Helene Barrette (center-front) on the summit of Kilimanjaro
September 11, 2003. Two years after the 9/11 that marked us all forever, I lived another event that has changed me forever: at around 8am local time, I reached the summit of Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa at 5,895m. The view was amazing, the sun still rising in the distance over vast plains, and I was surrounded by nearly 300 people who were also reaching the summit that day. Most climbers were ecstatic, the guides ranged from indifferent to happy, and quite a few climbers didn’t look like they were handling the altitude too well.
As a member of a commercial climb organized by an adventure travel company, I had been climbing for the best part of two weeks. The first week, we climbed Mount Meru, which “faces” Kili, and which, at 15,000ft+, is no small feat. For my first ever “alpine start” – leaving the hut at 1am – I managed to psyche myself out completely. I also did suffer from mild altitude sickness – and had to turn back at around 4am. Disappointing, but Kili was the real goal.
Week 2 saw us starting at the bottom of the Shira Plateau Route – beautiful, daunting, fascinating. Never boring or repetitive, this route climbs through the jungle to eventually reach a huge plateau, where the now-vanished Shira volcano once stood. Continuing over the next few days, we eventually reached the base of the Western Wall. Our route was to take us to the Summit Plateau of Kili, via the Wall’s “Western Breach”. This route is generally considered the most technical on Kili, and requires some moderate scrambling, with a fair bit of exposure.
This time, I was ready for my alpine start! We left camp at about 1am again, and slowly trudged up the wall. A spectacular full moon was lighting up the path so well that we could turn off our head lamps for the easier sections. A few hours into the climb, we reached a steeper scrambling section. One look down, and I realized that I had better not fall — the consequences would be, if not deadly, very very very serious… Our guide told us that we had reached the “point of no return”: if we climbed over the boulder in front of us, there was no going back, we would have to keep going up and go over the summit, and down the other route. I glanced behind me, and thought, “there is NO WAY I’m going back down the way we just came, so I guess I’m going up…” So – up we went.
With my head down, carefully and very slowly placing one foot in front of the other, I failed to realize that we had reached the “lip” of the Breach, where the wall ends and the plateau stretches out in front us, blocked hundreds of meters further by a vertical wall of ice where the glaciers have receded. We had reached the flat summit plateau, and the sun was just starting to color the sky orange right in front of us. We felt completed elated – it had been a long cold night until then – as our spirits soared once again, and we all knew that we were going to reach the summit. We took a moment to “re-hydrate”, and then the rest of my group moved up ahead of me. I was by far the slowest member, and one of the guides stayed with me at the back as I “polé-poléd” my way up the final low-angled climb to the summit. My last few steps took me straight to the summit marker sign, and we all hugged and shouted with joy at having made it. It was nothing short of magical.
I have to confess that I had not trained at all prior to Kili – work was too busy, and I approached it as “I’ll try, and if I don’t make it, no big deal”. I suffered quite a bit (I was overweight and out of shape, and had failed to train properly — shame on me, I don’t recommend doing it that way…), but in the end, it was sheer determination (and helpful guides) that got me up the mountain.
Standing on the summit, I was overwhelmed by the feeling that, if I could do THAT, I could do ANYTHING I set my mind to. Even now, five years later, when things get tough, I try to remember that feeling of complete and utter confidence, of knowing that if I try, I will succeed.
After taking pictures and video, and pausing to remember the victims of 9/11 for two minutes of silence, we tackled the descent. A never-ending scree slope (the “Coca-Cola route”) took us down fast, but by the time we reached camp, not only were my knees sore, I thought I had bronchitis. My lungs were so full of scree dust, that I could barely breathe. I wheezed and coughed all night (fortunately, I had a tent to myself), and by morning, the fresh air around camp seemed to have helped. Things were much better, as we made our way down through the jungle once again, and collected our certificates attesting that we did, indeed, reach the summit of the highest point in Africa.
I can’t wait to go again: Africa, the mountain, the people, the climate, the wildlife… Amazing… Go! What are you waiting for already?
Submitted by Helene Barrette. You can read more about Helene’s adventures on TravelPod and connect with her on Twitter.
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