An Ode to Medium Fat Spread

From the heat of Arusha

to Kilimanjaro ice,

Medium Fat Spread kept us company.

Wasn't that nice?

A tub full of joy

in the form of veggie fat,

you couldn't ask for better hiking food than that!

Oily when hot,

and solid when cold.

fat spread was a savior

when the bread tasted like mold.

A constant companion

at breakfast, lunch and dinner,

that blue and yellow tub

was surely a winner.

Artery clogging qualities aside,

Medium Fat Spread really had nothing to hide.

No fake names that hint at "butter,"

no false advertising, and no misleading clutter.

The tub tells it like it is...

It's a spread of fat.

Take it or leave it.

Simple as that.

Day Five: Buffalo Detour

Ready to hit the trail on Day Five

Nothing breaks up a grueling uphill climb like the good old-fashioned stench of a rotting buffalo carcass.  Yes, that was the highlight of the daytime hiking hours of day five.  Our goal for the day was School Hut at 4700 meters.  The climb was steep, and we covered the 800 meters in elevation gain in just over four hours.  Our group split into two for this snail paced hike through rocky scree.  Whenever I started feeling sorry for myself, I reminded myself that porters were passing me every five minutes carrying five gallon buckets of water on their heads because there was no water at our next camp.  I decided it was pathetic to whine too much about the weight of my camelback and camera (and, of course, my “rain gears” that were always packed to be safe).

One of the more immature members of our hiking party explored the nether regions of the dead buffalo.

The sun shone down on our merry little group as we shuffled our way uphill.  Our guides, Guido and Jakob, decided that we were worthy of a small diversion, so we branched off the main trail onto a side trail.  We hiked for a few minutes in search of the “buffalo” that the guides promised we would find along this trail.  They neglected to mention that the buffalo had been dead for two weeks, but the stench announced the truth before we arrived.  We found an enormous, decomposing buffalo wedged into the rocks beside the trail.  Someone decided this was a good spot for a snack stop, so we pulled over.  We held our noses, took sickening pictures of the beast, snacked and rehydrated while flies crawled in and out of its eye-sockets.  Disgusting.

Home on the range (or under a rock)

Post carcass, the path got very steep.  Guido tried to cheer us up by distracting us from the task at hand.  He began the game of “Name a City” (the first person in line names a city, the second then must name a city beginning with the last letter of the previous city, etc.)  There was some grumbling at the back of line from someone who was still bitter about a piece of soap, however everyone rallied for a few rounds of wind-sucking city naming.  Before we knew it, the worst was over.  Well, not really.  The worst was when the pipe of the outhouse at the next camp came into view, and it still took another hour to get there. 

Where or where to go pee?

School Hut was the most inhospitable camp we encountered along the way.  It was strewn with enormous boulders, and the tents were precariously perched on small ledges.  A visit to the toilet tent required serious boulder hopping which would prove extra challenging in the snow and darkness a few hours later.

My tent snuggled up to a rock - soooo cozy.

Sue and Gayle were feeling a little woozy at this point, but we were all still optimistic (and nervous) about the adventure ahead.  After lunch, John gave us a pre-summit pep talk with all of our instructions for the afternoon and evening.  We were to prepare our bags and clothes – wearing all of our layers of clothing, mittens, hats, balaclavas, headlamps, and carrying snacks and as much water as we could manage.  We would have an early dinner, and then we were to try to get some sleep before our 10:30 p.m. wakeup call.  I was nervous and trying to ignore a dull headache that had set in. 

Shortly after dinner, the snow began.  I would try to sleep, and then I would wake to a thuderous  raucous as the TK staff made the rounds beating the snow off our tents.  Around 8:00 p.m. we heard Jeff come into the dining tent area in search of Guide John.  Gayle needed to go down.  Her unrelenting headache was a danger sign, and they decided to get her down fast.  So, while we tried to rest between the intermittent snow beatings, Gayle packed up and headed down the mountain in the dark with Guide Guido.  It felt like a little piece of our collective heart headed down with Gayle.  We knew she’d be okay, but she was meant to be with us.  Who was going to keep our group sweet?  Jeff was going to have to pull the collective weight of the “Rose Garden Tent” (so christened for the sweet altitude-induced smells being discussed by the tent’s occupants one night who had apparently underestimated the ease of sound travel through nylon in a tenting cul-de-sac).  It would be tricky, but Gayle would stay with us in spirit throughout our summit climb.

