The following is the description of today from the tour company's info site:
"DAY 6 KARANGA CAMP TO BARAFU CAMP, Dec 12
"DAY 6 KARANGA CAMP TO BARAFU CAMP, Dec 12
Hiking Time: 4 hrs
Total Distance: 4 km
Starting Altitude: 3900m
Final Altitude: 4550m
Habitat: Alpine Desert
We begin the day trekking through the alpine desert of the Karanga Valley. Our porters will stop to collect water along the way, as there will be none further on. Here the temperature will grow colder as we follow the trail climbing through this empty and dry landscape up to the Barafu Camp. The two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi can been seen from our camp, at 4550m. Barafu is the Swahili word for "ice", and the camping area is on a ridge in a narrow and exposed flat area. Here there are ever-present powerful winds blowing down from the mountain peaks.
In preparation for your final ascent the same night, you will familiarize yourself with the terrain before dark, and prepare you equipment and thermal clothing for the summit attempt. Sleep may be difficult, but you will lie down after dinner to rest for the 1345m final ascent. (Hiking time: 4 hrs).
Total Distance: 4 km
Starting Altitude: 3900m
Final Altitude: 4550m
Habitat: Alpine Desert
We begin the day trekking through the alpine desert of the Karanga Valley. Our porters will stop to collect water along the way, as there will be none further on. Here the temperature will grow colder as we follow the trail climbing through this empty and dry landscape up to the Barafu Camp. The two peaks Kibo and Mawenzi can been seen from our camp, at 4550m. Barafu is the Swahili word for "ice", and the camping area is on a ridge in a narrow and exposed flat area. Here there are ever-present powerful winds blowing down from the mountain peaks.
In preparation for your final ascent the same night, you will familiarize yourself with the terrain before dark, and prepare you equipment and thermal clothing for the summit attempt. Sleep may be difficult, but you will lie down after dinner to rest for the 1345m final ascent. (Hiking time: 4 hrs).
You will be woken in time to leave camp at around 12am and after a warm
drink and a light snack, you will begin the most difficult though most
rewarding day of the trek – your hike up to the top of Africa. Climbing through
the dark, you will ascend northwest on rough scree passing between the Rebmann
and Tarzel glaciers. After approximately 6 hours of slow but strenuous hiking,
you will reach the rim of the main crater, Stella Point, at 5685m (Hiking time: 8 hrs)."
We wake up to a dryish morning. It even
gets sunny for 15 minutes! Everybody puts their wet clothes out on tents and rocks in hope of
getting them dried, but 15 minutes.. nowhere near enough. We put our damp and
smelly clothes back into bags. By this time we haven't had a shower for 4
days. We don’t change the first 2 inner layers of our clothes, just socks
maybe. No one has seen their own bare skin for days. We stink. Our clothes stink. We do not dare to put clean clothes on because
we are all saving dry clothes for the summit hike. Being clean is not a
priority. Being dry is.
 |
| Our camp with all of Africa below |
It is a short walk to basecamp, 4 hours
or so. I don’t remember much of it except the snow. I don’t take a daypack with
me, just some water. When we arrive at basecamp it is still snowing. Snowing
hard. Snowing like you are at a ski center.. without the luxury. We register
and start waiting outside. We squeeze ourselves under the thach of the registry
office. It is quite crowded because this is basecamp, all climbers from all the
routes meet here to attempt the summit. Normally our porters arrive at the camp
site before us and we find our tents already set up but the snow storm slows
them down too. We are freezing because we are in wet clothes and boots. After a while, they invite us
inside the small hut (with no heating and not much heat-insulated, I must say, a wooden hut with a tin roof and quite over-crowded inside with bunker beds). We gladly go in. We find a place (quite limited, I must say) to sit
among the bunker beds. Our guides bring us milo and hot soup. Some other
climbers that we meet offer us chocolate and other treats.
It is not fun to pee in the snow.
It is very cold outside and our crew is waiting for the snow to stop to put our tents up.
It is a very strange kind of waiting, because normally, you wait in torturous conditions for something better. You wait in the rain but what you wait for is a dry home. You wait in the cold for a fireplace. You stay up all night but you get your sleep in a dark room on clean sheets.
