The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.
The Ladder of St. Augustine – Longfellow
We will start our summit attempt tonight, but first we need to get over to our base camp at Barafu. It was a cloudy but dry start to the morning with the occasional bursts of sunshine. Our camp followers this morning are the ever present stripy grass mice, but also the white necked ravens and a flock of turtle doves, which surprises me at this altitude, but they are a welcome addition as they are a symbol of devoted love.
After breakfast we start out heading up and across the ridge we have camped on. We stop rising and the path levels off for a bit so we take a break and take in the views of Kibo peak’s lower slopes. We then descend into the next valley and across the valley floor towards the South East ridge. The trail was made up of broken slate or shale which had been baked hard, possibly during the original volcanic eruption, so it tinkled like windchimes as we walked across the plain.
It’s a stiff climb up the South East ridge and we take a rest at the top, then we turn left and start heading up the ridge towards Barafu camp at 4,600m. We arrive to the usual greeting of cloud, but for the first time on this trip we can see several more parties camping out, apart from the occasional night with one other group, we’ve never been in a busy camp before. But even this isn’t busy, I’m guessing it’s a lot busier earlier in the season.
First we have to sign in, and we go straight into a ranger station and sit around the bunks waiting for the book to be passed around. Whilst we are there an enterprising guide offers us t-shirts, hats, snickers bars, cokes and even Kilimanjaro Beer! David gets the round in and the hut is silent as snickers bars and coca cola is consumed.
Arwen sitting between me & Jennifer gives us a present, a heart shaped stone she has picked up along the route, which she decided to give to us “young lovers”.
Arwen is lovely, she’s dutch but lives in the UK with Adam. Her parents gave her the beautiful name Arwen from the Lord of the Rings character… just as well they didn’t call her Frodo I guess. Everyone calls her Eve (because she lives with Adam), which causes some confusion for the guides!
After signing in we move down to our camp which is on the exposed ledge of a cliff, but its very cosy with a brand new long drop toilet for us… right on the edge of the cliff… a very long drop! As we move there we are circled overhead by a golden feathered eagle – it looks amazing and it feels like another good omen.
I’m still feeling ill, and hope it will go away soon, its really dragging me down. There is supposed to be an acclimatisation walk this afternoon, but my knees are still sore from yesterday’s six hour trek so I’m glad when we are told just to rest instead.
After lunch we just fall asleep in our tents, then suddenly its 5.30pm and we are being woken for an early dinner and briefing. Still couldn’t eat much at lunch so tried to force some lighter food down. I think everyone is nervous, but its only me and Dave who admit to it.
Carl’s preparation was severely dented when he was attacked by a wild animal. It was one of the stripy grass mice, it bit him on the hand whilst trying to steal his summit stash of chocolates! These mice were pretty ruthless and munched into a few people packs to steal some chocolate, one of them even bit through Jennifer’s camelbak after we got back from the summit just to get at her water!
After the briefing we head back to the tents and try to sleep. Not many of us manage it. I try every trick I know to get to sleep but by 10.45pm I’m still awake, too late to sleep now so may as well get up… and then I fell asleep! It was only 15 minutes, but its better than nothing! Jennifer managed to get a good few hours sleep.
I still feel ill, and also very tired, but we put on our summit gear. Jennifer had prepared hers weeks before and knew exactly what she was wearing. I’d had to leave loads of my gear behind in the lodge (because of the size of the sleeping bag) so I had been working out what to wear for the summit attempt all week.
In the end I went for the clothes I wore for the climb to Arrow Glacier camp. I knew that was ok for zero degrees, but at the last minute I decided to add a thin fleece to my layers and put my down jacket in my bag for when it got colder. So on top I was wearing a millet microfleece as a base layer, with a thin fleece over this and my paramo trail shirt (fleece side in) over this. I then had my Rab photon hoodie over this and my Berghaus rainjacket as a windbreak.
I had Patagonia thick super guide trousers with a HH baselayer underneath and bridgedale summit socks inside my thick soled Teva gore-tex boots. On my hands I had thick primaloft gloves on, with gore-tex over-mittens in my backpack in case the wind got up.
On my head I wore an extremities fleece lined mountain cap with a half face balaclava on the lower part of my face, with a light buff over this to keep it tight against my neck. All in all I was feeling pretty snug, but Jennifer looked far more snug as she had loads of layers on, I was surprised she could move! My only concern with Jennifer was weather she had enough backup if she got cold.
Tags: Kilimanjaro
