Day 5: The Summit

Day 5

A note about altitude sickness

For the uninitiated, a quick note about altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is when people get sick when they increase altitude. Sickness can range from a mild headache to vomiting and blurred vision to as serious as Pulmonary Edema and Cerebral Edema. The final two are very serious and can lead to death. The thing about altitude sickness that's strange is that it affects people wildly differently and there is no way to tell how you will respond to altitude. It has nothing to do with your fitness level, overall health, or any other measures that are controllable. Often, it affects extremely fit people more severely than overweight, lethargic folks. For more on altitude sickness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness

As none of us had been much above 12,000 ft (except Lenore, who summited Cotopaxi last year), none of us had any idea how the altitude would affect us.

We were woken at 10:30PM and beckoned to the meal tent for tea, snacks, and to do final preparations for the climb. We all bundled up, but it wasn't that cold. I had a little water and a bit of a biscuit, but was feeling a little nauseous.

Around 11:30 we started assembling to leave. Godbless gave us a pep talk and we were introduced to two other guides who would be joining us for the summit. Between the 8 of us, we were carrying 6 bags. We decided to consolidate our stuff into 6 bags so help one another along when people started feeling sick. Also, three of the bags (MK, Bea, and mine) lacked waist straps so were much more difficult to carry. MK and Bea started without bags.

We all had our headlamps on and started walking, very slowly. Pole, pole. Godbless told us it would take 6 hours to reach the first peak, then another 2 hours to reach the summit, Uhuru peak. Many people stop at the first peak as it is almost as high as Uhuru Peak and when you get there, most people are pretty exhausted. I wasn't feeling 100% so I tried to get myself into a rhythm to pass the time - no one was really talking. The air is so thin that people were breathing heavily with our extremely slow pace. I started counting my footsteps - every hundred steps I would take a sip of water.

Everyone seemed to be doing ok after about 2 hours. We stopped for a break about once an hour, which was good to break things up. I was starting to feel more and more nauseous, to the point where I felt like I really needed to vomit. Julia was starting to feel a bit ill - her heartrate was very fast and she was concerned about it. She relinquished her bag and we all continued.

Over the next hour, I started to feel more and more nauseous. The rest of the group started feeling tired, too, and we started taking more breaks. We took a break and I finally threw up. All my energy gels and advil. Bummer. I kept my bag a bit longer, but was starting to feel really horrible. Everyone was trying to be supportive of one another, but I really couldn't talk. At the next break, i gave up my bag, and threw up more. I wanted to have control of my water, which is why I hadn't given up my bag, but I was starting to feel delirious.

Other people started feeling some pain. Alannah, who was the only one not on Diamox, hurt her back and was keeping a slower pace than the rest of us. Julia had a headache. Others had mild headaches. The altitude was clearly hitting me the hardest. I don't think people fully recognized how varied the responses to the altitude were. MK didn't feel a thing - she yelled some words of encouragement to all of us, trying to sych us up for the rest of the climb. Normally, that would have been great support for me. Since my head was about to explode, any noise just hurt.

We continued up the mountain moving slowly. I was behind Godbless since he was worried about my health. Lenore or Kim (not sure which one) asked me a question and I just said 'No talking'. I was hurting really badly. When we came to resting points, my eyes would close and I wanted to sleep.

While we were walking, my eyes started rolling back into my head. Godlbess was feeling the altitude, too, I think. He was swaying a bit in his footsteps and when we would come to resting points, he would almost collapse. After about four to five hours, we were nearing the first peak. Godbless said it would be about another hour. I threw up. Godbless told me we would only go to the first peak. I figured he would send me back at that point. I wasn't making much sense to him and I think I didn't look very good. I walked behind him and started seeing things. There was confetti coming off of his bag. How fun!

We continued with our slow walking. At one break, Lenore tried to feed me water. I took one of our coveted bottles of water from her and thought I was holding it, but then dropped it. I felt horrible. I was losing control of my normal body functions and dropped an entire Nalgene of water. Since some of the water sources had frozen, this was not good.

While we were walking, I tried to just get into my own zone. I counted my footsteps, focusing on just puting one foot in front of the other. It seemed like the hardest thing I had ever done. My head felt like it was going to explode. My arms were tingling. My eyes were rolling back into my head. I couldn't seem to stop vomiting. My vision was blurred, but when it wasn't, I started seeing things. As the sun rose and we were approaching the first peak, I started really hallucinating. There were cartoon rabbits and turtles. They were both green. They were very happy. The more the sun came up, the more certain rocks started glowing neon. I tried to avoid stepping on the neon rocks. I'm not sure why.

We got to the first peak and rested. We had made it to where most people turn back. We rested and Alannah showed up. At that point, I thought she had turned back. She hadn't - rockstar. I wasn't sure I could keep going. I asked Godbless how much further and he said a forty five minutes to an hour. Maybe I could do that. For some reason, I got up and just started walking. I guess others did soon after, because Godbless was soon with me. He wasn't walking in front of me anymore, he was beside me. We passed people as they were coming down from Uhuru Peak. Many in our group offered words of encouragement, I just stared blankly. Probably a little creepily, to be honest. I was staring a lot. I asked Godbless how much longer. He always said ten minutes.

Finally, I reached the summit. I was in an incredible amount of pain. I took out my camera and turned in a circle taking a picture of every angle from where I was standing.

The shadow of the mountain:

The glacier:

The sign:

I then decided I needed to get the hell off that mountain. Immediately, if not sooner. Lenore, Kim and two others had waited for Alannah so they could summit with her. I saw them approaching and took a picture. They looked like they were marching to war. Lenore came up and I told her I was getting off the mountain. She told me I had to stay for one group picture. I begrudgingly agreed.

After that, I just started walking off the mountain. And by walking, I mean a slow almost-run. Lenore sent Msuri after me. I was chasing the dream of feeling like a human being again. I was heavily incentivized.

I went as quickly as I could down that mountain, vomiting along the way. Toward the end, I was so weak I could barely walk. I couldn't believe how horrible I felt. I started getting nervous about permanent brain issues from my stupid decision to continue summiting.

I finally got to my tent at 4600M and passed out.