From Snow Caps...

Kilimanjaro, Serengheti, Zanzibar...Tanzania has so many exotic sounding places that roll off the tongue with an air of romanticism and adventure that is still well deserved. The inland is lush and wild with new growth and fertility, a stark contrast to the desert landscape I came from. Arriving in Moshi at the foothills of Kilimanjaro, I felt the movement of development in progress as I passed coffee plantations and entered the thriving downtown with hoards of uniformed children on their way to school, suggesting at least a tentative hold on prosperity.
My boyfriend, Michael Brennan, joined me several days later and we embarked on our journey to the top of Africa's highest mountain, a glacier near the equator. We chose to take the Machame, or Whiskey Route to the top as the trail allows for better acclimatization and the largest number of hikers who reach the summit. At 19,340 feet, we spent seven days winding our way up through the rainforest canopy, the heather and moorland, into the alpine forest and finally to the top of the glacier. Most of the trails are not technical and we met many people who do not regularly hike in their home countries. The mountain is definitely a bit of a tourist trap, with the trails lacking the solitude and desolation I typically seek when hiking at home. Nonetheless, it has been a dream of mine to see this magical mountain and look over its green hills from the top.
On the morning of the summit they woke us before midnight to begin our ascent. The sky was moonless and absolutely black with the small dots of flashlights slowly marching their way up the trail ahead of us. We bundled up in our warmest winter clothes, grabbed our hiking poles and followed our guide James up the rocky shale. The pace of ascent is incredibly slow, with each step the deliberate placement of one foot in front of the other. Mike had no problems with the altitude, having become accustomed to Colorado's thin mountain air. But for me, I definitely struggled at about 17,000 feet. It was three in the morning, we hadn't eaten since four the previous afternoon, and all I wanted to do was crawl into the snow for a short nap. This onset of fatigue and a slight headache were classic signs of altitude sickness setting in. We took 15 minutes to rest, I ate one of Mike's Clif Bars and a few aspirin and then felt infinitely better.
We continued the steep climb straight up to Stella Point which ended the toughest part of the hike. The approach to the summit, Uhuru Peak, was a gradual walk up with the face of the glacier wall to our left, a view of the volcanic crater to our right and the sunrise coming up over the clouds.
Feeling both euphoric and exhausted, we still had to make the descent, arguably more difficult and harder on the body than the upward climb. Six hours and one less toe nail later, Mike and I were able to pull off our boots, pop some aspirin and crack open a bottle of cold Kilimanjaro lager, sold at the low altitude mountain huts. Our final hike out the next day wound us back through the rainforest where we strolled under 20 foot high giant ferns, watched black and white colubus monkeys swing through the trees and shared our experience with other hikers signing out at the gate.
(photo index: our guides James, Christian, Mike and I at the summit, Uhuru Peak from our base camp, Mike and James in the moorland)