Climbing Kilimanjaro- stories from a teenager
By: Rhea Kumar
Tags: Teenagers, Nature, Kilimanjaro, Hiking, Seven Summits

In 2018, I summited the highest peak in Africa at 16 years old. I have been looking back at the thousands of photos taken realizing how monumental and impactful this climb was for me, how I forgot so many aspects both on and off the mountain. I want to share them.

Day 1: Unpack to Repack and First Glimpses

I remember the first thing I did when arriving in Arusha, Tanzania was going to the highest floor of the hostel to gaze at the mountain. It was a humid 87 degree day with clouds and haze in the sky- the opposite of optimal viewing conditions- yet there it was… Almost magical and kind of out of place (Kili is the world’s highest free-standing mountain). I spent hours gazing, restudying climbing routes packing lists until the cloud coverage came in with a single goal in mind: to summit. But the peace and anticipation was slightly broken when we had to unpack and repack our gear (the 2nd pic) from suitcases to duffel bags. I’ll admit it was a rookie mistake- should have stuck with duffel bags in the first place- but with carryons and baggage claims, those logistics became too complicated so we packed all our stuff the night right before we headed to the base of the mountain- I really do not recommend. But hey, it all worked out in the end.

Mt Kilimanjaro from Arusha

Day 2:

It’s illegal to climb Kilimanjaro without porters or guides because of the dependence locals have on the climbing season for income. But honestly, even if I had the choice I wouldn’t go without them because these people were simply amazing. Their attitudes, stories, and overall positiveness made my experience undeniably more sentimental. We started off with a two-hour drive to the base of the mountain where we unloaded our gear from the van and placed everything on a weigh station. For safety reasons, no person is allowed to carry more than 30 pounds at any given point because excess weight inevitably intensifies altitude sickness. But then we began the hike up. 30 minutes into the first stretch we were all soaked by heavy rain moving through the rain forest we were in but honestly, the greenery and the sun made every shine for those drifting moments the rain paused. Max, one of our guides, started pointing out the plants unique to the region and I learned he actually held a degree in botany from a University near Arusha. He told me he had strong passions for basketball- which was very evident, I mean, he towered over me at 6’5- and wanted to eventually go to the US to see LeBron James play. I liked hearing about his passions and more would come in the following days. The hiking time was really short at around 3.5 hours but we climbed more than 2,000 feet and the altitude was slowly hitting as we reached the 9,500 ft mark at Camp 1: Mti Mkubwa.

Days 3 and 4:

There are these inexplicable feelings and lines drawn from Kili… and I feel like I’m not even close to being in a place to be able to explain or just, in general, extrapolate the versions of lives lived over there. I think our perceptions of “how the other half lives” are so dramatized and completely inauthentic making it seem we have to be the heroes of change and “save” others. That thought is just disgusting.

Climbing is an out of mind, out of body experience and it is so easy to forget everything around you and just focus on summiting. I was scared that would happen to me but just the opposite occurred… Day 3 and 4 of Kilimanjaro was the first time I truly felt weak after hearing the strength and drivenness of others on the mountain. I couldn’t have been more grateful for this gift and maybe it will extend externally.

My guide Emmanuel (Ema) told us of his family. His brother died of tuberculosis earlier that year leaving behind 5 children: two babies, two six-year-olds, and one eleven year old. They were passed on to Ema who was single with an on and off girlfriend. The question in my mind was who was taking care of the kids while Ema worked trips sometimes 9 nights away from home? He explained the 11-year-old takes care of almost everything: cooking, cleaning, making sure the kids go to school meanwhile the girlfriend checks in periodically. That just amazed me: an 11-year-old taking on a life’s worth of responsibility meanwhile, I was struggling to make a sandwich at her age. That narrative stuck with me throughout the whole trip all the way to today. I could write about my climb, the altitude, what I ate, etc but all of that seems so incomparable to the rest of the narratives on the mountain. You can read metrics online but stories are so much harder to come by.

