The Return

After walking up hill for 5 days it was a breeze coming down. Abraham and I made it back to Gilman’s Point in an hour, and we made it down from Gilman’s point in another hour.

I was able to use my hiking poles for balance and do some “Scree Skiiing” on the way down. Really, all I had to do was lift my feet and gravity did the rest. I kept up the pace and the same loose gravel that nearly pushed me to quit became one of the highlights of the trip.

The adrenaline was back and I was having less trouble getting my breath.

The trip up took more than 5 hours but I made it down in about an hour. At one point I was nearly running down the side of the mountain.

As I got closer to the bottom I noticed someone pacing at the bottom of the trail. Ernest had been waiting for us to return.

He gave me a bear hug and apologized again for having to come down the mountain. Once he returned to Kibo, he started to feel better. He said he feeling like his old self again.

The plan was to stay at Kibo for a couple hours while I rested but I didn’t have much interest in staying in the cold stone hut.

I wanted to keep going.

We pushed past Kibo, beyond Horumbo and hiked all the way down to Mandara Hut.

We essentially hiked for another 12 hours until we reached Mandara.

I wanted to be somewhere warm – I wanted to get out of the wind.

Once we reached Mandara, I washed up quickly and went to sleep. My bunk was over the dining hall and there was a large crowd of Swiss climbers eating dinner, preparing to climb the mountain.

There was a lot of talking and laughter over dinner but it didn’t keep me awake.

I closed my eyes and didn’t move until the next morning.

I had done it. I could rest… I climbed Mt Kilimanjaro.