At the top you're only halfway

by Edoardo Melchiori (Italy)

A leap into the unknown Italy

It’s only five pm in Barafu camp (4600 m) as we start our dinner sitting on the humid ground in our tent and an hour later we slip into our sleeping bags. The night (or better say evening) goes by as I keep moving inside my sleeping bag like a silkworm. At eleven pm the alarm finally rings: I did not sleep a minute but I am glad it is time to move. I turn on my headlight, the double roof of the tent glitters like the inside of a geoid: our breath condensed on the fabric which is now covered in ice. I hastily put on my jacket and go out: the moon are lighting Kibo, now that the clouds have disappeared, the stars are shining from up above. As we start walking all lined up in the dark the trail in front of us is already dotted with dim lights that trudge on along the way. The air is cold and thin, I can feel it coming down my throat and at the same time not filling my lungs. Every movement is performed in slow motion, I breathe in while moving a foot forward along with the opposite arm, I then shift my weight onto that foot and stick the trekking pole into the ground while letting the air out of my lungs. Silence. Then I start with the other leg and the rubbing of the jacket’s sleeve makes a deafening echo in my ears. The hat and the hood over my head isolate me from the cold and everything else. We are so close and yet so far away. For a moment I feel like I am slipping away from where I am, far from these little faint light dots on the trail and this slope, I am high up in the cold air of the night while I fly down the valley, through the forest and the heat of the savannah. I speed swiftly over herds of antelopes running in the grass till the deserts of Uganda and on to the coast of the Mediterranean where fishermen toil, preparing their nets before going out to sea. I see Italy's shoreline and the roof of my house, I see all the people I have left behind lying asleep in their beds, I can see the faces of the ones I love, I can feel their breath merging with mine in their sleep. In the blink of an eye I am back here in this darkness; I breathe in, I move a foot forward and stick the pole into the ground as the thin layer of snow that covers the black lava gravel crumbles under my weight. Slowly the first sunbeams peep out through the thick layer of clouds and we see the small terrace of Stella Point in front of us and the Rebman Glacier on our side. It is 5:41 am when we finally reach Stella Point at 5,745 m. The night gives way to the day as the air gets warmer and that bottomless black that surrounded us gently turns red and then light blue. We have been chasing this dawn all night and we now turn around to find out it is the dawn that has reached us. We still have 150 meters to climb in one kilometre along the crater rim as we pass Hans Meyer and Elveda Point. On our left the glacier stands over a quilt of clouds lit up by the dawn. On our right, a view opens up on the clearing that surrounds Reusch Crater like a moat, 200 meters below us. Westwards the Furtwangler Glacier resembles an ice cliff overlooking the sea. Looking north, right in front of us stand Kibo’s crater, and Reusch Crater with an ash pit on top of it. From Stella Point the trail is easy and at 6:43 we reach the wooden sign indicating Uhuru Point at 5,895 m. We made it! Oh, wait we’re only halfway, now it’s time to go back down!