Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport

Hyde poses in front of the glacier at the top of the mountain. "Another problem is the glare of the glacier. I got totally burnt, my nose peeled, it burns the inside of your nose, your ears and you get so hot you just want to take all your gear off." - Photos by Adam Hyde

ADAM HYDE is not sure if he is the first Jamaican to reach Kilimanjaro's highest peak, Uhuru, but he is certainly not the first to take on Africa's tallest mountain.

"There's a place on the way up called Jamaica Rocks," the tall mountaineer said. "The guides said it was named so because a Jamaican reached that far, looked up, said 'blood &%$' and walked back down."

That was one of the lighter moments on an arduous, painful trek to the first of Hyde's Seven Summits which saw three of his five fellow climbers fall by the wayside over the five-day slog to the top.

Every bit as tough

Adam Hyde proudly waves the Jamaica flag after reaching Uhuru Peak on Kilimnajaro last month.

There is no climbing involved in reaching the roof of Africa, unlike the other large continental mountains which require the usual mountaineering kit of ice axes, crampons and ropes, but it's every bit as tough as its foreign cousins.

"When we were going up Kilimanjaro, we saw these guides bringing a guy down on a gurney and that really shook us," Hyde said of his odyssey last month. "Altitude sickness can kill you and it affected a couple of our team.

"On the fourth day, we reached Kibo Hut where the snowline and the nightmare begins. The wife of one of our members gave it up there; she got terribly cold - blue lips and blue fingers, and she was starting to get altitude sickness and had to be taken down, she was pretty bad.

Labouring

Not exactly a creature comfort but a necessity on the 5,895-metre climb.

"Then my American tent mate collapsed. He was really ill, he said he was seeing green snow and started turning it over like it was grass or something. It was very worrisome because at first he wasn't saying anything and I kept asking, 'how are you doing?' We were all watching each other and he was really labouring. The guides took him and another guy back down."

At that stage, Hyde and his two remaining companions, a father and son from Denver, Colorado, were only two hours away from the peak, but it seemed like an eternity.

"You just really struggle to take one step after another - after every five or six metres you have to catch your breath - at the top of Kilimanjaro there's half as much oxygen as there is at sea level and you just have to focus on moving on a step at a time," Hyde, who climbed our own Blue Mountain many times and even ridden up it on a mountain bike, said. "Another problem is the glare of the glacier. I got totally burnt, my nose peeled, it burns the inside of your nose, your ears and you get so hot you just want to take all your gear off.

"It was scorching at the summit but it was so surreal at first because there was mist but then it lifted and we saw the glacier which is 30 metres high.

"When we reached the summit, we hugged and I cussed a few Jamaican bad words. I took pictures and there are fantastic views of Tanzania on one side and Kenya on the other."

The five-day climb then turned into a two-day descent.

Void of life

The mighty Kilimanjaro in all her cloud-capped glory.

"Every few hundred metres on the way down you can feel the air getting thicker and you feel better and better; we were almost running down the mountain at times. I remember getting outside the Alpine desert area and hearing bees and birds and you realise how void of life it is up there; it was like the first day of spring."

When Hyde got to base of the mountain, the full effect of his achievement kicked in.

"It changes you. You never get it out of your head, the vastness of the mountain and the enormity of what you have just done."

That's one down. There's still six more summits to go for Hyde.

Onwards and upwards.

Snug as a bug in a rug ... Hyde rests in his two-man tent.

FACT BOX

Kilimanjaro is the tallest free-standing mountain rise in the world.

The highest of Kilimanjaro's three peaks (Uhuru) was first reached by Marangu army scout Yohanas Kinyala Lauwo, German Hans Meyer and Austrian Ludwig Purtscheller, on October 6, 1889.

About 15,000 people attempt to climb the mountain each year.

About 40 per cent succeed in reaching the peak.

Mobile phone calls can be made from the summit.

The mountain is an inactive volcano which is unlikely to erupt but is in dangerof collapsing.

The youngest person to reach the peak is 12-year-old Nigerian Ryan Eckert.

There are six official routes to climb the mountain.

Toto sang in 1982 that Kilimanjaro rose "like Olympus above the Serengeti", but the great African plain is about 250km away.

The mountain's ice cap is retreating and could disappear completely within the next dozen years, according to some scientists.

Hyde poses in camp before his challenge, Kilimanjaro.

Hyde's well-autographed Jamaican flag hangs in a bar near Kilimanjaro after his ascent to the peak.

The climbers, guides and porters celebrate their safe return from the mountain.

Hyde takes a break on the trek up Africa's tallest mountain.