Climbing Kili: Day 5 - Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp

Elevation (m): 4200m to 4,630m
Elevation (ft): 13,800ft to 15,200ft
Distance: 4km
Habitat: Alpine desert

We aren't sure how he did it, but Gilbert made it down and back up the mountain in a day. After ensuring our sick porter was back to base and in good hands, he turned around and ran up to Karanga Camp, covering in a matter of hours what we had taken 4 days to do. Piece of cake.

Day 5 was a lighter day of hiking, a short 4km up boulders and sand, sometimes with and sometimes against the wind. The sun was out but the layers were on, as were assorted varieties of face masks. Not realizing Matt was setting up such a stunning shot, I left my tissue shoved up the nose hole of my balaclava. Hunchback turned Storm Trooper.

It was a lighter day of hiking, but not something to take lightly. Our summit attempt would start at midnight that night. Without saying anything for fear of jinxing ourselves, we took extra caution with every step. Not that this was much different from any second of any other day. The thing about the mountain is that there's no room for daydreaming. One misstep and you twist an ankle, tweak a knee or tumble backwards and your hopes and dreams of making it to the top remain as just that - hopes and dreams. Going to the bathroom? Watch your step. Walking 3 feet from the people tent to the mess tent? Watch your step. Trying to get a better angle for a picture? Watch your step. Kay noted that she had a headache not from the altitude, but from having to concentrate so hard on each and every foot placement. After 7 days of staring at our boots, we got to be pretty familiar their nooks and crannies.
Kilimanjaro, for the record, is an exceptionally pristine setting. Everyone reveres the mountain. Keep their litter to themselves. Everyone, that is, except Hansel, so nicknamed for the trail of blue and gold candy wrappers he'd leave in his wake every day. It became oddly, uncomfortably comforting to see his debris..."Oh, there's that Hansel again". We never did figure out who the culprit was, and it wasn't until we were off the mountain that we realized we had conjured up entirely different images of our anti-environmental friend. I was convinced he was a blond Dutch guy in his mid-40s. Matt was certain it was a porter in his early 20s. Consensus was that it surely wasn't a Gretel.

We made it to camp around midday where, Musa, in his mission to fatten us up, continued the carb loading. We had - no joke - a heaping pile of chips (fries) as our entree for lunch. From there we moved into energy conservation mode...reading, Rummy, resting...trying not to fall off or out of the precariously balanced pit latrines. As we digested carbs, the mountain devoured time. Before we knew it, it was time for dinner. After our bucket of pasta, Robert came in for our summit briefing/pep talk. It went a little like this: "Wear everything you brought. It's not so hard. You must get sick."

He shooed us off to bed where we were supposed to get a few hours of sleep before heading out at midnight, but Kay and I couldn't stop talking.

Chitter chat chatter chit chitter chitter chat chat.

Matt was ready to clock us.