Kibo Hut (4700 m/15,420 ft) to Uhuru Peak (5895m/19,340 ft) and back to Horombo Hut(3780m/12,285 ft)

* Total hike time: 19+ hrs
* Summit time: 7 hrs
* Elevation change: +1195 m, -920m
* Final elevation: 3780 m

The wake-up call is at 11:00 PM for me and 4 other girls. We are in the slower walking group and we shall start one hour earlier than the rest. The first challenge is to crawl out of my warm sleeping bag, then I have to put on a few more layers of clothes. I drink some hot tea and a bowl of soup, pour hot water into thermos and plastic bottles and put the bottles into double winter socks to prevent water from freezing (a good advice from Florian). Then I put more warm clothes on, in Poland we call it "like an onion" style, as you wear many layers. So altogether I wear: thermal underwear up and bottom, woolen sweater, two polartec jumpers, polartec trousers, special all-seasons pants and jacket, two caps, three pairs of gloves.

With trekking poles in hands and headlights on we started ascent at 11:30 PM. We needed to climb 3,700 feet/985m to get to the summit. It wasn't a full moon yet, but only 4 days to it, so quite big and bright and millions of stars in the sky. The night was clear and calm with only mild wind, it didn't seem cold at first, but it quickly got much colder. We all lined up, my four friends, me and five guides. For the final ascent there's one guide per person, so if anyone needs to turn around they can. We let the guides carry our packs, having realized that we had a long way to go before reaching the summit and we were already weak. At first at the same paste, bu soon we splitted up into smaller groups. I was walking with Florian in front of me, seeing just his boots and a small part of the trail in my head torch light. The scree was pretty loose and every step was like walking in the sand dunes, the upper foot often sliding down in the scree. At first, due to the many switchbacks, the path itself wasn't all that bad. However, without oxygen the air is incredibly thin, getting thinner all the time. I began to feel weak and very sleepy, my brain was already fogged from lack of good sleep before the hike. So I would stop, support myself with trekking poles and take a nap! It wasn't safe and as soon as I could hear Florian's voice "don't sleep, let's go" I would force myself to keep walking. Sometimes I had a few sips of water or warm tea and a piece of chocolate. It was a good idea to breake it into small pieces before leaving, as it was rock frozen now and would be impossible to be devided into parts. After some 1-2 hours, when I turned around, I could see through the night groups of little lights moving in slow motion below, behind me, those were the climbers who started the ascent later in time. It looked very pretty. Looking ahead I could only see a jagged, dark outline of the mountain against the starry sky.

Steady, steady, one tiny little step after the other. At that altitude you can't even walk right. You have to take heel-to-toe baby steps. As there are many stones on the trail you have to decide whether to spend the extra energy to lift your foot over them or try to go around. If it's in the middle of the trail, you have to go over. I would quickly become out of breath after 100 steps, then after 70, 50 .... Other groups started overtaking me. I let them go with no worry, I had my own paste and my own endurance. I just wanted to reach the rim of the crater and then Uhuru Peak and be able to get back down safely. You can not move too fast on Kilimanjaro. But also not too slow. At last I got to Williams Point (a big rock at 5000 m/16400 ft). Then to Hans Meyer Cave at 5150 m (16900 ft), some three and a half hours from Kibo huts and about the halfway to Gilman's Point. I took a longer stop there, had some warm tea and maybe three pieces of chocolate. After leaving the cave the trail changes, there are rocks on the path, requiring bigger steps. Some are also a bit slippery. The area is called the Jamaican Rocks and is the most difficult part of the climb (it was named so because once a Jamaican reached that far, looked up, said 'bloody sh.. and walked back down; some say another story - he had slipped and was fatally injured at that point). And this is suppose to be the easiest path to the Kilimanjaro!! I was still very sleepy and quite slow. Every step was an effort and the oxygen was very thin. I started taking more and more breaks to catch my breath. The lights behind me were getting closer and soon other groups of people started to overtake me. At last our main group with Leszek Cichy, our Polish guide, was with me. He asked how I was feeling, I said "very, very sleepy", so he said it was an altitude sickness symptom and suggested I should descend back to Kibo huts!!! I was shocked!! I hardly remember saying something stupid like "but you've promised we would all be able to climb the mountain". Nobody said anything to that, they overtook me and continued climbing up. I stayed alone with Florian and my thoughts. I realized that I was more than halfway to Gilman's Point, and since I had no headache and wasn't vomiting there was really no alternative for me but to continue on. I looked up and the rim seemed quite close, but in the dark night it was hard to say how far exactly. When I asked Florian he only said it's not too far, but did not want to tell me how many hours. So, I had some tea again, standing on the trail, immersed in my thoughts and prayers. Slowly and miraculously I began to gain more strength and stopped feeling drowsy! I told Florian I was ready to continue. He looked closely in my eyes to make sure I was ok, then he said "fine, you can make it" and up we went. The breaks still were frequent, but I felt much better and stronger emotionally. Now I was taking only 10 steps and then a break to gain some breath. The oxygen level at 18000 feet is 50% what it is at sea level. But still I started getting more ahead and left two of my friends behind. I wasn't the slowest one now and I knew Gilman's Point was not far anyway! This has motivated me, I really seemed to get stronger. But it was getting very cold and my hands and feet started freezing so I had to focus on wiggling my fingers and toes to keep the circulation flowing.

