To tell the story of summit night, I really need to tell you a little about the others in the group.  There are 27 of us in all.  Damon, our expedition leader is an ex-Army warrant officer.  He has brought us this far and, in doing so, has turned us into a coherent team, working together, following instructions properly, keeping to the schedule.  The fact that we are a team now will play a large part in getting most of us to the top of the mountain.

Supporting Damon is our expedition Doctor, Suzanne and Frank, head of the guide and porter team.  27 summit porters will make the climb with us, one for each of us.  We’ve already lost two porters to illness on the way up but these 27 are the cream of the crop.

Now for the team:  Jonathan, John, John, Noel and Paul are five good friends from Donegal.  Aged from 44 to 59, they’ve kept everyone’s spirits up with their banter over the last few, very wet days.

Laura and Sheila come from County Down and County Monaghan respectively.  They’re both gorgeous smiley, cheerful girls in their twenties.

Sheila’s a nurse and Laura’s a veterinary nurse.  For SMC readers, Laura has more than a touch of Katie about her.

The Irish contingent is completed by Philip, an electrical contractor from Dublin and his wife Audrey.

Darren and Maz are from my home town of South Shields.  They’re husband and wife, in their mid to late thirties.  Darren was invalided out of the army after an accident and this climb is the start of his road to full rehabilitation.

There are eight other girls in their twenties in the team, some of whom have made the trip on their own.  Lucy, Alex, Marie, Ange, Helene, Emily, Gemma and Hannah are all amazingly resilient, resourceful individuals.  They’ve coped like born infantrymen with the wet conditions, lack of sanitation and the toilet humour that seems to take over when people are leveled in this way.  Their toughest challenge awaits them all tonight.

Originally from Merseyside, Nick and Chris are two lovely lads who grew up together on the Wirral.  Chris is a conditioning coach in Bath and Nick is an IT project manager.

As you might imagine, Chris is a fit young man but he came on this trip, at Nick’s request, with two clear handicaps – he hates walking and he hates the cold!  Ricky is also from Merseyside.  He runs his own mobile car wash and valeting business in Ellesmere Port. He’s a big lad but very fit because of his job.  I’ll be following Ricky up the hill. The image of his blue Vango rucksack will be indelibly tattooed on my subconscious.

Last but not least, there’s Anne.  To be honest, Anne’s the one we probably all thought would give up first.  She’s an overweight (by her own  admission) fifty-eight year old midwife who hails from Scotland and works at St. Thomas’ in London. But she’s proved us all wrong and she’s still here and going strong.

11th October – Day 4:

We made a silent start this morning, earlier than originally planned, so that we could be first on the wall. Reveille at 04.45 and more gloop, scrambled eggs and ‘toast’. The toast is made by holding slices of bread over a gas burner. Needless to say it’s a bit hit-and-miss but the cook achieves top marks for trying at all up here. Goodness knows what time he got up this morning.

After breakfast, we crept out of camp so as not to wake other groups. The Barranco wall is a 300m scramble (classified as such in climbing terms) but there’s really only one clearly defined route up so we were avoiding being stuck behind a slow group by being first to start the climb.

The sun was just rising as we left camp and we completed the climb successfully with everyone’s nerves reasonably intact and without it having rained… much.

…until we got to the top when, obviously, it started raining again. This time though, the sun stayed out and we were treated to the most amazing rainbow in the valley below.

I know this is starting to sound like a food odyssey but lunch today was a triumph of the culinary art over physics. We arrived at Karanga camp for lunch and the porters had already erected the cook tent and mess tent and were hard at work cooking chicken and chips! At nearly 4,000m! They must have some pretty powerful gas burners.

After lunch we continued on, climbing steadily (in the rain, as usual) until we reached Barafu camp. What a camp site! It’s situated on a ridge overlooking the south east valley of the mountain. The sleet started to fall almost as soon as we arrived. The wind howled up the valley and everywhere was loose rock and the detritus of hundreds of previous campers. We found our sodden, freezing cold tent pitched right on the edge of a 200m or so precipice, next to the toilet tent. Those of you who’ve ever been to a restaurant with me will know that I always end up with that table.

This place defines the word bleak. Imagine Mad Max meets Ice Station Zebra (without the submarine) and you’re starting to get the picture.

Wet through already, we all assembled in the mess tent for tea and popcorn and a re-briefing on the night to come. Dinner of soup and mushroom stroganoff followed. By this time Mike was already feeling ill and nobody really had much of an appetite. After dinner we headed to our tents to sort our gear out for the summit climb. It was seven o’clock, four hours to go. We put on our merino wool thermals, and a couple of layers of cold weather trekking tops, put on our wooly hats, climbed into our sleeping bags and shivered. We probably each got about two or three hours sleep at best. We were awoken at 11.00pm. It was time…

Day 3

Our first Kilimanjaro breakfast – a bowl of gloop followed by omelette and hotdog sausages. You’d be amazed what a gourmet can get used to!

What a day’s walking. We climbed to 3,800m, mainly up a long path of rock steps. The weather was pretty grey – we were walking in cloud for a lot of the day with some rain. We were all disappointed not to be able to see the views or the amazing sunset that’s often visible from the camp in the evening. We stopped at midday at about 3,500m for a hot lunch and then continued on to our campsite for the evening.  We finished quite early today and were able to chill out in our tents for an hour before dinner.

The guides and porters are simply amazing. Nothing’s too much trouble for them and they tank up and down this mountain in worn out trainers and whatever waterproof clothing they’ve been given by grateful customers.  Very few people could do this without their help.

Steep 900m ascent to the Shira Plateau then a long trek across the plateau to Shira Camp (3,900m) where we spent the night.  Again lots of rain!  Everyone in good spirits.  A couple of loud snorers!

Day 4

Apparently it’s the rainy season.  No kidding!  Today was our first day above 4,000 metres. It’s the height at which a lot of people start to experience altitude sickness so everyone was a little nervous I think.

We climbed 800 metres in the morning to a height of 4,600m.  Everyone seemed fine. There were a few mild headaches but no dramas.  Mike and I were both okay. It rained.  We walked slowly uphill, a bit like we will on summit night.  It rained.  After lunch, we went through the western breach and dropped back down to 3,900m for the night.  It rained.  It rained solidly all day (are you getting the picture?), except when it was sleeting.

Everyone’s spirits were pretty low by the time we got to camp. If Damon, our expedition leader, hadn’t gone round the tents and roused people, I think we’d probably all have gone to bed at 5.00 o’clock. Instead, we had a summit briefing and learned the Kilimanjaro song. It’s amazing how a bit of singing lifts the spirits!

We were all asked to ‘share with the group’ the reason why we must summit. I’ve rarely experienced as much pent up emotion in one room. It was genuinely moving.

Tomorrow is our 36 hour day – it starts with us getting up at 4.45 am, doing the Baranco wall by 7.00am and finishes with the summit of Kilimanjaro at 6.00am on Wednesday morning.  There’s a real excitement building.  This is what we’ve all been building up to.