Summit Mt. Kilimanjaro 15th August 2007
This is a true story of a team of five that successfully attained summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro on the historic day of 15th August, a special date for India; and that too against odds that would have not been easy for professional mountaineers. Look at the odds against this small group of not so young mountaineers in their late 40s except for the team leader, the able and professional mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu who has the distinction of being the fasters 7 seven summiter in the world http://www.1stindian7summits.com/default.html.
The team had no prior mountaineering experience
It chose the second toughest of the three main routes to reach the summit
The average fitness of the team was very low
To compound that the team for the first time joined on the 8th August to begin the trek
It further decided to stopover by sleeping in a crator that is not normally done by most people (in fact many people descending after the summit mentioned that the spot was very cold – sub zero
The route consisted of staying in tent that is much more tough as compared to staying in huts
On an average about 40% of 15000 people who attempt succeed in reaching the summit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilimanjaro); incidentally as per the mountaineering community, about 90% of the climber choose the popular tourist Marangu route and not the Machame route which means that about 600 people (4%) succeed in attaining the Uhur peak
It goes to show that a group of courageous and determined people can attain any goal if the team has a deep desire to attain such goals. In this travelogue, I will describe the whole story of the events, moments and some facts of this mountaineering trip. Before I begin, let me briefly detail aspects of Mt Kilimanjaro climb; it includes the highest mountain peak (Uhuru peak) in the African continent and the highest free standing mountain in the world at 5,895 metres (19,340 feet). It is an inactive stratovolcano geographically situated in North eastern Tanzania situated very close to equator. Climatically while climbing the mountain, one encounters multiple environment viz, temperature of about 30 degrees Celsius to a low minus 10 degrees at least, sun and rains, desert and green rain forest, snow and mist; further one has to encounter altitude challenges due to the high altitude of the mountain. Professional mountaineers describe three broad ways of reaching the summit viz.
Morango route
Machame route
Umbwe route
Going back in time, it was during April 07 that K Jayshankar announced the expedition to Mt Kilimanjaro that was scheduled to be done during August 07; the plan was to start the expedition on 8th August and summit on 15th August to coincide with the 60th year of India's independence when the Indian tricolor was to be unfurled and was actually accomplished on 15th August 07. The team was actually firmed up during August 07 when the five team members formally signed up to join the expedition. The members of the team consisted of K Jayshankar and Babu Mastan Malli the overall team leaders (with Malli being the technical leader and Jayshankar being the generalist); the team members were Ulhas Deshpande, Umar Teekay and P Shreekanth. One critical factor for the expedition to start was obtaining yellow fever certificate which is mandatory for people going to parts of Africa including East Africa. Obtaining yellow fever certificate is a story by itself but I won't get into that in detail; suffice to say that it is just significantly less difficult to obtain the certificate. Other preparations consisted of physical training, obtaining warm clothes and other stuff required to stay at Kilimanjaro. Finally the team met formally at Moshi, part of Kilimanjaro at a hotel to start with formal briefing and preparatory work towards climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.
The team spend about two days i.e. 8th and 9th August at a hotel in Moshi towards detailed preparatory activities, training and general acclimation which is crucial in high altitude climbing. This included discussion on other climbing expedition and learnings thereon.
Now climbing expedition unlike case studies or even actual business situations are similar and completely different in one sense. Climbing expedition is similar to any group of people working together on one project; and that is all in terms of similarity. The difference in much more; climbing expedition actually could lead to death and in that sense, the probability of team members chickening out is high; not only that, on the flip side, an immature person or even due to altitude sickness could flip to the other side and attempt to climb though physically incapable and end up dying. History is replete with climbers dying due to wrong decisions made. These aspects were discussed during the preparatory work but of no avail as there is a difference between discussing and actually living these ideas. No one knows this better than a team that actually climbs. It is one thing to sit in an armchair of a conference room and discuss as to whether to leave a person to die or go up towards summit and say like all reasonable human beings that safety is paramount and hence actually try to help a person who is downhill and may die. But can a person who is struggling to climb himself or herself go down and help another person? Isn't it all for himself or herself in the attempt towards climbing the mountain and not the team so much? I do not want to conclude anything in this article; all I can say is that what actually happens in the actual situation is what reflects each person's skills and values and not what he or she says; this actually gets accentuated in live climbing condition as there is a pressure on time and the climate makes the event that much more difficult unlike actual live business situation.
The three main components for the climb are Logistics, food, water, etc. Equipments and Team (LET); gap in anyone of these elements is sure for the venture to fail. However having all these three is no guarantee for attaining the summit if the team's determination, patience, maturity, team spirit and courage is low. The team consisted not just the five members but the guide and porter community of our partner; these consisted of the main guide, sub guides and porters who are an essential components of the team without which the climb would not be possible.