Day Four: Flippin’ the Bird the Bird

This is getting ridiculous. It has been two months since we summited Kili, and I have Facebook friends logging on to wish me a good trip.  It is time to finish this blog. 

Smurfette looking chipper as we head out on Day Four

Day four on the mountain amounted to a well-earned downhill jog across a barren landscape to our next tent site, Third Cave.  On day three we slept at 4300 meters.  On day four we crawled in for the night at 3900 meters.  The sun shone on us for most of the day, and it felt blissfully warm.  I found myself slightly annoyed that we seemed to be hiking in the opposite direction of our destination and going downhill when there was so much climbing yet to be done.  Alas I rationalized that we had put our fate in the hands of Team Kilimanjaro. They had done this hike a few times before, and I decided it was best to just chill out and trust their method.  Seriously?  What else was I going to do?  Forge on up the mountain on my own?  Not a chance.  Who would I have for entertainment at every turn if it were not for this nutty bunch of hikers surrounding me?

Smurf assesses the surrounding peeing pebbles

Instead, I relished the long walk accompanied by Howard’s raven friend – the one that had him flippin’ the bird the bird all afternoon (as he was still a tad bitter about the soap eating incident).  I enjoyed the opportunity to relax in the sun before lunch as our porters set up tents and the cook whipped up some ground beef crepes.  The quote of the day on this spectacular afternoon came from Jeff who had concluded that, “even a camel will pee on Diamox.”  This particular situation was becoming more and more challenging as the trees had just disappeared from the landscape and the boulders seemed to be fewer and farther between.  Random pebbles were deemed worthy pee spots from this point on. 

A rocky campsite at Third Cave

You guessed it!  Third Cave

What lay ahead was a day of hiking, an afternoon of resting and, then, a midnight summit push which would end sixteen hours later. Much of the peeing to be done on the final push would take place in the cover of darkness.  We only had another day to endure the overly public Diamox-enhanced relief routine of our fellow hikers. 

Chris and Howard contemplate life with two
toilet options in the background.

Feeling giddy, nervous and ready to get this over with, I slept well on my gravelly tent site – banishing the pre-race jitters for another day.

Day Three: Howard Poops and E.Coli is Born

Day three began with the mandatory group photo.

Day three was a big day on the trail.  Howard, who at first glimpse of the toilet situation at the base of the mountain, had sworn off pooping, did manage to finally evacuate his bowels.  The fact that this was cause for group celebration speaks to the weird interpersonal bonds that can be forged in forty-eight hours at altitude. I have known my mother for forty-three years and have never shared my pooping schedule with her. However, out intimate group of nine saw fit to do a group cheer for Howard's profound accomplishment.

The day began as usual with bed tea and tepid washing water.  There was a small "incident" in the Smurf tent which lead to some pre-breakfast marital discord.  It seems that someone (which little blue smurf it was we are not quite sure) rolled over onto a full Camelback bladder during the night. Another diminutive blue troll had left the valve on the aforementioned bladder in the "open" position.  The end result was that one smiley smurf awoke to discover that s/he was sleeping in a puddle. Oops.  Good thing that smurfs are such friendly, positive characters.  Lesson learned: Prioritize your love. It's nice to keep your bladder cozy, so you have unfrozen water to drink in the morning, however, it is far better to keep your spouse cozy (and dry) and avoid the glacial glare that follows too many hours of sleeping in cold water.

Drinking from the water bottle which is much safer to
snuggle with than a bladder.

