Kilimanjaro

( warning:there's a lot of medical stuff in this post)
The advantage of going to bed when it's cloudy means you might well be surprised- amazed - by the view on waking .( ignoring my prodigious diamox induced nocturnal peeing) I awoke to a stunning view : a see of clouds beneath me, at the top of the valley the hulking mass of Kilimanjaro and facing me the notorious "barranco wall". This is the first challenge of the day ahead- but before that Alan tells me he's been up all night with vomiting and stomach cramps. Not ideal. His headache was ok and although his oxygen levels were low he was keen to proceed.
The barranco wall requires a bit of respect but is nothing more than an easy scramble. Not one you would want to reverse, and as it became rapidly clear, Alan was not going anywhere fast. He did however need to get to Karanga camp, where a realistic escape route existed. So the pattern of the day was very pole pole ( slow) all the way to Karanga. The route was a spectacular contour with some frustrating valleys to cross. We caught up with the rest of the group at Karanga as they were finishing their lunch and tagged on to them for a couple of hours towards base camp before surprisingly emotional farewells ( I felt like I was sending my children off the war) and descending rapidly back "home".
So Karanga is my base for the next week. Amazing views partially make up for the lack of oxygen , night time cold, litter and dust. Dust everywhere. Put anything down and it's immediately filthy. Walking around kicks up big plumes of the stuff. A thoughtful bowl of warm water morning and night hardly makes up for the slow ingress of the stuff into every crevice of your being. Home sweet home.
Meanwhile,Alan has taken a turn for the worse and now has a bad head again but now associated with nausea and a moist cough. His sats have dropped to mid 60s . A quick listen to his lungs reveal fluid that shouldn't be there: he's got high altitude pulmonary oedema (HAPE). This is a life threatening idiosyncratic complication of altitude and as the lungs fill up the oxygen levels drop even further. He needs evacuation. Whilst there are helicopters they only fly daytime, so despite an amazing moonlit night, shooting stars, all reflected off the sea of clouds, it was a slow walk out. It took nearly 3 hours to traverse further around the mountain before we could descend any significant height but what a difference that 200m drop made with him feeling much better and his oxygen levels near normal. By just short of midnight I finally felt happy enough to leave him with instructions in the capable hands of an experienced guide overnight to descend a further 2000m on foot before he was safely back in civilisation.
Tough though it was the 90 min climb back to Karanga on a still, moonlit night was a privilege.
The next morning I was woken more by the lovely warmth of the sun on the tent than the hum of life and had a lovely few hours in the sun reading, washing and drinking "africafe ".
The first group were summiting at dawn today - in fact we could see the string of torches heading off above us as we'd walked home the night before- so we'd always planned to reverse our nocturnal wandering to intercept them coming off the hill. Our trip became more urgent- or at least urgent enough to skip lunch- as there were unclear messages about one of the group being ill. After a fair wait at the path junctions we could see a big group making its way slowly down the hill- our group.
They trailed past like the walking dead- like they really had been to war- limping , chapped lipped, dirt ingrained and certainly not the chatty bunch from the previous days. Tales of numbing cold , bitter winds and hallucinations but all bar 3 had made the summit. The last one down was in a stretcher. Katie had fallen off the pace of the group quite early on but was determined to continue. Indeed as the gaps widened she became demonstratively angry and emotional- and confused between periods of apathy. Finally the senior guide came down and told her in no uncertain terms she was going down. Firstly by piggy back, as by this time she was unable to walk and then from the base camp a slow and laborious stretcher carry. When I caught her she was no longer confused but demonstrably short of breath with a moist cough... guess what? HAPE. Undoubtedly this had not been picked up on the final ascent and her rapidly dropping oxygen levels had precipitated High altitude cerebral oedema (HACE) causing confusion decreased consciousness and unsteadiness. Whilst the primary treatment is always descend- and she'd already descended 1000m she was still low on oxygen due to waterlogged luugs so needed more meds, oxygen - and more descent.
A review 200m lower showed significant improvement she still needed further descent albeit now able to be done on foot, and once again in the capable hands of the porters.
Quite an action packed 24 hrs as we traiped back along the path to Karanga in fading light. Should sleep well again tonight.Read more