Definition of the day:
Walk high, Sleep low (phrase) -- a way to combat altitude sickness by walking to a high altitude during the day, and then going down to a lower altitude to sleep. Allows your body to acclimatize better to a high elevation.
It was another morning of bed tea, and I was grateful. We began walking a little after 7, and the peak of Kili was at our 12 o'clock. Knowing that we would not reach the peak for another 48 hours, it was such a tease to see it in the distance.
It was an uphill walk that morning as we climbed to 4500 meters, or 15,000 feet, where we would be eating lunch. Journeying from moorland to desert, the landscape opened up and revealed vast areas of rock, and very little else. Other groups and porters were able to pass us with ease, but finding places to go to the bathroom became more of a chore. Before the climb someone said that you lose all sense of dignity or privacy when climbing Kilimanjaro, and they were right.
15,000 feet was the highest I had ever been in my life, and I was feeling it. There was a palpable change in mood in the group the last 45 minutes before we reached our lunch spot. Conversations slowed or stopped; we all had headaches or were breathing very hard (except for a few extremely fit folks), and by the time we reached our dining tents, everyone was exhausted. Thank the Lord I was able to get down some food despite my throbbing headache, but it was not easy.
We began our descent after lunch back down to 12,000 feet, but my headache never really went away. I thought maybe a good night's sleep would do the trick, and maybe some ibuprofen. I did have Diamox with me, which is supposed to help with altitude sickness symptoms, but I wanted to avoid taking any unnecessary medication since I was already very uncertain how my body would react to the elevation. It may seem backwards, but it made sense to me on the mountain...maybe it was the altitude.
After an afternoon of downhill trekking, and surviving a pretty big fall on some loose rock, I arrived at camp tired and sore in the late afternoon. It was a hard day, and general consensus was that altitude really is in a pain in the ass. That afternoon I played memory games and cards with some of the crew (I evidently say "banana" completely different from the English) and tried to quell my headache as much as possible with tea and popcorn. Day 4 was going to be another long day followed by summit night, so we ate dinner and hit the hay not long after 8:30pm.
Day 4
Definition of the day:
Scramble (verb) -- make one's way quickly or awkwardly up a steep slope or over rough ground by using one's hands as well as one's feet.
Wake up call was at 5am, and no bed tea this morning. Shit just got real.
Not only that, but we were climbing to 15,000 feet to sleep, and no one felt 100%.
The Barranco Wall was our objective, and this rock wall on steroids is known as "second breakfast" by the guides. Well, I just wasn't hungry for a second breakfast. But onward we marched, and began our scramble by the light of our head lamps, begging the sun to rise so that we would maybe have an inkling of sure footing.
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| After the sun came up. |
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| Photo cred to Claire Matthews. Thanks, Claire!! |
Despite my anxiety, that morning was my favorite on the mountain. The wall was challenging, but doable, and with guides to help us every step of the way it was actually pretty fun. We reached the top of the wall around 11am, and we were thrilled about it. With an incredible view of the peak we stopped to snap a few pics, and then made our way down into a valley, then up the other side of it, to get to our lunch spot high on a cliff. With the clouds permanently below us and a huge rock wall behind us, I ate heartily (french fries, my fave) and felt ready for the afternoon.
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| Monal, my tent mate, and Claire in front of the peak. |
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| Texas girls! |
Another few hours uphill got us into camp, and after a satisfying dinner and a quick briefing from Jo, we went to our tents and tried to relax. We were beginning our ascent at 1am, and were advised to sleep as best we could. I was still feeling okay when I turned my head lamp off at 8:21pm, thrilled that I wasn't nauseated. After about thirty seconds I heard Monal breathing heavily, and I was so jealous as I lay there just thinking about the next 12 hours. I slept for about an hour, never able to take a very deep breath, and heard a porter knocking on the canvas of our tent a little before midnight.
Tune in tomorrow for Summit Night and the hike down!
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