We started the climb on 10th August. 2007 (Day 1); we drove from our hotel in a Toyota vehicle early morning for the first day of the trek to Mt. Kilimanjaro (also called Kely Mkyaro - “hard to climb in Swahili). The first stop is at our climbing partner's office where all our luggages including food items, personal stuff, medicine, tents and other equipments are packed. In addition, our partner's team consisting of 3 guides and 20 porters joined us specially in view of regulation as one porter cannot carry more than 20 kgs. We finally flagged of towards our first stop viz the Machemo gate from which the expedition would start. The drive was lovely, the roads were good and either side of the road had large tracts of plantation crops such as corn and sunflower. We were entertained (!!) in our journey with loud conversation by Mushi (the driver) and others in singsong Swahili. We turned into a side road (not paved well) rising into the gates of Machemo route. On reaching the gates we found a considerable number of co-hikers from different nations such as Austria, US, Spain, Italy, including Indians from US ; we were the only team from India. Everyone was quite friendly leading us to a correct assumption that human have boundaries for political or other reasons; people with a common purpose gel along with quite well independent of nationality or religion or language or whatever separates one human from another.
All of us had to register with the park and subsequently luggage of each porter had to be weighed and confirmed to be within 20 kgs; once all the luggage was checked, the park authorities formally cleared us to begin the trek.
Machemo gate to Machemo camp [10th August]:
It was a cloudy and rainy day and our trek was quite easy walking in a path between lush tall, and green stately trees, shrubs, ferns and moss surrounding many of the tall trees. It was delightful to walk within such greenery with the body breathing in oxygen. Further since there was lots of ups and downs, the trek was quite interesting. We had interesting conversation with the guides specially us trying to learn some smattering of Swahili since they knew English quite well. One of them was actually a technician and the best thing about the african guides and porters is that they were very polite, ever smiling and do exactly what you tell them; they were focused on one instruction at a time and executed properly if it was clear. Some of the important words that we learnt were “pole pole” (slow slow) a very important phrase as I will describe the importance of these words later. The guides continuously mentioned the phrase throughout the expedition. Another interesting phrase was Hakuno matata which meant “no problem” We finally completed our trek quite comfortably at an average speed and reached our camp for the night; my right hand was quite cold and i could not even sign in on the register maintained at the campsite. This was a regular activity to keep a count at each stage of the persons who have reached that camp. Meanwhile our porters had set up our tents (one common for our dinner and discussion and three other tents for the five of us). Sometime in the evening we had a glimpse of the mountain and boy was it magnificent!! The dinner as was usually excellent, piping hot with a combination of soup, curry, rice, etc. and ended with lots of fruits. On a daily basis, we had normally two routines that we invariably followed;
Firstly performance of the day was discussed and learning therefrom derived in order to do better the next day and avoid mistakes;
Secondly, Jay discussed on specific topics for each day such as renewal, why climb, leadership approach, importance of persistence, etc.
These discussions apart from taking our mind off issues of the day also was useful for improved performance, reinforce correct actions, encourage positive action, etc.
Some lessons learnt during the day was
Anticipate events during trek and be prepared to take preventive action e.g. I should have covered my hands with gloves to avoid feeling so cold; it is more difficult to recover from cold as much as it is to prevent the hands from getting cold in the first instance
Preferably take fluids during the beginning of the day (usually 4-6 litres) to avoid dehydration in high altitude; avoid taking them one hour before sleep to reduce the number of nature call that one had to make at night as that saps energy specially at night.
At nights we normally went to our respective tents and got into sleeping bags. Nights at all the camps were normally cold except when one was securely inside the sleeping bags; once one moved out of the bag or outside the tent, the degree of coldness went up sharply affecting the activities that one could do. This was normally the program on all days.
As altitudes went on increasing, sleep was increasingly disturbed either due to low oxygen or awakening to pass urine. Similarly food intake was usually lower as one went onto higher altitudes ; this was further compounded by high quantity of water that one was to consume. So paradoxically energy input was low while the degree of activity and distance traveled continued to be constant or even higher affecting performance levels.
Machemo to Shira Camp [11th August]:
We woke up with the porters giving us hot water to wash (primarily for washing one's face, hands and teeth); once the morning ablutions were over, we had hot cups of teas, water, coffee or cocoa as the case may be, dressed up, had breakfast and started our trek. Breakfast was a combination of one or more of bread, omelet, porridge, honey, etc. This was the usual program on all days
The day started with lots of mist and cloudy skies that continued for a greater part of the day. The view was similar to Alpine type with lots of small sized plants or trees, shrubs and relatively lower vegetation. There was a lot of walking at an incline as well as limited rock climbing. It took a lot of time to travel the distance to Shira camp; walking was similar as on the first day. However it was relatively easier compared to further climbing that we were to do.
