Showtime.
We were up, dressed, packed and in the breakfast tent at 5:30am. The tents were frozen on the outside. So were we. Nobody said much at breakfast and soon we were on our way. We were going to gain over 4,000 vertical feet to the summit at 19,340ft.
Jon all bundled up
Sunrise from Barafu. Mawenzi peak in the distance.
Hosea
I felt lucky. The other groups that camped here, which included all the other groups traveling the Machame and Lemosho routes, had already left for the summit before midnight with only a few hours to nap after dinner. They would hike up the mountain all night in the dark, arrive at the summit at sunrise, wait in a line to take their pictures, and then descend back to Barafu for a couple more hours of rest before descending to a lower camp for the night. We were going to summit in the early afternoon, camp in the crater, and descend at sunrise the next day.
Hosea had said to bring 3 liters of water with us since we would not be able to refill from the porters until we reached the summit and were at camp in the crater. The only water up here is what they chip off of Furtwangler glacier and melt over the stove. Hosea offered more than twice to carry my third liter and I let him.
We started walking, pole pole. One foot in front of the other. Hosea seemed to sense our (or at least my) maximum pace. We stopped a couple of times for 10 minutes to rest, but each time we would get cold, have to go into our packs for more clothing, then start walking again, get warmed up, stop to take off the extra clothes, and then get back on pace. We talked Hosea into stopping for only about 3 minutes at a time so we wouldn’t get stiff and cold. There were great views looking back down the mountain.
The weather would change constantly from clear sunshine to overcast to low clouds, to hail. We kept making our way up the mountain to our lunch stop, about 400 vertical feet below the crater rim, served on a blanket spread out on the rocks. It was hailing. We learned that Trish and George had turned back somewhere below us and that Wilbert and Faraja were staying with them.
Lunch on the way to the summit
We finished a light lunch and wanted to get back underway as quickly as possible as it was windy and probably below freezing. 45 minutes later we were at Stella point, on the crater rim at 18,800ft. Here it flattens out and the hardest part of the climb is over. We could see the summit (Uhuru) and knew we were going to make it without much trouble.
At Stella Point
We picked up our pace and finished the remaining 500 or so feet of elevation gain in an hour and a half, climbing past glaciers, through fields of spikes of ice & snow and marveling at other lunar-looking scenery.
We reached Uhuru peak, 19,340ft, at exactly 2:00pm local time, celebrated, and took pictures. We probably stayed there for 15 minutes before continuing down a steep scree slope to our camp in the crater below us.
Jon and Hosea at Uhuru summit!
Sean, Greg and Tony
View from the summit, with our next campsite below in the crater
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