Kilimanjaro day 5 (summit day!): 5km from Barafu (15331') to Uhuru Peak (19341'), back down, before a quick break for lunch and a one hour nap before continuing through Millenia camp down to Mweka camp (10170'). In other words, over 4000' of climb, and 9170' of drop. Good training for St George with all the downhill I guess?
Getting to the summit took 6 hours and it was very hard. That's right. 5km in 6 hours was hard. 19341' of altitude is absolutely unreal. The trail was super steep and rocky. I thought after my time in Utah that it wouldn't be that bad, but this was harder than making it through the night in any 100 mile race I ever did back in my ultra days. 19000' is not even comparable to anything in Utah, including King's Peak. It is so much harder that I can't even describe it.
Let's put it this way: imagine being so out of breath that you constantly feel the need to take a break, but every time you take a break, you start to freeze and shiver uncontrollably, even with 2 ski jackets (should've brought my Canada Goose Parka, not my crappy North Face ones), very warm ski gloves, insulated snowpants, glove warmers, a wool hat, and a neck gaitor. You have to kick your feet hard into the ground with every step to keep your feet from going numb, even with Smartwool's thickest socks and Danner mountaineering boots considered by some to be the best boots ever made for this sort of excursion. You're so tired that sitting down makes you start to nod off, but you know that if you fall asleep, you'll freeze to death, almost without a doubt. Your stomach is upset from the extreme altitude, so you're just nibbling slowly on Clif Bars and taking a drink of tea from a thermos every time you stop, knowing that it's the only thing genuinely keeping you warm. You keep thinking to yourself that it'll warm up once the sun comes up, but if you take too long, the sun will get extremely intense near the peak and you'll be unable to summit. Your nose is constantly trickling blood, but you can't take your gloves off to wipe, so you just deal with it. Even with 150% of the daily dosage of excedrin, your headache gets worse with increased altitude. So, yeah, doing this on 90 minutes of tortured sleep was one of the hardest things I've done in my life. I was in pretty darn good shape going in, but this altitude and freezing cold (sub-zero with uncharacteristically high winds) rendered my running training pretty much useless.
Despite the difficulty and suffering, when we crested Stella Point with the horizon starting to lighten up, and saw Uhuru in the distance (for the first time in the day), everything was totally worth it. We were absolutely elated when we reached the summit:
Getting to that peak gave me more of an emotional high than anything I've ever done before. Emmanuel and Joshua (our guides) were really excited as well!
The views were so much better than anything else I've ever seen that I can't even begin to describe them:
However, it was still freezing cold, so hot tea was still keeping me alive and functional
(Go back and notice that that cup was also present in the summit sign photo as well).
On the way down, we saw a woman succumb to the altitude 10m from Stella Point which was devastating. Joshua, Emmanuel, her guide took turns carrying her down a few thousand feet of super rugged terrain on their backs:
Out of 100-ish people attempting to summit on our night from our campsite, several dozen failed. I've seen the statistic that only 40% of people that start make it to Uhuru. This seems awfully low, but our route (Machame) has a higher percentage due to the higher altitude acclimitization followed by lower altitude sleeping on days 2 and 3 (and day 4 for people doing it as a 7 day climb, which is more common).
Looking back from Barafu, right before more clouds rolled in, we had an insane view of Uhuru:
The descent was pretty hard on the legs, and it didn't help that the snow and wind really picked up:
 
Joshua and Emmanuel demonstrating the stretchers for people getting altitude sick:
They also started pointing out monuments where people succumbed to the elements and died, and there were quite a few around here, but I didn't get any photos somehow. Apparently we had seen a lot on the way up, but they had decided not to mention them prior to summiting.
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Emmanuel (without hat) and Joshua (with green hat and glasses on top), our guides, were great, and our favorite porter was God (short for Godfred in Tazania, and a pretty awesome nickname :), in front with a hat like mine). God taught us some awesome Swahili slang and kept our spirits up when we were suffering.
