“This is like being in a Japanese gameshow,” observes Keith O’Neill, the former Republic of Ireland international footballer. It’s 6am and the Dubliner is trying to get out of his tent after a first night spent under the rainforest canopy 2,800 metres up Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest freestanding mountain and the highest point in Africa.
Above in the trees that cover a mountain ridge, two Colobus monkeys call to each other while there’s the unmistakable stench of human waste from the nearby holes in the ground that act as toilets.
“I had ants in my sleeping bag,” he laughs. “Ants were trying to get in my tent too,” agrees a male voice from another tent. “I started counting them and stopped at 90. I tried to squash some of them with a bottle but they were too big.”
“I saw an animal when I got up to use the toilet in the night,” declares a female member of the party. “It was bigger than a rat but smaller than a dog. It was not in a hurry as it walked around the tents.”
The 22 strong group, supported by porters to help carry some of their bags to the top of the peak in Tanzania, had undertaken the eight-day trek to support Manchester United’s charitable foundation. It’s described as ‘extreme’ by the organisers Charity Challenge.
The risks of high-altitude mountain sickness (HAMS) are so serious that trekkers are encouraged to take two Diamox tablets each day, whose side effects include tingling fingers, and a doctor does the climb with the group.
The reality of the situation becomes stark throughout the climb when you witness numerous dazed, barely conscious, vacant-eyed walkers being escorted down the mountain to lower, safer altitudes.
There are adverts for helicopter rescues at campsites within Kilimanjaro’s vast 1000 square mile national park and wheeled stretchers by the side of the dozen paths that lead towards the peak of the long inactive volcano.
On a previous trek, the then recently retired footballer Robbie Savage was unable to complete the climb, with a pink liquid oozing from his lungs. He needed to get down to a lower level and into hospital for two nights.
There are other risks, HACO (high altitude cerebral oedema), fluid around the brain, and HAPO (high altitude pulmonary oedema), fluid around the lungs. But the greatest risk is you choosing to put yourself on the mountain in the first place.
A study of people attempting to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro in July and August 2005 found that 61.3 percent succeeded and 77 percent experienced acute mountain sickness (AMS). A retrospective study of 917 persons who attempted to reach the summit via the Lemosho or Machame routes found that 70.4 percent experienced AMS, defined in this study as headache, nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting, or loss of appetite.
O’Neill is on the trip raising money because he is a close friend of the former United and England captain Bryan Robson who, despite being 67, was also making the climb.
“There’s not many people pay £1 million to sign their mate,” smiles Robson. “But I didn’t know Keith before I signed him when I was Middlesbrough manager. When he joined me, we just clicked. He was a very good player but he suffered from too many injuries and his career was cut short.”
“He was always my hero,” says O’Neill. “We got on so well that I regularly ate at the gaffer’s house – his wife would make me meals. We kept that quiet, not everyone would have appreciated a player being such good friends with his manager.”
It’s a relationship which has endured. Robson was best man at O’Neill’s wedding and the pair laugh and chatter as much as the monkeys above them in the trees.
They’re soon in the communal tent that has been assembled for the night, where hot porridge is served amid cups of tea and Milo. Caffeine is discouraged, water not.
“Water is your friend,” explains the local guide Richard. “At least three litres per day please. More water, more fire. More fire, more water.”
The walk takes so long because the walkers must acclimatise before attempting to summit the 5,895m peak. From that first night’s camp at 2,000m, we climb steadily. The lush vegetation of the rain forest, with wildlife abundant, recedes with height until nothing grows.
But that’s at around 4,000m, still three days away, as the trekkers move on up through the forest. It’s an eclectic group, mainly British but with two South Africans, a Spaniard, as well as Keith the Irishman, drawn together mostly by a shared love of Manchester United.
The oldest is 70-year-old Mr Lal, a British Sikh who marches upwards with such assurance that we quickly suspect that he used to be in the Special Forces. Mr Lal is too cool to confirm or deny, he only has eyes on the summit, his only way is up.
Though not a technical climb like the Himalayan peaks, a good level of fitness was requited. There were prior altitude tests at Manchester Metropolitan, where the level of oxygen in the blood was recorded in simulated chambers.
