In Which My Dad and I Both...(like i'm going to tell you if we make it or not. you have to read it to find out)

Day 4: 15,518 ft- 19,331 ft- 12,336 ft

After catching about 3 winks (much less than the average 40) the night before my dad and I got up around 11:30. I put in my contacts. Emmanuel arrived with tea, we got on our gear. The Swedes thankfully left. It is unfortunate that layering was popular a few years ago since my dad both resembled onions. I had on a complete set of thermal underwear, pants, another pair of windbreaker snow pants, two pairs of socks, boots, gators, a fleece, a windbreaker, my coat, a hat, liners, and heavy gloves. We put our headlamps on and after adjusting our poles we were ready to go. Calvin and Stephen met us at midnight and we began.

That day almost a full capacity of climbers were trying to reach the summit. Most started a half hour ahead of us. We say their lights already beginning to creep up the mountain. We began pole pole. We moved in steady rhythm and almost silently. We stopped to remove layers, drink, and add layers. We passed some slower climbers. We met a few coming down. My world shrank to my father’s feet in front of mine. To the trail of slag and the rhythm of my feet and poles. We stopped at 4:00, to drink and rest. It was at that point that my father said he knew he could make it. We kept climbing. Steadily up hill; I kept track of steps, left, left, left right left. Then is would switch and count my poles, left, left, left right left. As we neared the edge of the crater we slowed even more. Pole pole took on a whole new meaning. Step. Breath. Another step. Gilman’s point our goal looked deceptively close in the moonlight. We clamored over boulders now. The sun began to rise. Gut check. There was no trail now. Calvin just led us wherever he could. Unrelentlessly upward. Finally we emerged on the edge of the crater around 6:30. Gilman’s Point 18,638 ft. A cluster of boulders, the littered garbage of thousand of other climbers, a wooden sign. The sun bathed the mountain in golden light. We stood now in a sea of clouds.

We barely paused at Gilman’s point. My father and I wanted to continue to the Uhuru Peak. It took us another hour and a half to negotiate the winding steadily inclined trail that edged along the rim of the crater to the highest point in Africa. Although only about a mile this portion of the climb took forever due to our exhausted condition and high altitude. The trail was crowded with climbers as several summit routes converged on the summit. At 8:00 we reached Uhuru Peak, which at 19331 is the tallest point in Africa. We spent a few precious, breathless minutes at the top before descending. We paused at Gilman’s point where Calvin served us tea, biscuits, and a much appreciated snickers bar. My dad was really feeling the affects of altitude sickness by then. We literally ran/skied down the loose slag at a breakneck pace. We arrived at Kibo hut in under an hour. What had taken us 6 ½ hours that night had just taken us 50 minutes. Altitude sickness finally caught up with my dad shortly before we entered camp. He spent a few minutes dry heaving before we both managed to crawl into bed for a well deserved hour nap.

At 11:00 we awoke and hiked down to Horombo huts were we would spend the night. At this point my dad was feeling worse. He managed to eat a little on the way down and shortly after I left for dinner he threw it all up. I though he might have something besides altitude sickness because he seemed to not be getting better despite the fact that we had descended nearly 7,000 feet. Right before we went to bed that night to sleep for a continues 11 hours Calvin came and upon my father’s request prayed for him. It was really cool to see this black man laid his hands on my father and passionately pray aloud in Kiswahili for a man he had only known a few days. Then we slept.