Trip Reports

Kilimanjaro - Lemosho Glades, September '18

Written by Leader David Pickford, September 2018

Shadow and Spectre

Low cloud is blowing through the tops of the highest trees as we leave Lemosho Gate, obscuring the few perspectives we might get today on the scale of the challenge before us. By the time we reach Big Tree camp, the low sun begins to filter through the canopy and we are gifted a first glimpse of the land rising up and up to the east towards Uhuru.

A cold katabatic wind cleaves down from the icecaps as we set up camp at Shira 1 the next evening: the vast, silent, mysterious bulk of the mountain is reminding us in no uncertain terms of its presence. The following afternoon, as we reach Shira 2, a spectacular light display ensues as a low storm front spills over the Shira Ridge, drawing a gothic masterpiece across the southern sky.

24 hours later, we've crossed the Barranco Wall and are heading for our final base camp. On the evening before summit day, I get a rare glimpse of a Brocken Spectre - an optical phenomenon where a human shadow is projected against cloud - from the ridge above Barafu. Victorian alpinists were mortally fearful of the Spectre, believing it to be the spirit of dead climbers returning to haunt them.

Disregarding the supernatural, we strike off shortly after midnight and are soon toiling up the long, steep scree funnels to the 5000 metre contour in the face of a freezing wind shearing down off the icecaps. Reaching Stella Point just after dawn, we witness the awesome spectacle of the sun rising over the cloud-sea beyond Mawenzi from the roof of Africa. Two hours later, the whole team is on the summit. Looking out across the icefields of Uhuru on such a cloudless, crystal morning, it's clear that all the hard work has been worth it - as it always is and will be.

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