Our lessons for today was:
Have loads of patience in maneuvering the mountain
Walk slowly to better handle the terrain and acclimatise
Eat regularly and in time
Drink lots of water (about 4-6 litres)
Shira to Barranco Camp [12th August]:
We moved as usual after breakfast to a walk with very low vegetation and more of rocks, pebbles, etc. This day was interesting as for the first and the last time, we actually went up to a higher altitude to Lava tower and walked down to sleep at a lower altitude. As a mountain climbing strategy, it makes a lot of sense to climb upto a higher level and sleep it a lower level; this increases our ability to acclimatise and take more rest. Lava tower had quite a bit of interesting rocky structure and it was quite nice to climb down the rocks. There was quite a bit of vegetation and a few waterfall. In fact, going up or down these rocks was quite easy and involved and helped in giving a feel good factor.
Our lessons for today was:
Climbing up to a higher level and sleeping down improves our body management ability
We spent too much time in climbing which meant lesser rest for the day
Danger of delaying our next day program
Never take mountain for granted which translated into action point meant that someone who moves fast yesterday could slow down today and vice versa.
Climates keep changing from being cloudy to being hot and back to cloudy.
These lessons were of major concern and Malli strongly recommended that we had to move faster the next day to the Barafu camp as delay on this front would mean higher effort (i.e. Distance to be traveled is constant; hence delay in climbing would mean a larger effort for the day and reduced rest time). Apart from adequate food, water, distance and energy efficiency, rest is a very important factor in effective climbing.
Barranco to Barafu camp [13th August]:
This day was very good in terms of matching intention to actual implementation; we moved so quickly that we reached almost faster than the porters affecting the time when we could get hot steaming dinner; dinner was usually early so that we could retire to bed early.
The day started with us climbing the breakfast wall where we had to climb rocky wall of baranco; it was quite nice to climb these rocks. After that we went through lots of ups and downs with lots of rocks, pebbles (Scree), some streams and finally reached after passing through Karanga valley and finally upto Barafu Camp. The way was littered with lots of broken stones/rocks. The positive aspect for today and the days later was clearly being able to watch the stars of southern hemishphere which was quite interesting.
The team was satisfied with the pace of walking/climbing and went to bed with a feel good factor. Malli was quite encouraged and was clearly of the view that the team would make it.
Our lessons for today was:
Step by step approach and focus on now is very important in life as it is in mountain climbing
Planning clearly and having persistence pays off
Consistent action i.e. Slow and steady is better than walking fast and taking rest or time off i.e .Pole pole in action.
Barafu to crater camp (via stella point) [14th August]:
Today's climb was further into high altitude with high amount of Scree; this meant that we had to take tremendous effort albeit less than rock climbing; however consistent step by step approach was crucial on this day If we cracked today's climb, the probability of climbing to summit was a very high. This day was to an extent marred due to need for having adequate water supply (which was an issue since there was limited water at Barafu camp. It was further compounded by having to walk on crater and having to sleep in the crater at night; this is quite dangerous as temperature in the crater could easily slip into minus 10 degree Celsius leading to risk of the team getting adversely affected. This led to some of the team members getting quite concerned about the danger of climbing up and staying overnight at the cold crater.
To the credit of the team, it walked up to the crater camp walking over snow at some places and having a breath taking (literally)view of the glaciers. It almost felt that the mountain was keen for this team to attain the summit; it is as mentioned by Sir Hilary that the mountain allows us to conquer; we don't conquer mountains.
Our lessons for today was:
Do articulate concerns; however take action based on the feedback and update quickly the plan if need be and attempt the summit with necessary acts to mitigate the risks.
Always keep focus on the now.
Do not forgot the goal and make all out efforts to reach the summit.
Always keep both the short term and long term goal in mind.
Crater camp to Summit (Uhuru peak) [15th August]:
Today was a significantly difficult day; on the one hand it was so cold even within the tent that a human being could not open the tent to pass urine as it was cold at subzero level. When we got out the tent, we were almost frozen.
The team's strategy was to step by step go up the steeply gradient mountain as it was further compounded with slippery gravel (Scree)that one had to traverse. Further one had to walk on the mountain and face the shooting winds that one had to go through. We had a startingly high level of space that we had to walk with all these constraints.
Our lessons for today was:
Live for today and consistently go step by step.
This was particularly true when one had to walk up the hill on gravely soil and snow.
We then walked upto the highest peak viz. Uhuru peak where a notice was published that one had reached the highest part of the amount.
This was the day that we were waiting for!!. the whole team was happy though there were moments when one though that the other members were getting deleted
Return to hotel (Mweka Camp) [16th/17th August 2007]
We went to Mweka point at a fairly fast clip passing the soil which was mainly looking like desert. We then reached a place that had high vegetation content; we spent some time trying to take photographs of birds and plant. Malli managed quite a few and we were ready to return to the city. Further the next day, we climb down to an incredible neat, clean and green passage and reached the gate wherein we had to register to obtain a certificate of having climbed Mt Kilimanjaro.
The whole expedition looked like a lot of struggle, determination and persistence by the inexperienced team before attaining the summit. The whole team felt during the next day. What next!!!. Lets plan for the next trip ;)
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