Mount Kilimanjaro Day 4 - July 17th

July 17th, 2008:

After getting up at 5.45am, we began this morning with what the guides call the “Breakfast Wall”. The Breakfast Wall is so named because it is an almost vertical slab of mountain that must be ascended immediately after leaving camp in the morning. I think most of our group would agree this was actually a lot of fun. At one point you pass the “kissing rock,” so named because you have to straddle it so close you can kiss it, in order to pass. The mountain falls off steeply on the side of the trail, so keeping your balance is critical. One hour later though, we were on top of the wall feeling pretty good about ourselves as we had quickly completed a good portion of the vertical rise today, which would be from 3900m to 4600m.

Over the next few hours we crossed the mountain and ascended slowly. We stopped around midday and were surprised to find the mess tent was pitched and we were able to enjoy a hot lunch. Most of the group hasn’t been sleeping well because of the altitude, and some of us passed out while waiting for lunch to be served. During lunch we also received quite a surprise. I mentioned a few days ago that Christine and Zhalisa’s bags never made it to Moshi. Well they finally arrived a day or two after we left on the trek. Today, two porters arrived with the heavy bags, having taken a two day short-cut in order to meet us at our day four camp. This was a godsend to Zhalisa and Christine, who both were conserving their clothing and had a limited number of layers. They were both able to get fresh clothing and add to their layers, and the porters then returned their bags to the Ashante office. Those porters were tipped well.

After lunch we continued on to the summit base camp. This is where the real fun began. The camp is beautiful (It was my favorite), and is located completely above tree-line at the base of the summit. We arrived at 5.30pm and the summit hike was scheduled to begin at midnight. Yes, midnight. At dinner we are briefed by Moses and informed of the timeline. We would wake at 11:00pm, begin the summit hike at midnight, summit around 8 am and then proceed from 5900 meters down to 3100 meters. Many of us are not feeling well, and almost all of us have headaches, running noses, blisters, etc. Some in our group have lost their appetites completely. Despite this, we are all in to go, and we managed to have a quick dinner and get to bed around 8pm.