Kilimanjaro, Day 3
Saturday, November 10, 2012 We awoke on a clear Saturday morning to a full view of the peak of Kilimanjaro, with a bright glowing Venus halfway between it and an incandescent crescent moon. It was a remarkable and ephemeral sight, as the sun rose the moon and neighbour planet faded away, and the warmer temperatures brought a rush of fog up the mountainside, pulling a grey curtain across our objective.
After the usual breakfast, our chef David "Mange-Mange" led the whole group of climbers, guides, porters and cooks in an inspiring song and dance (wearing his orange "you had me at Mambo t-shirt, and plaid pyjama pants hiked over his chef-belly"). We clapped along and sang the words as best we could; the words I could make out include "Kilimanjaro, Mambo (how are you), Jambo (what's up), Nguvu (power), hakuna matata (if I have to tell you, rent the Lion King and thank me later) and Boma (the name of the guide company).
We were all sufficiently winded after the clap and dance along, but within minutes my pack was on (still full of everything I brought to Africa with me, 3L of water (which seems heavier at this elevation), and telescoping poles that I still haven't bothered with), and we left Shira camp in our wake.
As we climbed higher the shrubbery and small trees got smaller, until the only plant-life was moss and grass. The terrain reminded me a lot of Haleakala on Maui, if you've ever visited the 10,000ft peak in Hawaii. There was plenty of rain overnight, and it began to trickle again within an hour of our departure. For the first time I put on my MEC nylon rain pants; we hiked for over 6hours in the rain, incredibly my legs stayed totally dry.
So the trail that we use to go up the mountain also happens to be the trail that the water uses to go down. As the rain continued our wet trail graduated from stream to creek to river, with some sections of whitewater and plenty of water falls. We stuck to the shore where we could, but often we were hopping from rock to rock through a shallow river. I need to brag about the Asics lahars again, even when they are immersed in water... No soaker. Props Asics, these are great kicks.
Whenever the fog rolls out we catch a glipse of the snowy peak which awaits us, but we had yet to encounter snow, until today. Our lunch spot today was Lava Tower (google it for a photo, it's bonkers). At 4600metres about sealevel it's just past the snow line, so the rain switched to freezing rain and again to hail - a welcomed change as hail tends to bounce off of you rather than accumulate as slush on your shoulders, pack, hat... any surface. Lava tower has many natural caves and rock outcroppings, so we all scattered to find a good lunch shelter. I was pretty disgusted to see the state of many of the mini-dwellings. Hikers have left their garbage in piles throughout, and while I can excuse eggshells and banana peels, using the only shelter as a toilet is inconceivably ignorant. Shame on those loserpoopers! Shame!!
I found an un-crappy outcropping and quickly devoured my meal and layered up.
Lava Tower was our peak for the day, and is the same height as the basecamp which we will reach early afternoon tomorrow. The effects of the altitude were, not surprisingly, more extreme at Lava Tower than at any other point so far. I had a headache and some minor nausea. Nothing that made me feel like quitting or anything, just a part of the adventure. We started down straight after lunch. Team morale was low after a consistent 3hours of cold rain, but we soldiered on. The initial descent was down a cascading creek, with stepping stones and a narrow bank. It was really steep and fairly slippery, thankfully nobody slipped. As we continued down my nausea diminished and headache all but disappeared. The shrubs came back, and soon there were broad-leafed plants and flowers and some short trees. I picked a low hanging leaf to use as an umbrella (despite the fact I was already totally soaked), and Alex and Praygod scolded me for impacting the environment. I apologized and put my umbrella leaf on the ground. It didn't work anyway.
The Tanzanian Time Warp was in full effect this afternoon. Alex and Praygod insisted that Lava Tower was between an hour and ninety minutes from Barranco, tonight's camp. After 2 hours we were all getting a little anxious, and for the next hour it was always "about 25 or 30minutes left". We arrived after 3hours 15minutes from Lava Lunch tower, for a total of 7hours and almost 30minutes of hiking. It was only about 13km; I'd run that on trails at sealevel (without a 30kg pack) in under 80mins... So suffice to say our pace was pole, pole.
Barranco camp is incredibly scenic, when the rain and fog relented for a few minutes we could see the stiff peak and kissing rock - or first challenge tomorrow, the most technical section of our 6 day climb.
We finished dinner relatively quickly, pumpkin soup with tasty little pekoras, spaghetti bolognese and some fruit. I've been pretty cold since we made camp, so I'm happily bundled up, out of the rain in my super comfy Aquila sleeping bag.
Tomorrow we hike about 6hours to Barafu basecamp, eat and rest for just a few hours, and begin our summit ascent in the middle of the night, hoping to arrive at the roof of Africa before the sun rises over this great continent.
Wish me luck, and lots of simba nguvu.
La la salama...
Reader Comments (2)
Say hi to Jaime. All the best to you and the group on the ascent. Martin.