An August training climb to the top of Mountain Snowdon, at 1,085m the tallest in Wales, also helped. And then it was a flight from Manchester to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia followed by a second one to Mount Kilimanjaro International Airport close to the Kenyan border in Tanzania.
After a final night in a bed and a bus journey which slowly climbed through villages of waving school children and fields where giraffes roamed freely, we began to climb the Lemosho route, from 1,981m to 2,800m on that first day up through the rain forest.
That was a chance to check that all our gear was working. The group worked well together, energy had to be saved and there were no shirkers to drain the collective energy that would be needed. All felt well prepared yet nervous.
For my own part, my confidence was blown when I hit a fluorescent, easy to see, traffic cone and fell over in April’s Manchester Marathon, tearing my ankle ligaments. I thought I could take the world on before that, less so in 25 subsequent visits to physios and a traumatologist. And my ankle is still not right.
I’ve not been able to run a metre since and a cardiologist told me that I was not a young boy anymore and that I needed to change my diet and eat healthier food, cutting out sweets, crisps, processed meats and cheeses. If I did, he’d run some tests and give me permission to climb Kilimanjaro.
The sponsorship money coming in brought focus and encouragement, the messages of goodwill too. On day two we were soon climbing out of the rainforest. As you ascend, you pass through Kilimanjaro’s different climatic zones. That’s bushland from 800 metres up to 1,800, rainforest from 1,800 to 2,800m, heather/moorland from 2,800 to 4,000m, alpine desert from 4,000 to 5,000 m, Arctic from 5,000m to the summit.
Day two gave us the first view of Kilimanjaro’s summit, both awe-inspiring and daunting, snow-clad with clouds buffering up against it. We’d soon be living above those clouds. There were big climbs on that second day as we rose to 3,500m, but I felt euphoric after completing it and listened to what I was told: more water, more fire. Giant white-necked ravens scavenged on the edge of the camp amid volcanic detritus.
I woke on day three to Robson snoring in the next tent. “It sounds like the frog song,” said O’Neill. Robson ignored such comments as he emerged.
“Good morning!” he shouted. “My fingers are freezing, but hands up if you slept well.”
We climbed again, on day three up to 3,800m, most of it across a volcanic field punctuated by odd, giant boulders. A Danish trekker recognised Robson and wanted to discuss the 1986 World Cup finals. In his world of one-way conversations where fans tell him their memories of him playing, he was happy to talk since few others had asked him about his career.
There are private chats with the doctor, which people only share two or three days later.
“My blood pressure was high, so the doctor gave me tablets. He said that if it didn’t come down then I wouldn’t be able to carry on,” is one such revelation. The blood pressure did come down.
The weather, close to the equator, is glorious. We’d been warned that “the high elevation, low temperature, and occasional high winds can make Kilimanjaro a difficult trek” yet sunshine prevailed and we were well prepared for the freezing nights as our climb curved around the side of a dry alpine desert, the peak usually to our left as Kilimanjaro rises, like Japan’s Mount Fuji, from the plane.
And there are few aeroplanes in the sky, little light pollution too. Only stars and constellations to learn.
Faces become puffy with altitude, there are some reports of nausea and headaches, but we’re told that’s normal. The key is that any pain is moderate and not severe. On day four we climb to 4500m before dropping down to sleep at 3,900m, the climb high and sleep low maxim being followed to help acclimatise.
There’s a quiz where one of the questions is ‘How many goals did Bryan Robson score for Manchester United?’ Robson is the only one who gets that right, but he’s hurting physically.
“My ankle popped as we climbed down from 4,500,” he says. “That first went when Denis Tueart chopped me when I was a kid at West Brom and it has been injured a few times since. It’s wear and tear.”
He has been a friend and foe of cortisone injections ever since, but as he showed many times when England’s best footballer, Robson simply doesn’t understand the concept of giving up. It does help that he’s cared for lovingly by his daughter Charlotte who has accompanied him.
Washing facilities are limited to a small bowl of hot water and Robson is one of the few who attempts to wash his hair with a bar of soap. It fluffs up and he talks of all the muck that came out of his ears during the wash. It’s no surprise, there’s so much dust that Adriana, a Spaniard, says that we look like we’re doing the Paris-Dakar rally across the Sahara.
With internet connections rare, news from the outside world comes via the BBC’s World Service. It’s almost all depressingly linked to Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and its proxies.