Days 5 and 6:

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard the word “useful” in my life… One of my teachers in my earlier days used to tell me, “Rhea, if you apply yourself you will be much better off. Apply yourself and do something useful.” Useful- the word seems so arbitrary to me now. You know when you say a word to yourself over and over and suddenly your speech dissolves a part of your vocabulary into incomprehensibility- yeah that’s how I feel with useful. Sad to say I even had to use Google to make sure I was spelling it right. Anyway~ useful. We apply the word to one too many things: do something useful, be useful but what does that even mean? Because there is a line between usefulness and fulfillment, between personal satisfaction when that satisfaction may be at the expense of others… or even ourselves. So, when and how do we decide to position our choices and walk the line? I guess it depends on perspective but where I’ve seen such critical decisions between usefulness and happiness it mostly ends with regret.

The tallest person I have ever met was named Max- absolutely massive; I had to tilt my head up to the sky just to even make eye contact. He was my other guide on Kilimanjaro. Max was different from the other guides on the mountain, he actually had a college education which I learned was especially rare in these rural areas. He majored in Botany which I found especially astounding since every plant we came across he could identify. While his talent was very evident, Max didn’t speak of his choice in academic concentration in an especially positive way because the job openings for a new graduate in Botany are rare. He attributes his choices to where he is now. Of course, choice defines our present state but to me, the stories of how people derived where they were to where they are now were constantly communicated on the mountain. From Max, I just rediscovered my feelings towards living beyond what you love- how passion can be an enemy and cloud vision. In other words, passion, whether good or bad, can hinder usefulness from an external perspective. I hate thinking like that but in terms of practicality, it’s true. Practicality becomes more evident in these parts of the world where dreams may be compromised for security and often times the leap of faith proves to be unbearable.

Day 7- SUMMIT DAY

Why do we never talk about hardships in the climbing/hiking/trekking or even the general outdoors community? I feel like there’s a strong aversion to talking about the failure to persevere in critical moments where we’re so vulnerable… when it’s so easy to give up and turn back. Because we know that after that moment, the moment we give in, the could haves, should haves, would haves all trickle into our mindset and regrets fall into place. When I look at a lot of my photos I think they really glorify my true condition- internally I’m really suffering. As photographers we want to relay what we see but rarely do we really relay how we got to see what we saw; aka the true story behind the matter. I mean I’m writing this reflecting on photos portrayed in the climbing community since we showcase the successes but maybe not the failures. Failure is associated with shame because when you put your money, time, and effort all just to descend, damn it sucks. I saw a lot of tears and ache on my summit day of Kilimanjaro so here goes:

We woke up at 12 am- dead set in the pitch dark of the night. I’ll be very honest, I don’t remember a whole lot before dawn with the exception of the trail of headlamps of people ahead of us along with the mantra of “Pole pole” which means slow, slow in Swahili. I remember hearing avalanches somewhere on the other side of the mountain and the ice crinkling under my boots. And then the sun rose and let me tell you summit day sunrises are so encouraging for a few seconds and then you’re snapped back into the reality of what you’re trying to accomplish along with the headaches and lower body pain that comes with altitude sickness… I had wished the sun had never risen because now I could see how far I was from the top which felt like every step forward was two steps back. But the worst part was seeing others descend because of the unrelinquished pain even though they were only a few hours away from Uhuru peak. There was this one woman quite literally dragging her feet in the gravel as her guides tried to support her to the top. Her trekking poles were dead weight behind her and I remembered she was the only remaining climber after the rest of the group had to turn back… She had to descend at Stella Point only about 600ft from the summit because her condition turned critical. Her descent was so personally emotional I had to sit down only to feel my tears freezing on my cheeks.

Right below Stella Point

It wasn’t too long after we reached Uhuru Peak, the highest point in Africa and the top of one of the seven summits. I felt so grateful and proud and happy- which are all such understatements of what I genuinely experienced. For all I know they were accentuated by hallucinations but the top was gorgeous for the 5 minutes I wasn’t thinking about the shortness of breath we were all having at almost 20,000 ft above sea level… These moments that are so short-lived really make me question why I take the time and monumental effort to pursue this consuming passion- why take the risk? I guess my answer is what’s life without it? Half the things I know today are a byproduct of exploration in the outdoors. Everything out here is genuine, it’s real along with the extremities that come with the pain but even that’s perceptive, right? Kilimanjaro was a bunch of hidden lessons bound by one climb to the top and it’s the culmination of stories exuding truths.