Despite this minor incident, everyone was feeling pretty good as we headed out for a relatively short (four hours) day of hiking.  We seemed to spend the entire morning walking away from Kibo peak (where we eventually intended to summit), and walking straight uphill. It was a steep climb from 3600 meters to 4300 at Mwenzi Tarn, where we would camp for the night.  We practiced the single-file summit shuffle, sucked down water, and reached Camp Three before lunch.  Naturally it was not to be an afternoon of lounging next to the "alpine lake" (this term was coined by Lisa in an altitude-induced haze), but rather an afternoon to enjoy a quick nap and then take a hike "just for fun" (and a little altitude adjustment). There's nothing like a recreational hike for amusement when you are in the midst of a seven day hike.

Arriving at the inviting "alpine lake" camp site

We had hiked in sunshine for the entire morning, but the temperature was getting distinctly cooler as we climbed higher.  Shortly after lunch, the mist descended on our campsite, and, as we retired to our tents for naptime, the hail commenced.  And so began the two hour "doze" punctuated by periods of sun (during which the nylon tent heated up like a sauna), driving hail which sounded like drums, and drenching rain.  At one point I awoke to the sound of people digging a moat around  my tent.  I figured that could not be a good sign, and I went back to sleep.

The smiling smurfs attempt to air-dry their sleeping
bags before the hail starts coming down.

Eva enjoys her popcorn and tea.

By tea time (4:00) the hail had stopped, and we all emerged from our tents ready for our afternoon excursion.  Fueled by tea and popcorn, we hiked to a nearby ridge, 200 meters higher than our tent site, where we were instructed to sit for fifteen minutes, breathe deeply and adjust to the thin air.  We took fun photos in the clouds and amused ourselves with searching for cell phone signals for the "connected" members of our party.  Then we tumbled and slid down the scree back to camp where we* wolfed down a dinner of beef stew and stewed vegetables. 

*"We" being the red meat eaters in the group.  One vegetarian contented herself with the stewed vegetables.  The other put in a polite request for chicken.  CHICKEN?!   This was day three of a hike up a mountain with no refrigeration (apart from the nightly below freezing temperatures).  We had at no point along the trail spotted a live chicken, but for some reason Smurfette, desperately craving protein, thought this was a reasonable request.  Naturally the ever-pleasing TK team was happy to oblige.  Something that "tasted like chicken" graced her plate at dinner.  Soap eating raven?  Mountain rat?  Who knows?  What we do now know, however, is that this was the eve of conception for a little E.coli baby that would feast and grow for the next two weeks - culminating in a full-blown spleen party in the ER back in Vermont.  For now, however, it was just another a delightful evening of dining by candlelight in the shadow of the looming mountain.

Fun photos with the buffalo skull before the afternoon "fun" hike

The "tarn" and tents from above during forced march

Contemplative Chris in the clouds

     

Breathing thin air

The "hair is overrated" climbing club

John, Gayle and Jeff enjoying the thin air

It was over dinner on night three that Sue confessed to napping "upside down" (feet higher than head) the day before when she had stumbled into her tent feeling awful.  Post-nap she had reported to the group on how much better she felt after her "feet up" nap.  the rest of us had been a bit perplexed because it seemed to be contrary to the advice Guide John had been dispensing every evening since the start of the hike. Apparently, however, Sue had misunderstood John's directions and had been lectured later on the importance of sleeping with her head "high" at altitude.  At this point, Lisa chimed in with her brilliant, "but a brain aneurism never felt so good," which was invoked at every opportunity for the rest of the week when the topic of discussion worked its way around to altitude headaches.

The evening's final bit of entertainment came at Kelly's expense when she attempted to open the can of cocoa powder.  The altitude had done something to the can, and, when she pried off the lid, there was a mini-explosion coated her in cocoa powder.  No big deal under normal circumstances, but absolutely hilarious when you have no water to wash up with, no clean clothes to look forward to for four more days and eight "friends" laughing at you and commenting on how much better you smell coated in cocoa.  Kelly beat off the down jacket and shook out her hair.  Smurf probably figured if someone rolled over on the water bladder again on this night, at least he'd end up with a puddle of hot chocolate as an added bonus.  Eventually, with Guide John having uttered the day's final "hakuna matata," we stumbled off through the freezing rain to our respective tents to adjust to the appropriate sleeping positions: heads high, feet low, rocks evenly dispersed over all parts of the spine.