We climb on, relief coming from rare flat stretches. I’m not comfortable with ridges and ledges and the prospect of climbing the Barranco Wall which rises steeply on day five is unnerving, but I’m encouraged by a young rock climber from London called Felix.
I’m so relieved to complete it that I kiss the wall and someone takes a picture. When I look at the picture, someone has their arm around my back supporting me. I didn’t know that at the time. Twenty minutes later and pumped on adrenaline, I reach the top of the wall.
“Where are the others?” I ask a guide. “You’re the first,” comes the reply.
I’m elated and yet was consistently told to go slowly, slowly – ‘pole-pole’ in Swahili. Climb it in six days and 75 per cent make it to the top, a figure which increases to 80 per cent after seven days and 90 per cent after eight.
After six days we reach Barafu Huts campsite at 4,600m. It’s from here that we’ll attempt to summit. We arrive at 1pm and are told to rest since we’ll be woken at 11pm.
I lie in my tent high above the clouds. You can hear the waft from the wings of ravens who circle looking for scraps. We know the hardest part is to come and spirits are not dented by seeing yet more trekkers being escorted off down from the mountain in various states, none of which indicate a healthy body or mental state. The tone of the team meetings changes. What we’re about to undertake could be dangerous.
The plan is to depart at midnight and climb for eight hours to the summit. With the partial descent to get down to lower, safer levels, we’ll walk for between 12-15 hours.
Temperatures could drop to minus 20, though the weather has been kind. Water will freeze so we need thermal flasks. I have six layers of clothing for my upper body but don’t have a thermal flask. I’m told to turn the water bottles upside down and sip from underneath. We’ll wear head torches to light the way. My dose of anti-altitude medication is doubled by the calm Tanzanian doctor.
At 11pm I’m woken. My watch hasn’t registered any sleep but there were maybe an hour or two of slumber. Oh how I envy those who can fall asleep easily.
Robson comes into his own, encouraging everyone. John Shields, in charge of United’s Foundation, rallies the troops too. He’s the head of United’s Foundation and didn’t make it to the top last time. He’s lost weight, got fit and is deeply determined. There’s also the small matter of around £120,000 that had been raised for this walk.
We set off, the lights of head torches supplemented by moonlight. The first three hours are tough as we climb beyond 5,000m. We’re higher than any mountain in Europe or North America.
I try to think of positive moments as distractions – my daughters laughing in a garden, the dog wanting her tummy tickled or my wife cooking a favourite meal. When I started imagining Manchester United winning one Premier League football game comfortably then I knew my mind was wandering into the unrealistic.
At 3.30am we stopped for drinks and energy bars for five minutes. That was the low point for me, we still had four hours of climbing ahead, it was freezing and dark. Down below, we could see the lights of Moshi, a city which has benefitted from the tourism dollars generated by an everlasting army of climbers.
Sunrise was stunning as a ball of orange climbed over a nearby peak and Kenya came into view. Some around me were struggling as the peak of Stellar Point seemed to be closer to the moon than ourselves. Stellar Point is named after the wife of Doctor Kingsley Latham – it was the point he reached and could go no further in 1925. He urged her to continue but she stayed with her husband to descend.
We climbed to the height of the glaciers near the peak than have diminished in size with global warming. The ground was steep and soft underfoot but at 7am we peaked over the rim of the old volcanic crater to reach Stellar Point.
It felt wonderful, but we still had a relatively flat 700m walk towards the summit at Uhuru Peak. That bit was hard, like walking through treacle in the air where oxygen levels are 40 per cent less than at sea level.
A headache started but the summit was reached at 7.55am. The group who’d made the top by that point stopped for pictures. Robson was in cheery form but we needed to get down quickly.
We passed John Shiels. He’d been so slow on the ascent that I marvelled how he’d made the top, less so at his state. He could barely speak and looked unsteady on his feet, yet ecstatic all the same. I feared how he’d get back down the mountain, especially as it was so steep and rocks were loose underfoot. But he made it.
The descent was tough and hard on knees and ankles. We went through the zones of vegetation, saw one poorly trekker from Pakistan waiting to be rescued by helicopter.
“Agony,” was how Robson described the descent as his ankles swelled so big that he struggled to get his boots on, yet he managed it. We all did.
