Hike - Days 3 & 4
Oct 13th - day 3
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We woke up at 5:30AM to start packing our stuff and as it would become a custom, we got coffee served at our tent by 5:45AM, followed by washy-washy and breakfast in the dining tent and off we went by 7:30AM. It was a totally different day from the previous. The sun was out, very few clouds in the sky, cool with a light breeze. You couldn’t ask for better hiking conditions. Also, we got our first glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro from the campsite here. The mountain was still a bit further out so did not feel as ominous, but we were coming for it soon.
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The original plan was to hike to Shira Camp-II (12,795 feet), but our guides thought it would be better if we went a bit further and higher today, to help with acclimatization. So, our target today was Moir Hut Camp (13,615 feet).
The campsite the previous night was located in the fringes between Zone-2 (Heath) and Zone-3 (Moorland) and as we hiked out within just a few minutes we were now very much in the heart of the Moorlands. This whole area is called the Shira plateau. We were hiking through old lava fields that had overgrown hardy bushes and vast open spaces with the mountain always in front of us. Along the way we ran across a field of cairns (stacked rocks generally used to mark trails). Good spot for a quick break and pictures. Never figured out its significance in this case.
Today was going to be a long day of just putting in the work as the terrain got rockier and we still needed to keep going up. It was becoming more and more barren now. We stopped for lunch at about 12,990 feet. After that it was another hill – flat – hill – flat – hill – long rocky flat to the campsite. The last 2 hours felt like forever as we navigated rocks and the mountain side.
There was a point where you could see the campsite in the distance, but it was still 45 minutes away due to the windy path that we had to take to get there. We were exhausted, and the elevation gain had also started to give some of us a headache and it also made us nauseous by the time we reached the campsite. We got an amazing first close-up view of western face of Kilimanjaro from the campsite. We were close enough to even see some snow starting to accumulate on the top of the mountain. This was not a very popular camp since most treks would generally have halted at Shira Camp-II instead of making
the longer hike to Moir Hut camp, which meant it was more private. The staff had already arrived before us and had gotten setup and were actually running off in the distance to fetch water from the streams for both cooking and also for drinking, which by now became the norm as they heated and filtered it for us everyday.
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It was hard to eat anything today for me, but I forced myself to eat a bit. We got our vitals recorded again (O2 – 83; Heartrate – 88). The headache started to subside slowly but I decided to hit the sleeping bag earlier than usual today to just get the haze out of my head.​
​I started taking Diamox (altitude sickness) today, which in hindsight I should have started the previous day. The downside of the medication is it makes you urinate a lot and waking up in the middle of the night multiple times to get out of the sleeping bag, put on a jacket, get your headlamp and camp boots on, step out of the tent and come back in and do all that in reverse order 4 times was not pleasant in that cold weather. However, it did give me the opportunity to view the brilliant night sky under the western shadow of the mountain. It was cold, but well worth the few
minutes to stand out there in the absolute darkness and marvel at the stars.
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We reached Moir Hut Camp which was 4,150 meters (13,615 feet), which was about 7.5 miles of hiking, and an elevation gain of 1,771 feet, but felt like a lot more due to the number of times we went up-down and up again. It was even colder here, but no rain or mist.
Oct 14th - day 4
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​Woke up to a clear head and no indication of any altitude sickness, which was great just in itself. Hot coffee at the tent by 5:45AM, washy-washy, packed, breakfast by 6:30AM and after a pre-hike chant off we went climbing up and out of the campsite to the Lava tower, which was going to be our lunch stop and the high point for today at 15,091 feet and then back down to camp at 12,795 feet.
The scenery changed almost immediately, and we started to lose more vegetation, with just a few ankle high patches of bushes in between lava rocks to nothing at all very quickly. At about 14,000 feet we had a clear view of Mt. Meru on our right, with our first indication that we were getting above the lowest layer of clouds. The hike was never going to be a straight up, but always a lot of up and down and today was no different. There was not much to speak of in terms of surroundings; it was just lava rocks and hard soil, but there were sections where it felt like we were walking through whiffs of clouds at times.
My previous highest being 14,500 feet, each step going forward was a new high for me!
As we got closer to the Lava tower, I started to feel a little altitude sickness coming on again, but nothing that bad that I couldn’t keep going. There was a final climb up to the Lava spot (aka our lunch stop) which felt a bit out of breath, but we made it. As the name goes, the Lava rock was a 300-foot-tall rock formation made from the cooling of molten lava, under the shadow of which there were other groups also gathering for their afternoon meal.
Till this point we were going up the western side of the mountain. Now it was time to cut over to the eastern side, so we would spend the next few days hiking along the southern side of the mountain. It started with a climb down from today’s high point. The immediate descent was steep and rocky and after some time into the mist we went. The fog came in very quickly dropping visibility and so did the rain. We stopped to quickly put on our rain gear and cover our backpacks with their rain shields. The vegetation started creeping back in as we
dropped down into the Moorland with some odd-looking trees, which looked like giant pineapples. As we kept descending the mist got thicker and with the silhouette of these trees it would make a perfect location for a horror film. It cleared up a bit towards the end to reveal a natural garden with some of the most eccentric looking plants of various shapes, colors, heights and textures.
This downhill section was brutal on the knees, but we made it to Baranco camp by 4PM. This was another busy but large
campsite, since all hiking routes converged here with vast expanses of tents, pitched against the southern backdrop of the mountain.
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Our camp was very close to our starting point for the next day. The mountain, closer and looking more magnificent than ever to our north, the clouds just below us to the south and a wall of rock, the Barranco Wall, staring at us directly in the face to the west.​
The term we hit a wall is literally what happened here. We had to scale that 843 feet wall the next day to make it to the summit, no way around it.
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After our customary washy-washy followed by ginger tea our vitals were checked again (O2 – 84; Heartrate – 104). Dinner at 7:30PM and go to bed. As night fell and the sky started to darken, and the stars started to shine slowly behind the snowy slopes of the mountain the whole place looked crazy beautiful. There are no words to describe what I saw other than Wow! As usual due to the medication had to wake up multiple times. Each time I woke up that night I spent some time admiring the night sky and to my surprise down below I could also see the lights of a town. Magnificent views!
We reached Baranco camp which was at 3,900 meters (12,975 feet), which was about 7 miles of hiking, and net elevation loss of 640 feet, but we climbed 1,476 feet to the lava tower and back down.