and he knew it better than we did.

As we moved onto the face of the breach, the terrain went from quite bad to much worse. It was more than just steep and airless. It became more sheer, rockier, less stable, more covered in snow and ice. Footing became trickier and trickier as we moved higher.

We each wore headlamps of varying quality, and Eligius led the way, a handheld flashlight in his hand and a 50-pound fully loaded pack on his back. He picked his way slowly up the mountain, guided partly by small stone cairns marking the trail and partly by instinct.

Later, after coming down off the mountain, Tom found the following passage in the guidebook Tanzania by Graham Mercer:

“Of several trails, the Machame is regarded as most beautiful, a lovely gradual ascent through the forest bringing walkers out onto the Shira Plateau, facing the magnificent Western Breach with its daunting wall (rated by Reinhold Messner, one of the greatest mountaineers of all time, as ‘more serious than the north face of the Eiger.’)”

Our group did not climb Messner’s wall, but we did climb the Breach, and it was plenty daunting for us.

Shortly after we headed up the face, it began to sleet again, and the sleet soon turned to snow. As we climbed, it grew colder and colder. Our water bottles began freezing, and our fingers and toes grew numb.

I cannot describe how the others felt, but I was becoming light-headed, breathless, a little dizzy. My feeling of being on the edge of losing my supper persisted almost the whole way up. My mind raced, and I reminded myself over and over: Just walk. Don’t think.

Somewhere near what I’m guessing was the halfway point, I was having trouble keeping my balance. I staggered, and Richard and I collided. He went down, plainly suffering the effects of altitude as much as I was. He needed a short rest to get his legs under him again, assisted by some GatorAde from Tom’s supply.

For several seconds, I think all of us wondered if Richard would rise and go on.

It was then that a really scary thought struck me and all of us – It would be more dangerous to try and go down than to go up. We had reached a point of no return. There was no safe way down through the dark, ice-crusted rocks. Just walk. Don’t think.

“I guess I just got a little hypoglycemic there for a minute,” Richard said finally. He stood up and moved on.

Jimmy loaned me one of his two trekking poles, and that helped enormously in balancing and propelling myself forward. It would have been very, very hard to make the summit without that simple tool.

Because going up was our only route to safety, we went up and up.

We supported one another. Someone loaned Richard a warmer pair of gloves. Jimmy gave me his trekking pole. If your water was still liquid, not ice, you shared. We encouraged one another with every step.

We had to go on, so we did. So much for courage and commitment. We were breathless, scared, dizzy, off balance and freezing. Our feet and hands were numb from cold. We kept going because we had to.

We picked our way slowly over hundreds of icy rocks. We found ourselves putting all our weight on tiny, ice-covered toeholds. We clung to the mountainside by fingertips too numb to feel. Often the drop down the rocks was dangerously precipitous.

As the hours crept by, all of us narrowed our thoughts to only those that were essential. That essential thing was, moment to moment, the same thing – the next step, the next precarious hold.

You see only the rock and ice in front of you. Do not look up – too discouraging. Do not look down – too terrifying.

I have never done anything that required greater concentration over a sustained period than climbing the Western Breach. I have run nine marathons, but I’ve never done anything that taxed my body or soul more than Kilimanjaro. Nothing comes close.

Just walk. Don’t think.

Finally, a bit more than five hours after we began, we broke over the top of the breach at Askari Point. In that instant we were safe again. It was a bit more than an hour to the summit from the point, up a steep incline, but it was over ground that just required putting one foot in front of another, step after breathless step.

Eligius congratulated each of us, shaking our hands one by one. I think it took a moment for all of us to recognize what was happening.

“This means we’re going to make it,” I said, reveling in the moment. “Every damn one of us.”

The remaining distance to the top was a hard, slow, cold and breathless walk. Harry later called it a slog-o-rama. It was becoming light as we neared the summit, and a good thing, too, because my headlamp was dying as the sun cast its first shadows.

At 6:40 a.m., six hours and thirty-five minutes after starting, we stood in front of the sign welcoming us to Uhuru Peak, the highest point on the African continent at 5,896 meters. The word Uhuru is Swahili and means freedom.

We guessed the windchill factor at the peak had to be at least 20 below zero. All our water, what little remained, froze solid. When I took my little Elph camera out of my pack, it froze instantly. I got no photos at the top, but the others did.

What we saw from the peak was beautiful, surreal. Glaciers, stairsteps of deep blue ice, marched downhill from the peak. We looked across the sleeping volcano crater to other volcanic peaks, washed in bright, clear morning light. It was beautiful, but barren, stark, forbidding.

We were the first climbers at the peak that morning, and the only ones coming over the Western Breach. Soon, other climbers began staggering toward us out of the clouds, all apparently coming from the direction of the Barafu Hut route or the Marangu or Coca-Cola route, most commonly used.

Next >>

Climbing Kilimanjaro

Home

Introduction

Dolph's Journal

Jim's Journal

LINKS

African Adventures

African Atlas

FACTS

Continent Size: