On top of it all

Climbers reach Kilimanjaro's snow-capped Uhuru Peak.

"The wind and the snow felt like it was cutting our faces," he says. "I could barely stay on my feet. I wasn't planning on going to the top, but when we arrived at Gillman's Point, out of concern for everyone's safety, we decided on the spur of the moment to choose five people to climb to the summit."

At 9:30 am on Feb 9, the six most experienced climbers－Wang Yongfeng, Wang Yunlong, Wang Yonggan, Zhou Yun, Dechen Ngodrup and Tanzanian team member Sassa－battled their way to the top of Uhuru, the mountain's highest peak.

Because of the bad weather, the poor visibility and the wind, which was strong enough to knock people over－even blow people away－getting back down to the camp was even more dangerous than the climb up for the climbers, who had to cling to the inside ridge and use their poles to keep their balance.

Everyone was exhausted, Tsering Tentar, who has climbed on Qomolangma, which is also known as Mount Everest in the West, four times, made a grab for Zou Jin's foot as Zou stumbled and fell. He missed, but fortunately a rock ended up stopping Zou's fall a few meters down the steep slope. Tsering's face turned pale when he came to Zou's assistance, because if the rock hadn't stopped his fall Zou would have gone over the edge of a cliff. Zou says that at the time he didn't realize how dangerous it was. It was only afterward that he realized that if the stone hadn't been there, he wouldn't be here today.

Even veteran climber Dong Fan fell twice.