Thorpe Bay Yacht Club

Tel: 01702 587 563

Day Reports
Day 2 of the Steve & Spratty assault on Kilimanjaro
a longer day today at higher altitude approx 6hrs climbing
It was a day of infinite ridges just when you thought you were at the top yes
you guessed another bloody ridge!!!!
As is always the case with and expedition with spratty he managed to draw blood from him
self today even if only minor

The cap has amazing views and a stream running through so I have challenged spratty after tea
to a poo sticks race (For those who know me will appreciate that every thing in life is a race!!!)

Signing off for now Steve & Spratty

day 3 report of the spratty and steve assault on Kilimanjaro today was easer all round even though we were walking / climbing for nearly 6 hours. from camp site shera 1 we walked v slowly to the foot of sherea cathedral there it was a fairly steep climb to the top some 150m to a dizzy height of 3900m the steep part was actual climbing where we left our back packs at the bottom then climbed up and down followed by a 2hr uphill walk to shera 2 camp site at 3840m where we sleep. getting v cold for washy washy as African guides call it with is actually a sadistic torcher of striping down to smalls at 15000ft and dunking the top half of your body in a bucket of water v cold!!!! that’s it for today more tomorrow steve & spratty

day4 steve & spratty climb. today was the hardest yet we left camp at 7.30 and started a steep relentless climb from 3840m to 4600m to the top of larva tower this took approx 3 hrs at the top we were both thuroley knackered whilst having our packed lunch the vulchers were circling eyeing up spratty for there own lunch. after lunch it was a long 4hr hike up and down to branco camp at 3900m. I would just like to give a quick thanks to both martin and Pete for there kind donations of equipment the musto technical clothing supplied by wetsuit outlet is excellent as are the Hi-tec V-lite altitude ultra lux boots first class thanks again guys. tomorrow when we looked on our map looked quite an easy day however we have just seen the baranco wall sh****t its steep like vertical over 1000ft high and I think we are climbing it help me!!!!! anyway enough for now more tomorrow from steve & spratty some ware up a hill

Day5 of the Steve & spratty stroll up a hill. Day started with get up at 6.00am followed by a sadistic washy washy which I passed on this morning as temp was in the minuses and I did not fancy stripping down to my boxers in the open and chucking a bucket of water over my head!!! We started our climb of the baranco wall at 08.00 which is basically a shear rock face with some flat bits and one section which according to our guide Henry is known as the kissing rock this is an outcrop which you have to hang out to get around with approx 200ft drop behind you I think me an spratty re-christened it the shagging rock as we were so close to it. Any way baranco wall out the way the guides then said we have a fairly easy jaunt in to camp after the wall, yes you guessed nothing of the sort we were faced with one of the biggest gorges I have seen first down the up to get to camp bugger!!!! On the down slop spratty had a senior moment and lost his footing and one of the guides a slightly built African lad jumped to sprattys rescue I have to say spratty was wearing him like a cheap suit.

Any way enough for now more tomorrow Steve and Spratty some ware up a hill in Africa.

Day 6

Final assault

After a nice 4 hour stroll/steep climb through some spectacular volcanic views we settled down at about 18.00 for some 5hrs sleep as we had to be up at 23.00 ready to take a midnight stroll to the top of Killi,this turned out to be the hardest thing we have probably ever attempted, steep climb,pitch black,no oxygen 40mph wind and a chill factor to freeze the wot nots of a brass monkey off we set  stopping every 15min to rest and drink.

After about 4hrs and 300mts from the summit  the hardest and saddest  decision of the trip had to be made,Steve was struggling with the altitude he couldnt breathe had lost sight in one eye (this he kept quiet from me) at this point i made the decision we would go back down and come back another time., this provoked Steve to say if I went down he would start crawling up, after another   brief but rude disscussion he decided he was going down and I was going up.

Tears, bad language, and 4 hours later I made it to the top to be met by 4 scantily clad young ladies carring an ice cold bottle of corona (only joking) what i did see was spectactular views of a glacier, a sun rise over the Masia Mara, a big sign saying congratulations. all of this was great except no Steve.

After a brief stay at the top we made our way back down and what took 7 odd hours to get up took 3 hrs to get down. Found steve rested and ok but still struggling with the vision in one eye.

After an hours kip and a bit of lunch we broke camp and started down the mountain after another 7 hours we hit our last camp of the trip.

Day8

3 more hours climbing down. then HOTEL,SHOWER , BEER AND  HANGOVER .

This trip was a massive buzz for Steve and myself and the support of  all of our friends in the club and other walks of life kept out spirits up.

But we must thank some  people   for supplying us with the equipment we required to get the job done so a big thank you to Peter Thompson  (Wetsuit outlet) and Martin and Miek (Hi Tec) those boots were definatly made for walking.

THE END

PS sorry this has taken so long to publish we  hope you all enjoyed our story and hopfully we will do a evening with Steve, Paul and Killimanjaro.

Regards Spratty and Hopper

Comments RSS