At the time I booked the climb, I was in terrible shape: I take my teaching job very seriously, work a very large number of hours, and don’t sleep much. This doesn’t help with physical fitness and doesn’t leave much time for exercise.
In the two months preceding the climb date, this is exactly what I did as physical exercises:
- Six full-day hikes.
- Twice a week band practices (playing Brazilian drums which require dancing and playing at the same time)
- Once a month weeding the family garden at the family house.
- One run in the neighborhood.
- Ten serious visits to the YMCA gym.
- One four-day canoe-camping trip.
The training hikes that I did were always uphill, but never too strenuous. During these hikes, I always took my time and never hiked fast.
I did what I had time to do, but when trip-time came, I was dead scared of not making it to the summit. I was still easily winded, and my body mass index was 27. To make my fear worse, several people at the pre-climb hotel stated that the Kili climb was the hardest thing they have ever done. One man even stated that each day of the climb was the hardest day of his life. Young and older people both said it was “so hard”. So understandably, I was scared.
But I did make it to the top!
Dry weather surely helped, and being prepared against the July cold also helped. But what really helped is the “pole pole” (pronounced poleh poleh), magic words continuously said on the mountain. They mean “slowly slowly”; and that was generally the pace set by the guides: slow.
I was in a group of six climbers. Four of them were in good shape and would always walk at the (slow) speed set by the main guide of that day. I was slower: after the first couple of days we figured out that if I walked at a comfortable pace that does not leave me breathless, it takes me about an hour and ten-to-fifteen minutes to cross a distance that the others would cover in an hour. Since our group of six people had three guides, splitting the six of us into two groups, a slower and a faster group, was not a problem. The four fast climbers walked at the pace set by the main guide on that day, and I walked at my pace with a different guide. Every hour and a half or so the fast group would stop and rest, which allowed me to catch up with them. Everyone was happy with the arrangement.
Here’s how I felt (physically) on each of the 8 climbing days. Hike times shown are *my* hike times:
- Day 1: trail head to big tree camp. 3h30min hours of afternoon/evening hiking. Hike not too strenuous, I stopped briefly when I was out of breath and felt fine.
- Day 2: big tree camp to Shira1 camp (not Shira2 as the website claims). 3h35min of hiking before lunch. 2h10min of hiking after lunch. The ups and downs on that day were very strenuous for me. Difficult day.
- Day 3: Shira1 camp to Moir camp. 3h30min of hiking before lunch. 2h30 of hiking after lunch. Hike not too strenuous, I stopped briefly when I was out of breath and felt fine.
- Day 4: Moir camp up to lava tower for lunch then down to Barranco camp. 3h20min of hiking before lunch. 2h50min of hiking after lunch. I was comfortable on the way up. I felt a little rushed on the way down.
- Day 5: Barranco camp, up the Barranco wall, down-&-up Karanga valley to Karanga hut +acclimatisation hike. 2h25min of rock scrambling on Barranco wall, 2h35min down-&-up Karanga valley, ~2h acclimatisation hike. Up the wall was fine because I was allowed to go slowly. I felt a little rushed on the way down the valley but not too much. For the acclimatisation hike, I kept slipping on small loose rocks on the way down, so a guide helped me.
- Day 6: Karanga hut to Barafu Camp +acclimatisation hike. 3h00min of hiking before lunch, ~2h acclimatisation hike. Hike day not too strenuous, I stopped briefly when I was out of breath and felt fine. For the acclimatisation hike, I occasionally slipped on small rocks on the way down, so a guide helped a little.
- Day 7: Night hike from Barafu Camp to Stella Point to Summit (7h45min). Morning hike from summit to Barafu Camp (4h30min or 5h30min). Afternoon hike from Barafu Camp to Mwenka Camp (3h30min or 2h30min). I’ll describe the summit climb and the subsequent descent in another lengthy blog post. But I would like to say here that once again, I was allowed to climb up slowly, so I was not out of breath, which was awesome. My main enemies were the lack of sleep and the leg muscle very serious fatigue. Coming *down* from summit hike really was the hardest physical thing I've ever done.
- Day 8: Mwenka camp to Mwenka Gate. 3h00 of down hiking. Once again I was slipping on the wet compressed mud, and once again a guide helped me on the way down.
Injuries sustained: Aside from minor blisters, the big toes on both feet were extremely bruised from the post-summit descent. I am writing this blog post one full Moon Cycle after my Kili hike, and my two big toes still hurt every time I go to the swimming pool. Also, since summit hike, my knees now hurt every time I sit still for more than half an hour.
Finally, except for a mild headache on one day, I never felt any altitude sickness, possibly partially due to "diamox" prescribed by my travelling doctor to prevent altitude sickness. Dosage: each standard 250mg diamox pill is usually broken into two halves, one half to be taken in the morning, and the other in the evening. In total, I took six and a half diamox pills, starting on the evening of the day before the climb, and ending on the night of day 6, just before summit hike.
Out of the six travellers in my group, 5 of us took diamox. The 6th girl had a cold, and on the first night, she took a diamox pill at the same time as an anti-cold medicine, felt strange, and vomitted. When she tried diamox again a few days later, she was fine. As far as I know, the only side effect of the diamox felt by our group was the tingling of fingers/toes.
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