Some time later Florian pointed at the horizon and told me the sun was soon to be coming up. First I saw a beautiful seep of red light on the eastern horizon. Then it changed ino orange and yellow. A sip of light outlined Mawenzi, now below us. I sat down on some bigger stone, took my camera out from the pack and tried to take photos. To do it I had to take off the three layers of gloves and soon my hands were freezing cold as wind started blowing harder. But the view was so amazingly beautiful I could hardly notice the cold. I have heard that sunrise from atop Kilimanjaro is one of the most spectacular sights of Africa. NOW I KNOW - IT IS AMAZING AND BREATHTAKING!! From this altitude you can even see the curvature of the Earth surface!
The break of dawn provided a much needed boost of energy for the last metres to the rim of the crater. As the temperature rises and my back gets warmed, I continue to climb. Exhausted and still quite cold, at 7am, after almost one more hour, I scrambled up the rocks that formed the crater rim and finaly got to Gilman's Point, at 5681 m/18640 ft. That's what the sign says, but it's a little bit higher than that.
So there was a sign and three of my friends already waiting for me there. The next two arrived after me and we took some photos, then had some tea, energetic bars and cookies. Temperature there could be as low as -15°C. From Gilman's Point to Uhuru Peak (altitude: 5891m/19327ft) it's another hour and a half of trekking each way. So after some rest I wanted to continue to Uhuru, but I was told I shouldn't, as those who climbed to Gilman's as the last ones will not have enough time to go and be back on time. Leszek, our leader, who has lead the first group of four women to the top, recommended that those who reach Gilman's Point much later should not proceed that very hard hike. It was an emotional regret we were not to reach the highest point in the whole of Africa, but on the other hand we realized how weak and exhausted already we were. One of the girls was vomiting, the other one fainted three times already.
Eventually, I spent about half an hour on the summit, looking at the glaciers on the other side of the crater rim. Unfortunately now almost all of Kilimanjaro glacier has evaporated. The Northern ice fields are mostly gone. I was also looking inside the core of the crater and the view disappointed me, being all grey and filled with lava ashes, as I saw so many photos of Mt Kilimanjaro covered with white snow. Finally I could admire the tops of the clouds so far below at the foot of Mawenzi peak.
THERE ARE ALMOST NO WORDS I CAN FIND TO DESCRIBE OUR EFFORT TODAY. THIS CLIMB IS VERY INTENSE, I WOULD SAY... CRAZY!

Going back down was easier, especially as the sun came out and it got warmer. When you descent you can do it in two different ways. The first is to follow exactly all zig zags, repeating your way up. It takes more time, though. The second way is to cut straight throught the loose scree in a kind of ski-style. This is much faster, but is hard for the knees and many people get injured. I used both ways.

On my way down I noticed two disabled men ascending Kibo peak. I talked to one of them, Tajiri Mungaya, the 39-year-old Tanzanian from Arusha, who lost one of his legs in 2006 while trekking Kilimanjaro as a porter. Now, after three years, he decided to conquer the mountain walking all the way up with an artificial leg.
The other man was Chris Waddell, the 41-year-old American, once a promising young skier, but in 1988 a skiing accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. He did not allow his injuries to keep him off the slopes, he became the US Disabled Ski Team member and the most decorated male skier in Paralympic history, winning twelve medals. The day we were descending he was attempting to reach the summit on his own, in a custom-made, four-wheeled bike propelled entirely by arm power, named "Kubwa," which means "huge" in Swahili. Both men successfully reached the Uhuru Peak the next day, Sept.30th, as I found later. Chris has made a record as the first paraplegic who reached the summit of Africa's highest mountain using a hand cycle.

http://one-revolution.com/blog/
http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/above/two_giants_break_world_records_on_kilimanjaro/
http://allafrica.com/stories/200910051216.html

When we reached Kibo Hut, we slept for 1,5 hours before descending to Horombo Hut. After that short sleep we had a tasty, warm lunch soup, a cup of tea and then proceeded all the way back down to the elevation of 3780 m. The day was sunny and quite warm and the hike was much nicer going down than up at last.
That is what we have accomplished today - reaching Gilman's Point at 19,327ft or Uhuru Peak at 19,340ft, hiking and climbing for almost 20 hours in a 33-hour period, real survival.