15th - Kili day 4

As I didn't have time and energy to write any notes this day this post will be done by memory.

Barranco camp (3980 m) – Barafu camp/Base camp (4500 m)

Obviously, a good night’s sleep and decent amounts of re-hydration did Glenna good; she seems more alive than she has for a while. Good for her!

To be honest, Barranco Wall was quite a surprise; after having read all the scaring stories about it I was almost expecting Death looking at me at every corner. That was not the case. Not completely, at least. It was difficult, no doubt about it, but having mentally prepared me for the worst, it actually wasn’t as bad I had feared. With that said, you couldn’t do it without paying full attention at all times. Otherwise it would, and could, go fatally wrong. It was like the situations on the second half of the second day, where a slight step to the wrong side would result in death, but here there were just many more of those, and the error margin was at times much smaller. And it all took 2 hours to get through. At one time we would be standing on a small ledge big enough for only half a boot, and the next spot to step on would be almost a meter away. Between those two points: nothing. Stepping from the first to the second was like stepping into the nothingness, and you just had to rely on that your boots would keep their grip and that the guide would get hold of you at the other end. The two small edges also slanted, so there was nothing reassuring about it.

These two hours was a perfect example of how annoying the porters could be; you would be standing holding on to whatever you could with whatever you had, afraid of losing balance, and while looking for the next place to step/jump to, you would see 2-3 porters go past you, whistling, hands in pockets and 20-25 kgs on their backs/necks/heads moving briskly as if they were going shopping. That made you feel truly pathetic.

After that the day was relatively normal as the others. Just a lot of walking upwards and after a long day we ended up at Base Camp with was covered in mist. Towards the end of the day Glenna began showing signs of altitude sickness again, but she kept fighting and wouldn’t let it get between her and the next camp.

Arriving at the camp we got served an early dinner, and then we quickly went to sleep. The plan was to leave the camp at around midnight to try to reach the peak at sunrise. That meant that we got around 3-4 hours of effective sleep before we had to leave. For the first time I slept with my thermal underwear in the sleeping bag. Not because it was getting cold, but just to be able to get faster out and going when we got woken up. For a short while I considered unzipping the sleeping bag as it quickly became too hot – a nod to the quality of the stuff I’ve been spending money on the last couple of months.

Tomorrow will be Hell.