In our case, we wait in the cold with wet clothes for our muddy and wet tents which will be set up on snow. Is there a promise of warmth in this waiting? No. Is there a promise of dryness in this waiting? No. Is there a promise of sleep in this waiting? No.When you take the promise out of the waiting, what are you left with?
And to top it all, we wait for about 2 hours in the ice-cold hut.
That same night, we will start our summit hike and the weather is not helping.
Finally they call us. They say tents are ready. We go to our tents and change. I send my boots, my rain gear and my gloves to be dried in the kitchen. We rest in our tents for a while, but it is not possible to sleep because of a group of chit-chatting American girls who are very happy, positive, and loud. They are so lively that it is annoying. When we meet at the dining tent to have a light meal, we all swear at Rachel although none of us has seen her, but we all surely heard her voice.. and the voice of her best friend who constantly called her to ask this or the other.
We all hate the Rachel character!
We have a common enemy. We are satisfied.
We go to bed again in clothes that we will do the summit walk in. None of us sleep that night and anyway we wake up to “vater for vash” just before midnight. It feels so surreal that you feel like you are in a dream.
The day/night has come. The Summit. You either do it or you can’t.
I have about 8 layers on top and 5 at the bottom. Plus hand and feet warmer pads. We put our head torches on and start the ascent on snow in the dark very slowly. We follow each other in a line, not talking except maybe once or twice when we see a shooting star. The moon is out and bigger than half, so it is not pitch black. It reflects on the snow covered route we have ahead of us.
We only hear the crick crack sound that our boots make on snow. I see the head torches of people who started before us up in the distance. It
feels like there is no end to this climb. Isa 1 is leading and he wants me to
be right behind him. He also carries my day pack:) I just have my camelbak which
freezes after a while.
One hour passes. We still have a long way to go. My heart is pounding like crazy. I have to stop from time to time to catch my breath. I ask whether that light at the top is a torch of someone or a star. They say it is a star. At least there is some hope that this climb is not forever.
On the third hour, I start getting nervous. I tell Isa1 that I want to be behind, not right in front. He doesn’t want to let go of me because he knows I am the weakest link but I insist. I say either we give more frequent breaks or I want to be behind everyone, because I need to stop to catch my breath and I don’t want people behind me to wait just because of me. Everybody is already struggling to keep a certain pace and I don’t want to destroy their hard-earned rythym. Isa 1 says if we stop more often, sleep will take over. He has a point. I haven’t thought of that. Yes, among all, we are also fighting sleep. No food, no sleep, damp clothes, hiking through the night, lack of oxygen..
The daily questions I ask myself start popping up: Why am I doing this? When will we get there?
Isa 1 and I almost shout at each other at that point. We are both very tense. He has the responsibility of so many people. I am just being stubborn. I want to do what I want to do! So he gives up. I move to the middle of the line not all the way to the back, so that nobody loses. I am in front of Andy now who is ready to catch me if I fall and I hear his encouraging sentences from time to time: you're doing great Aylin..
I scream "zanzibar" from time to time to motivate myself with the future, dry, hot beaches that I will relax on. Everybody agrees. We each make our individual moany sighs or choose to suffer quietly. If you closed your eyes and listened, you would think you are in one of those tent hospitals in World War I. Morphine is scarcely available.
Among all other moany noises, I
make one that attracts the attention of Andy and Andrew. They call me something like "chewy" after a
character in Star Wars. Later, I look it up and find a lot of Chewbacca sounds on You Tube, including tutorials. Well, if that's what Andrew and Andy meant, they have a point.
It is not fun to pee in the snow.
It is very cold outside and our crew is waiting for the snow to stop to put our tents up.
It is a very strange kind of waiting, because normally, you wait in torturous conditions for something better. You wait in the rain but what you wait for is a dry home. You wait in the cold for a fireplace. You stay up all night but you get your sleep in a dark room on clean sheets. In our case, we wait in the cold with wet clothes for our muddy and wet tents which will be set up on snow. Is there a promise of warmth in this waiting? No. Is there a promise of dryness in this waiting? No. Is there a promise of sleep in this waiting? No.When you take the promise out of the waiting, what are you left with?
And to top it all, we wait for about 2 hours in the ice-cold hut.
