December 24, 2010

December 24, 2010

Today is Christmas Eve. It's easy to forget that here because we are all so focused on this climb. But I am sad to not be with our families. Today we hike to Barranco Camp and to the Lava Tower, a Kilimanjaro trademark. I woke up at 6am after a rough night of sleep. I got claustrophobic in my sleeping bag and all of a sudden couldn't breathe. It ended up being ok and I got about 6 1/2 total hours of sleep. BTW, last night for dinner we had cucumber soup, rice and chicken curry. It was yummy! Back to today though.

We had breakfast and started our hike at 8:45am. The first part of the hike was AWESOME! Great scenery, great pace led by Faustin, and I felt great. Our camp at Shira Plateau was at 12,598 feet and today we hiked to the Lava Tower at 15,170 feet. Lava Tower marked a record high for Justin and I. The highest we have climbed was Elbert in Colorado at 14,440 feet. We both felt great though. No headaches at all, which is incredible at this altitude. We started hiking down to Barranco Camp after leaving the Lava Tower. The hike down was hard for me for two reasons: 1) I didn't eat much today (one of the side effects of altitude is lack of appetite) so my stomach was killing me and 2) because my two big toes started hurting in my boots big time. We ended up splitting our group up into two groups on the way up because some people wanted to move a little slower than we were moving due to headaches. Justin and I stayed in the front group the whole time though. We were ready to be at camp so we wanted to move faster!! Six of the hikers along with our IMG guide and 2 of the African guides slowed down while Justin and I and 5 other hikers were led at a bit of a quicker pace with the other 3 African guides. Don't let that mislead you though. Our pace was still INCREDIBLY slow.

Today's hike wasn't as steep as the last two, but was much longer in miles and time. We all made it to Barranco Camp at 12,959 feet and had a great dinner that included vegetable soup with macaroni noodles and pineapples. We also had the usual "get to camp snack" of popcorn. We're now about to hit the sack. This day has totally exhausted us. Tomorrow is a shorter day as well as the day after that. And summit day is expected to be a 20 hour day of hiking. Not really looking forward to that part. I'm sure it'll be worth it when I'm at the top though.

Beginning Elevation: 12,598
Ending Elevation: 12,959
Elevation Gain: 2,572 gain to Lava Tower; 2,211 loss to Barranco Camp
Calories Burned: 4,306
Miles Hiked: Just over 6 miles
Time Hiking: 8 hours, 45 minutes
Justin's Oxygen: 87%
Marcie's Oxygen: 87%

Here's some pictures of this day on the mountain:



On the way to Lava Tower, before it started snowing



Water break!



In a great mood because I don't have a headache! And because we got some Christmas Eve snow!!



This is the Lava Tower. Some people camp here, but IMG doesn't because they use this hike as an acclimitizing day. We weren't trying to gain elevation to sleep at, we wanted to go up and then back down to get our bodies use to it. BTW, that's me in the black talking to Thomas, one of our guides.



Coming down from Lava Tower into a VERY icy gully. It was incredibly hard to hike down this. We had to go very very slow to make sure we didn't fall. I'm in the front of the line with the green pack cover.



Down down down...



View of the summit from Barranco Camp. See that wall to the right of the tents?? We climbed that the next day...which was also my FAVORITE day of hiking!!



More close up view of Miss Kili