Katherine's Story
Climbing Kilimanjaro was something I had always wanted to do. At 5,895m, it was not only the highest point in Africa but also the highest freestanding mountain in the world!! However having had diabetes since the age of 10, I thought it was something I could only dream of.
It all started when my parents came to pick me up at the end of my first year at university. Included in the post that they brought me was a letter from Diabetes UK informing me about the climb to the summit of Kilimanjaro in September 2007. Having just got back from four days camping for my Gold Duke of Edinburgh expedition in the cheviots, I immediately signed up without a second thought.
It was a year and a half between signing up and departure and it flew by, filled with lots of fundraising, car boot sales and spending a lot of time training for the expedition. I got up to the lakes with my parents whenever I could (luckily they were also very keen walkers and very supportive) and was going to the gym several times a week, as well as playing the many sports that I play for my university.
To be honest, as time got closer I was terrified. People kept telling me horror stories of altitude sickness and how tough it was. It began to dawn on me what a challenge this was actually going to be. After spending hours packing the endless amount of kit into my rucksacks, the time soon came to drive down to Heathrow from my home in Manchester and I don’t think I have ever been so quiet and nervous in my life. Despite the training I felt completely unprepared and had no idea how I would react to the altitude, as I had never been that high before.
I met the rest of the group at the check in desk at the airport easily recognised by the white charity challenge t-shirts we had been given. It was at this point that the reality of the situation hit us all as we all smiled nervously for a picture and then went through to departures. My nerves certainly weren’t eased when going through security when I had my bag emptied and searched, undoing all the hard work I had put into squeezing all the stuff in. However it was nice afterwards to get to know everyone, people from all walks of life, of all ages from myself a student of 20 years old to Butch a retired 62 year old. Some had diabetes like myself, others with diabetic relatives, but all were genuinely really nice people doing their bit for a very worthy charity.
We spent a day travelling from Kenya to Tanzania, then a day travelling from the bush camp in Tanzania, where we saw giraffes and zebras and travelled past masaii villages to the gates of Kilimanjaro national park. It was worrying that for all that time we had not even caught a glimpse of Kilimanjaro. However Mt Meru, was a common sight on the horizon looking extremely high and frightening despite being a thousand metres less in height. It was only after spending a day climbing through the jungle, and at our second camp on the mountain that the clouds disappeared and we caught the first glimpse of the mountain. There were gasps of fear from everyone.
The climb up took a number of days so that we could acclimatise and maximise our chances of reaching the top. We went through the jungle and rainforest of the Lemosho Glades and walked on the high altitude dessert plateau of Shira blown away through volcanic action. We experienced boiling hot temperatures during the day being so close to the equator then freezing temperatures during the night as the clouds disappeared and we got the ever-approaching view of the summit. Everything was needed from shorts and sunhats to thermals and balaclavas but thankfully we didn’t have to carry it all. Each of us had our own porter to carry our main rucksacks for us, many of them doing it as a summer job, earning money before they went off to university. Unlike us, doing the walk each day poley poley, translated as slowly slowly, they ran. They left camp after us, once the tents and cooking facilities were packed away, then overtook us and had tents set up when we arrived into camp each night with hot bowls of water that provided our only form of a wash for the duration of the trek. They definitely deserved their tip at the end of the trip, especially the cooks who provided morning tea to our tent and three course meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I certainly didn’t loose any weight as I was expecting to.
After the last ascent before summit night we all had our evening meal and went to get some sleep as we did most nights come to think of it. One of the signs of altitude sickness was restless sleep but I definitely didn’t have that symptom. We were all then woken at 11.30pm, made a cup of hot Milo (hot chocolate) that we had all come to love and set off for the summit at half past midnight. I had seven layers on, yet I was still cold in temperatures of –15 degrees, and had only the moonlight to guide me as my head torch ran out of battery life after 10 minutes due to the altitude. The six hours spent climbing up steep scree were probably the worst of my life. Fortunately I didn’t get any symptoms at all of altitude sickness as others did such as vomiting and headaches, I can’t even imagine what I would have been like if I had. The night seemed to last forever though at the time, thinking back, it all seems a bit of a blur. I just remember feeling incredibly tired and wanting to rest, but told off every time I stopped and being told I’d freeze if I didn’t keep moving. I’m not sure how I conjured up the energy to keep going, but just kept imagining myself standing at the top and couldn’t give up.
The best part of the whole challenge came when we reached Stella Point, the ridge of the volcano. The steep ascent was over! As we sat down and were forced to have a hot drink, (all the water we had was frozen) the sun began to rise beneath us. The faint orange and red glow on the horizon was beautiful! It gave me the last bit of energy to reach Uhuru peak, the highest point in the sunlight. It was a moment I will never forget and a truly amazing achievement. The views from the top with the glacier ice fields and a blanket of cloud beneath were breathtaking. Although I think I was too much in a daze at the top to really appreciate it, I feel privileged and honoured to have climbed it. It was definitely victory day and a dream come true!! It just goes to show that if you treat diabetes well, take regular blood tests and account for the exercise whilst calculating insulin doses, diabetes can’t stand in the way of anything. I have the pictures and the t-shirt to prove it!!
It only took a day and a half to get down back through the beautiful rainforest to the finishing gate. We all had a well-deserved bottle of Kilimanjaro beer and were driven to a lodge, which provided a very welcome comfortable bed and a proper shower, something we had not had for 8 days. I don’t think I will ever take some things for granted again.
Getting back to university for my final year, it is hard to believe I did it. I’m already looking for something else to do, but who knows what’s next? Maybe for my 25th birthday when I’ll have had diabetes for 15 years I’ll climb Everest. You never know though, in 5 years time, diabetes might not even exist. We’ll just have to watch this space.