With our long, long marches and altitude, I found it hard to keep decent notes at the point. I have vague recollections of summit day, and surprisingly few, given how many hours we were out. Unfortunately, I have even fewer photos as there was nothing worth looking at and my enthusiasm plummeted the higher we got.
We got up at 11 or so after a frustratingly short sleep. It was absolutely pitch black and freezing outside our tents. I wasn’t wearing quite as many layers as everyone else - I was going to chance on a few less layers (no baselayers on my legs, and a single midlayer on my body), remembering how hot I’d gotten last time.
Everyone piled into the mess tent for one final debrief before we departed. Ibrahim tested everyone for heart rate and blood-oxygen saturation level. I remember having a slightly higher than normal heart rate and the lowest oxygenation out of the group (about 70%), even worse than Bob who was about twice my age!
We’d be coming back to camp after the summit, so we really didn’t need to carry much besides water and snackage.
I was carrying my camelbak (the tube would freeze en route, just like last time, despite the steps I’d taken), my smaller 700ml bottle (which M’Sofia mistakenly filled with hot water - I was a tad worried as this bottle isn’t the right kind of plastic, but it was fine … kept me warm), headtorch (with a partial change of batteries - I’d only brought two spare batteries whereas this takes three, d’oh), trekking poles, and a couple of handfuls of nuts and M&Ms in the hip pockets.
We started on up in earnest. Walking in the pitch black but for our torches, we could see several people ahead of us, as well as a few who set off from camp around the same time. I would have been interested to see how Team Kili (a similar group trekking at the same time, but with 30 members!) would’ve planned this. The logistics of managing so many people in the dark must be enormous.
To say we spent quite a fair few hours walking, the whole period was pretty much a blur, mostly thanks to the dark and the wind - no-one had any inclination to talk, nor would anyone be able to hear anyone else muffled by our clothing and the howling wind. After a while of watching the boots of the person in front (you got to know who was who by the back of their bag/boots) I started to nod off, even while we were walking! I would be literally taking micro-sleeps in-between each slow plod, occasionally bumping into the person in front if they stopped!
James and Bob started to fall back at some point, each with a guide also falling back to watch over them.
Ibrahim told us right from the start to give our bags over to a guide if we started to feel tired. Having repeated this a few times, I was the first of the group to oblige. I handed over my 5kg daypack to Emmanuel to carry. This tiny weight felt like the world had been lifted from my shoulders and I felt better for a little while longer.
My renewed vigour was not to last, however. I was knackered and kept stopping. I felt the need to rest far more than the remainder of our group - the girls were proving to be far more resilient than the guys! I was starting to wish I had ski mitts on - my hands were starting to freeze in my thin liner gloves as I was using the trekking poles.
Jackie was checked for AMS at one point - eyes and tongue were examined. I don’t recall Gemma saying a word the whole way up. I was also checked and I was breathing deep, deep breaths like they were my last.
Porters hopping between between us all en route the whole time to keep an eye on us, amazingly with no need of their own headtorches to see where they were going.
We later discovered Ibrahim was carrying an oxygen tank in the event of an emergency.
While we were overtaken by a group or two in the early hours, several people were brought down again past us by their guides, a few hours later looking in a terrible state.
Slightly before dawn, James caught up with us having made a 100% recovery! He was reborn and actually felt quite chipper compared to the rest of us. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see Bob again till camp upon our return.
Ibrahim kept telling us it wasn’t far to go and this was thoroughly annoying me - his attempts to encourage us merely led to disappointment and resentment upon rounding a corner and seeing the path wind off even further into the distance.
Reached Stella Point about 5:30 thinking it was summit.
The long walk across from Stella Point takes you across the snow fields which’re easily knee-high. The path was icy after much footfall, so took a bit of light-stepping. Not hard, but tiring at this altitude.
Reached actual summit about 7:00. There was nothing there - a metal box for donations in case you happened to be carrying money up a mountain expecting to see a souvenir or coffee shop … Apparently this was a new sign but was still covered in stickers and things. No prayer flags though, which is a complete contrast to Everest Base Camp, which is completely covered.
We had a few photos and dossed for an hour or so before setting off down. Somehow I managed to fall behind even though I set off first and don’t recall seeing anyone going past me.
Now that the sun had come up, we had a perfect view of the distance we had walked over the seven hours: 4.5km. We took a more direct route to get back to camp: straight down! Basically running and sliding down the skree: skree-skiing. Luckily I was pig-headed enough to not let my guide drag me down too quickly, but some of the other guys tripped and fell as they were ‘led’ down the slopes.
According to my notes, I got back into camp about 16:00, which seems a tad odd - it’d mean it took me 8 hours to get down, after taking 7 hours to go up. I can only think my notes were a bit off.
EDIT: According to Adventure Company’s trip notes, the descent should take about 3 hours.
EDIT: The time taken from summit to camp would be quite long compared to the climb, where we started at the base. So I guess we spent 3 hours getting down and another few hours walking to camp.
Had 45 minutes to sleep at camp before packing and moving onto the next camp (3100m) via the Mweka route down.