The Stairway to Heaven (Kilimanjaro - Day 4.5)

Midnight. I refuse to call this day 5 because it’s been barely 7 hours since we last stopped walking. When I was woken up I really thought about bailing. The crew got paid anyways, what does it matter to them?

Grumbling to myself, I put on my big-girl clothes - a thermal layer, mid-layer, top-layer, and then the moon suit. I am an actual oompa loompa who can barely tie her shoes. I'm using my power up today: knee-high compression socks. Been saving these puppies all week. Hoping their compression copper magic gets me through the next...14 hours? Maybe I'm better off not doing math right now.

The cold is still seeping in, chilling to the bone. Isn’t it supposed to be warm in Africa?

What drove me to this moment? Google returns great pictures of anywhere in the world. But there's two things google can't do. No picture can capture that feeling of wonder. And it can't expand your boundaries. And so here I am, a tired, cranky oompa loompa in 4 layers of clothing, utterly ignorant of what's in store.

We start walking. Its pitch black aside from the company of the stars. We are so high above the clouds I haven't seen city lights in almost a week, though I don't miss them even now. I can't see more than 5 feet in front of me with my headlamp. Its getting steep.

Sam tells me the plan: "We move slowly. If we sweat, we freeze. If we stop we freeze."

Well that sounds just lovely.

We keep climbing. It's very steep. At some point I wonder if it was daylight, would I have chickened out upon seeing what I was climbing. The darkness may actually be a benefit because ignorance of elevation grade is bliss.

Still, its a cold dark purgatory. My puffy moon suit barely lets me lift my legs up high enough for the next step. Hours go by, I have no sense of time. My calves are on fire, fingers are numb, toes are in needles. Everything aches. I'm feeling drunken, stumbling and swaying, as though hungover from taking an open bar as a personal challenge. Its so cold that the water in my backpack freezes solid. My phone is buried deep in layers near my chest, so that the battery does not discharge from the cold.

Stopping in the cold sends a chill down to the bones. Despite, we still stop a lot. I can't. Its getting really dark inside this damned throbbing head of mine.

We encounter a woman coming back down. She didn't make it - feeling the nausea from elevation she decided to turn back around. I contemplate doing the same.

What is there to prove anyways?

I take stock. The weather is as ideal as it can be - no snow, little wind. My body, despite complaining loudly, hasn't succumbed to serious altitude sickness.

So what's left? Just my mind. The worst thing is that I know all the pain can stop if I just give in. But until my body gives up, some mix of pride and stubbornness won’t let me turn back.

I think of two stats.

85% summit success rate. I have to reach that peak.

40%. Stupid David Goggins. When you think you can't go any farther, you've only reached 40% of your potential.

And so fighting back tears I mumble to myself for hours on end about mind over body, put on my angriest rock playlist, and wait and wait for the first rays of sunrise.

—

As we continue, a new dangerous seed forms in my head. How will we get back down? I start thinking of how tired I am, how much farther there is to go. But sunlight will come soon and with that warmth. I don't know how much that will change things, but I have to cling on to that hope.

Its a race as to what gives out first- daybreak, my body, or my mind.

Daybreak blinks first - bright orange streaks peeking through the horizon. I'm touched, slightly delirious. Its the most deserving sunrise I've ever seen. I wonder if mountaineers have brain damage from the lack of oxygen and that's why they keep coming back.

We are about 200m from Stella point. I can see it from here, where the ground finally gets flat. But now the volcanic rock is even finer, and with every step forward I'm sliding back down half. I'm slower and slower. At the angle we climb, that 200 meters might as well be 200 miles. It looks so far away.

I fall over. A panic sets in - a combination of delirium, fatigue, and that earlier dangerous seed - how will we get back down? I can't. Panicked, I break.

What they don't tell you is that there's not much you can do when experiencing a full scale panic attack on the side of a mountain. Just a juice box, a chocolate bar, and the patient, encouraging words of my guides, who refused to let me give up. After some minutes I finally get back up. We are almost there.

One foot after the other, we reach Stella point. Far behind schedule, almost two hours late, with other climbers coming back down now. But here we are.

My eyes swell with tears again. Of joy, exhaustion, pain, delirium, wonder.

And after that, a new strength finds me.