Last night was a very interesting evening in camp. The South African crew we encountered on the Barranco Wall continued to be rowdy and obnoxious into the evening.
When we got up this morning all the various guides were talking about them. It seems the South African group so intolerable, their team was ready to be done with them. They took a vote and wanted to leave the South Africans climbers and head back to Moshi.
Instead of doing anything rash that might result in getting fired, they did the next logical thing. They left the most junior guide behind and handful of porters to make breakfast and break down the tents. Meanwhile the rest of the crew walked up to Barafu Camp when the sun went down.
Your behavior has to be pretty darn abysmal when people want to quit and leave you on a mountain. I really hope the South Africans aren’t planning summit the same time as us. It’s like a disaster waiting to happen with them anywhere nearby. Most of all, I don’t want our chances of success limited by their absurd actions on the mountain.
A cold, dreary day
With the exception of the South African drama, today’s hike was probably the least memorable of all the days so far. It was just a short trek lasting about three hours. The entire walk was shrouded in clouds as we moved across the Alpine desert so there wasn’t much to see.
We had a pretty solid climb up from 13,000 feet to over 15,000 feet, but it was so cold. It took nearly an hour and a half for my feet to warm up completely. I was even wearing two pairs of socks and my Gortex boots, but I was still cold.
My hands were chilly the entire way too. But, at least my gloves mostly dried themselves out overnight after yesterday’s pee-pee debacle!
The high temperature today feels like it’s only got up into the upper 30’s or low 40’s. I really wish the sun would come out. When we stopped for a break, I got so cold just standing there. I even had to pull my fleece jacket out of my daypack and add it as an additional layer over the two shirts and wind jacket I was already wearing.
Between the lackluster scenery and the cold temperatures, today just didn’t spark the same joy in me as our previous days’ hikes. I suppose there’s also some part of today that was overshadowed by thinking about our big summit attempt tonight too.
The most interesting scenery we encountered today was the mountains of sharp rock. It’s almost like a truck dumped tons of flat flagstone into giant piles. The weird angles and sharply protruding pieces were unlike anything I’d ever seen. It would be impossible to walk on, and looks like it could slide across our path at any moment.
The summit plan
Before too long we were finally in Barafu Camp, our last camp before the summit. After signing the register and eating lunch, we dispersed to our tents to get a few hours of rest and mentally prepare for tonight’s planned events.
Dinner will be much earlier than normal at 5:30 pm followed by our health check. Then we’ll all get a final few hours to nap or rest up before we head up to over 19,000 feet!
Our “wake-up” call tonight is at 10:45 pm, and I doubt I’ll sleep a wink this evening. Once we’re all up and moving, we’ll meet up for a quick snack and some hot tea before we set off for toward the summit at 11 pm.
Once we get started toward the summit, we’ll have to climb for about seven hours through the night. The plan is to arrive in time is to see the sunrise and spend about 20 minutes on Uhuru Peak before heading back down to Barafu Camp for brunch and a short 2-hour nap. Then we’ll descend down even farther to our next camp around 10,000 feet elevation.
It is going be a long, long 36 hours, but it’s hard to believe I’m almost there!
