Hike - Days 5 & 6
Oct 15th - day 5
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It was the same in terms of coffee at 5:45, followed by packing and breakfast before leaving camp by 7:30AM. Till this point the mountain had challenged us with changing elevation, terrain and distance, now it was time for a new challenge, straight up an 830 feet wall. From a distance it looked like a goat’s trail, meant for a single file ascent, with clear line of sight to the bottom all the way to the top, and that’s what it was.
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It was time to put away those trekking poles as we had to start using our hands to grab onto rocks, ledges, anything we could find as we stretched, pulled, pushed, side-stepped and bouldered our way up. There was one section called the ‘kissing wall’. It’s named so since the path around that area is so narrow that as you are hugging the wall, you must stay so close to it that you are almost kissing it. It was a short
distance, about 3-4 meters (maybe), where you must stretch out, reach the other side and hug yourself around to the other side. We had to do this with our 20-22 lbs. backpacks on. Other sections required pulling yourself up. Am I glad I did those pull ups; they came in handy here.
​The Barraca wall was by far the most challenging part of the hike so far, but also the most enjoyable... at least for me!
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With the wall conquered, we were one more step closer to the summit. It was a clear day so the visibility from the top was good, and we could see Mt. Meru in the distance with a puff of cloud at its summit, giving the impression that it was going to erupt. It’s a dormant volcano, much like Mt. Kilimanjaro. Mount Kilimanjaro itself was standing tall right in front of us. So close! but we still had to get to the eastern side of the mountain and then start the final climb up.
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We started back up after a 20-minute break. This time it was down 600-700 feet
followed by a flat patch and a steep descent down over rocks that really started to mess up my left knee. Those walking poles and the knee brace made a big difference and helped a bit. It started to rain, it started to get misty, it started to get cold, basically the weather was not the best. Into our rain gear we got. As we kept descending we got a glimpse of our campsite shrouded in mist at the other end, and what we saw was another ascent up to it.
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After a quick break at the bottom of this descent, we started another series of switchbacks. This was hard work. They were steep and short switchbacks, and the path was rocky. It took us almost an hour to go up 1/3rd of a mile. Once at the top we were all beat and did not want to walk another inch, but it’s never that easy. Another walk to get to our group’s campsite and our tent. The good part of all this is that we made it to camp by 12PM, so we were on time for lunch.
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However, reaching early meant nothing else to do the rest of the day, until we got our washy-washy at 3PM, followed by ginger tea and our vitals checked (O2 – 86; Heartrate – 96).
As evening drew close the clouds started to come in and it created the most beautiful setting ever as they passed us by just below or around us and the sunset in the distance behind Mt. Meru was awe-inspiring.
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We received fresh food supplied today, so we had soup, fried chicken and vegetables for dinner at 6:30PM and went to bed.
The camp site was on a slope, so our tents were also at an angle. It was a funny feeling inside the tents, trying not to slide down. I also gave in and took Tylenol before going to sleep to numb the knee pain.​​
​​We reached Karanga camp which was 3,995 meters (13,107 feet), which was about 5 miles of hiking, and an elevation gain of 130 feet, but we did climb 830 feet, down most of the way and back up again.
Oct 16th - day 6
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​We got a whole extra hour of sleep, so coffee and washy-washy was at 6:45AM today, before leaving camp around 8:00AM. The reason for the late start is because our destination today was the Basecamp, where everyone must start from to summit, and campsite spaces are at a premium to find and with hikers coming back down from their summit, it takes longer to clear up and make room for the next day’s stream of hikers. Also, it was going to be a relatively shorter day of hiking.
Straight out of the campsite we started hiking up a steep 35-angle gravel (not loose gravel) slope from 13,107 feet all the way up to about 14,200 feet as we entered Zone-4 (Alpine Desert). Once at the top we could see the outlines of our camp way of in the distance, but to get there we had to walk a ridge line with boulders, drop a few feet down, navigate a short flat path before climbing steeply again to 14,900 feet. There we came across some rocks that we had to cross over before reaching the outer boundaries of Basecamp at 15,100 feet. However, it did not end there, we had to sign in at the ranger station, which was at 15,331
feet, so another 230 to go. This section we were basically walking over rocks to get to the station and then back down to our actual campsite at 15,100 feet.
The terrain was extremely rocky, I mean big rocks, so finding a flat patch for our tents was not an easy task, but the staff were able to pick one out. Even navigating from the tents to the dining tent or to the bathroom tents was not as easy as before. We got to camp by 12PM so lunch was at camp. At teatime we got our vitals checked (O2 – 84; Heartrate – 99) and dinner was at 5:30PM where we received our briefing for the next day’s summit hike.
Need to wear for summit day (at a minimum): Thermals, ski-pants or equivalent, fleece hat, hiking shirt, fleece jacket, down jacket, head lamp, inner gloves, thick hiking socks, 2 liters of water in the camelback
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In the backpack for summit day: 1 inner layer top, Gore-Tex shell outer pants, Gore-Tex or equivalent top layer, leg gaiters, hiking poles, ear plugs, outer gloves, 2 liters of water in the Nalgene bottles, crampons, extra pair of socks, snacks
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We always knew that at a high altitude, if it’s too cold then the tubing in the camelback would freeze, making it hard to drink water, so, as an alternative we could fill our Nalgene bottles and pack them upside down. What that does is when it freezes the top layer will freeze leaving the end closest to the mouth of the bottle still in liquid form.
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We reached Barafu camp (also known as Ice camp) which was at 4,673 meters (15,331 feet), which was about 4.5 miles of hiking, and an elevation gain of 2,224 feet.