Day 5

Barafu Camp sits at around 15,500 feet, so we’d planned to sleep with the Oxygen, but I struggled to sleep because the PDM (Pulse Dose Monitor) clicks with every breath, and I found I was listening out for the click so was never going to get to sleep. I took it off and managed about 3 ½ hours sleep before getting up about 11.15pm.

After grabbing a bite to eat and a brew, we rigged up the oxygen and left the camp at 12.30am on a fabulous clear crisp moonlit night and soon found ourselves climbing on fresh snow. Conditions were perfect and so much light was being reflected off the full moon, head-torches were near irrelevant.

I felt fine for the first few hours, but then, an hour or so before dawn, I started to struggle. Just as I had before while on the 3 peaks challenge, I began to have internal battles, fighting depression and feelings of self-doubt. The summit was so far away and I began to seriously question whether I could finish. Nigel came and asked if we were going up or down. “Up.” I said, “For now anyway.”

But then, rapidly and not a moment too soon, the sun rose and just as before, lifted the darkness and took my black mood with it. Within a few minutes, my mindset changed from “I can’t do this” to “if it takes me all day…” – a quantum shift.

That wasn’t the end of the trauma though. I felt good for an hour or so, but then the lack of sleep and subsequently lack of caffeine began to eat into me. I began to feel an almost overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. But Emanuelle, the guide who was with me most, would not let me rest too long for fear of me going to sleep, and kept encouraging me. He did a good job.

We reached Stella Point on the crater rim. By now we had been going for about 7 hours. I was extremely tired and sat for yet another rest. The only thing that stopped me from aborting and descending, was glancing round the rim and seeing the people gathered around the summit sign. Come on, last push.

The walk to the summit from Stella point may be the easiest part of the day but its safe to say the effects of fatigue, lack of sleep and caffeine, and of course the altitude made it the toughest hour of my life. I have never had to work that hard before.

The last 5 minutes to the summit are something of a blur. I knew I couldn’t stop again because I would collapse and not get up. I was totally focussed on the summit sign and totally committed to it. I could hear Nigel behind me shouting at the people gathered by the sign “GET OUT OF HIS WAY! GET OUT OF THE WAY!” Fortunately they all parted – if anyone got in my path I think they’d have been flattened. Nothing was stopping me now.

Finally, I was there. I reached the sign, touched it, and my legs could hold me no longer and I tasted snow. With pure emotion pouring out of me I sat, propped up against the sign for I don’t know how long. The realisation of what I had achieved was tempered by the recognition that the job was only half done. I still had to get down, and I had no idea how I was going to manage that. I was spent. I had nothing left.

Except the bar of chocolate, and managed to force half of that down, while someone gave me a carton of juice. Feeling a little more energised, we began to make our way down. But by the time we reached Stella Point it became clear this was not going to be easy. I needed some help.

Nigel came in again and had our two guides take one side of me each. By now it was about 10am, and the firm crisp snow we climbed up had gone and we were rapidly descending the steep loose scree. We were moving at a rate towards Nigels’ last piece of genius – tea and porridge.

The previous evening, Nigel had negotiated with the support team, Harron, the chef, and Charles, the waiter, to meet us on our descent with a flask of tea and a container of nice thick heavy porridge. I cannot say the lift that gave. When Nigel saw me next the transformation was spectacular. I was walking independently, the exhaustion had gone and I was lucid again. Tea and porridge, caffeine and calories.

We got back to Barafu Camp in the early afternoon, and decided to stay the night there, and descend to the park gate the following day.

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Day 5: Barafu Camp to Summit, return to Barafu Camp