That same night, we will start our summit hike and the weather is not helping.
 |
| That spot in the back is me |
Finally they call us. They say tents are ready. We go to our tents and change. I send my boots, my rain gear and my gloves to be dried in the kitchen. We rest in our tents for a while, but it is not possible to sleep because of a group of chit-chatting American girls who are very happy, positive, and loud. They are so lively that it is annoying. When we meet at the dining tent to have a light meal, we all swear at Rachel although none of us has seen her, but we all surely heard her voice.. and the voice of her best friend who constantly called her to ask this or the other.
We all hate the Rachel character!
We have a common enemy. We are satisfied.
We go to bed again in clothes that we will do the summit walk in. None of us sleep that night and anyway we wake up to “vater for vash” just before midnight. It feels so surreal that you feel like you are in a dream.
The day/night has come. The Summit. You either do it or you can’t.
I have about 8 layers on top and 5 at the bottom. Plus hand and feet warmer pads. We put our head torches on and start the ascent on snow in the dark very slowly. We follow each other in a line, not talking except maybe once or twice when we see a shooting star. The moon is out and bigger than half, so it is not pitch black. It reflects on the snow covered route we have ahead of us.
We only hear the crick crack sound that our boots make on snow. I see the head torches of people who started before us up in the distance. It
feels like there is no end to this climb. Isa 1 is leading and he wants me to
be right behind him. He also carries my day pack:) I just have my camelbak which
freezes after a while. One hour passes. We still have a long way to go. My heart is pounding like crazy. I have to stop from time to time to catch my breath. I ask whether that light at the top is a torch of someone or a star. They say it is a star. At least there is some hope that this climb is not forever.
On the third hour, I start getting nervous. I tell Isa1 that I want to be behind, not right in front. He doesn’t want to let go of me because he knows I am the weakest link but I insist. I say either we give more frequent breaks or I want to be behind everyone, because I need to stop to catch my breath and I don’t want people behind me to wait just because of me. Everybody is already struggling to keep a certain pace and I don’t want to destroy their hard-earned rythym. Isa 1 says if we stop more often, sleep will take over. He has a point. I haven’t thought of that. Yes, among all, we are also fighting sleep. No food, no sleep, damp clothes, hiking through the night, lack of oxygen..
The daily questions I ask myself start popping up: Why am I doing this? When will we get there?
Isa 1 and I almost shout at each other at that point. We are both very tense. He has the responsibility of so many people. I am just being stubborn. I want to do what I want to do! So he gives up. I move to the middle of the line not all the way to the back, so that nobody loses. I am in front of Andy now who is ready to catch me if I fall and I hear his encouraging sentences from time to time: you're doing great Aylin..
I scream "zanzibar" from time to time to motivate myself with the future, dry, hot beaches that I will relax on. Everybody agrees. We each make our individual moany sighs or choose to suffer quietly. If you closed your eyes and listened, you would think you are in one of those tent hospitals in World War I. Morphine is scarcely available.
6 hours later, I ask the team to tell me something positive.
Andrew says the sun is about to rise. I can not disagree. That is definitely
something positive. I don’t know how I did it but there I am, still alive, still
managing to put one foot in front of the other, still hanging in there. The prospect of sunrise gives us some hope, everyone starts to move slightly faster with excitement which
doesn’t make my life any easier. I am really struggling with the lack of oxygen.
As soon as it gets lighter, the Stella Point appears above us, but it is not easy to get to. The hill gets steeper, the altitude higher. Everone except me is more excited, faster.. I lag behind a few minutes. I find everyone happy up at the top. Finally we can rest and watch the sunrise.
But no!
Isa 1 says we should move on and get to Uhuru Peak.. our goal. I see the sunrise with the corner of my eye. We turn away from it and go on walking.
TENT-EYE VIEWS OF TODAY:
HIGH AND LOW-LIGHTS OF TODAY
As soon as it gets lighter, the Stella Point appears above us, but it is not easy to get to. The hill gets steeper, the altitude higher. Everone except me is more excited, faster.. I lag behind a few minutes. I find everyone happy up at the top. Finally we can rest and watch the sunrise.
But no!
Isa 1 says we should move on and get to Uhuru Peak.. our goal. I see the sunrise with the corner of my eye. We turn away from it and go on walking.
 |
STELLA POINT AND SUNRISE |
TENT-EYE VIEWS OF TODAY:
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