Jess and Jennie conquer Kilimanjaro!!

I hope you are all well! I am pleased to tell you that Jen and I made it safely to the Uhuru summit (highest peak in Africa, 5895m) and back down safely! As I thought it would be the hike was tough, but we pulled through with the goods… our muscles are a bit worse for wear, we are slightly crippled, but it was well and truly worth the effort! We hiked with Good Earth tours who are a fantastic company, in particular our guide Herment. The rest of the crew included a cook, assistant guide and four porters. We began with and ended with an incredibly bumpy 7 hour shuttle transfer from Nairobi, Kenya to Arusha, Tanzania. In between we undertook the gruelling hike, I will give you a quick summary of the Machame route that we spent 6 days climbing:
                       

                              
Day 1: Jen and I gunned it up hill to the first campsite before the rain could catch us, leaving Herment our guide to trail who said he would catch up in 10 minutes. We climbed from the Machame gate at 1800m to the 1st Machame campsite at some 3000m. What was supposed to be more than a 5 hour hike we cut short to 3.5 hours (distance 18km). The path was through the beautiful rainforest.
               

                                  
Day 2: Arose with the sun… Herment was adamant we slow down today (“Kilimanjaro, poly, poly” or “slowly, slowly” as the Tanzanians say). The hike a steep incline in the beginning, now out of the rainforest the surrounding scenery began to change to moorland. We hiked for about 4 hours from 3000m to 3800m before arriving at Shira campsite, temperatures dropped below freezing that evening.

      

Day 3: Unzipping the tent fly to icy conditions in the morning, we set out from Shira 3800m ascending to the Lava Tower at 4600m where we attempted to eat lunch although it was far to cold and there were mice scattered about the place waiting for scraps. We then descended to Barranco camp (3950m) for the night. Today was aimed to acclimatise.   

                                             

Day 4: We set off up, the Great Barranco wall, from the top there was a view of fellow hikers below who had not yet started their climb and also snow capped Uhuru summit peaking through the clouds. From the wall we continued with a steadier ascent over lava rock and up to Barafu camp (Swahili word for “ice”) at 4600m.                                                                                           

Day 5: Awaking just before 12am we piled on as many layers as possible, donned our headlights and departed at 12:20am for the ‘final push’ as Herment called it. And that it was, we really had to push our bodies to the absolute limit by encouraging one foot in front of the other to finally reach the Uhuru summit (5895m) at 5:40am. We all hugged… not only was it satisfying that we reached the top (as only 80% of climbers do) but we were first to reach the peak that morning! Frozen to the bone after a few quick snaps by the sign post and of the Rebmann glacier, exhausted for 2 further hours we slid our feet down the loose dirt and snow. To sum up the extent of physical exertion, Jen so overwhelmed and happy burst into tears when we returned to camp. A brief nap and bite to eat we were again off down the Mweka trail to Mweka camp (3000m). What an exhausting and rewarding day!

                    

Day 6: Painfully swollen knees from the previous day’s descent, Jen and I hobbled back down Kilimanjaro through the rainforest for 3.5 hours before reaching the Mweka gate (1900m). We received our certificates, thanked our climbing crew and returned to Arusha.

                            

Both Jen and I agree that hiking Mt Kilimanjaro was an absolutely mind blowing experience and amazing achievement; we would recommend it to anyone fit and up for a challenge! Further we hope doing so has raised awareness for supporting the Kenyan children in need for corrective surgeries to improve their quality of life. We thank all of you who have supported these children through donations on the Akhonya Trust webpage, and hope that if you have not already made a donation you do or consider it as a charity to support in the future. Here is the link to the webpage http://www.akhonyatrust.org/donate.php - please state in the notes section you are supporting the ‘corrective surgeries’ and ‘Jess and Jen’s Kilimanjaro hike.’ Some photos of the hike are attached, including some snowy snaps at the summit! I will endeavour to update you all as the surgeries in December and February take place.

                      Asante sana (thank you very much), 

                               Jess and Jenni Medland