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Kilimanjaro Expedition Dispatch

June 9, 2017 – Over the Great Barranco

This was a big day, first of all we slept at 15,100ft above sea level last night; this group of Austin Adventurists have not been over 14,000ft, Colorado fourteeners, and here we are sleeping at 15,100ft. It’s a big deal in terms of acclimatization and taking care of ourselves. We have 2 Austin Adventurists in each of our mountain tents of course we have our big dining tent and the porters are all around.

The comments last night were how enjoyable and soothing the sounds of the guides talking and joking throughout the evening hours. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves on this trip, the spirit and comradery are an amazing thing.

It’s tough to sleep at 15,000ft, long night. The symptoms were there, headaches and restlessness; here in the mountain when we try to sleep that high, it’s cold. We checked ourselves out this morning, everyone is actually doing good, the sun came, we began hiking downhill over ice covered rocket first, then down further into the giant Senecio forest of the Barranco valley.

Then we walked right up to the Barranco wall, this is the part of the Kilimanjaro traverse, where everybody realizes, you don’t just hike on this mountain. It’s not technical; it’s a steep ledge trail. We can see the porters making their way up on the ledges. We put on climbing helmets and of course the guides were watching everyone step by step as they put their trekking poles away and move carefully up the ledges. It was beautiful, the water was cascading below.

Listen to Wally's call

After we reached the top of the Barranco wall, we went a bit further and had lunch. Now we are at the Karanga camp, we walked 2.5 hours after lunch and we are back down at 13,200ft. This is the lowest we have actual been since the second night of the trip. This is our acclimation strategy; push ourselves a bit; push our bodies then go down to recoup and continue to sleep at relatively high elevation.

Now it’s about to happen, tomorrow we move to high camp. Everyone looks good; the sun is setting right now on the snows of Kilimanjaro. The Kibo, the summit we are going to climb, is right above us, we can’t see Uhuru peak, the very top, but it’s an aspiring scene. Looking in one direction out across the plains of Africa, it’s basically a sea of clouds right now and looking the other direction to the snows of Kilimanjaro. The Austin Adventurists are doing great, it’s tough, and we are going to give our best shot over the next 2 and 3 days and see if we can get to the rooftop of Africa, Kilimanjaro.