Day Three: Easy half day
Up early again, drying out from yesterday’s big long hike in the rain, we were looking forward to a much easier day. The trek up to Austrian Hut would only take the morning, and although steep in parts Daniel assured me it would be much easier than our previous day. After our breakfast, we packed and continued on up the mountain.
This was a much more enjoyable hike. Above 4300 meters or so the vegetation changes abruptly from forest to short grass and giant lobelias and finally just skree and the glaciers. The weather was nicer as well allowing us to see some of the views we’d missed the previous day.
We arrived at the Austrian Hut by noon. Fred and Ashford were noticeably up-beat knowing they were not climbing any further on this trip. As well, we were going to stay here for lunch and dinner, giving everyone a good rest before we headed up to Point Lenana the following morning. We were also making use of a hut for the first time so there was good shelter and no tents to unpack and pitch after dark for the first time.
While we sat in the hut, listening to the transistor radio and chatting I was able to confirm with Ashford that a large scar in the bridge of his nose was indeed the work of bandits. Banditry in Kenya has been a big problem recently, especially along the border with Somalia. There are places in Nairobi and rural Kenya where even the police and army are out-gunned and cannot go.
We also talked about the time Daniel had to assist in recovering the body of a tourist who died on the mountain doing the same thing I was. From his description it appeared the guy had gotten sick and died at altitude before they could get him down.
Most of the conversation was much lighter, for example, various encounters with wildlife. Elephant, Leopard, Buffalo and many others inhabit the forest throughout the park and Daniel and Ashford had good stories.
After a good evening meal which included Ugali, an East African staple, we turned in. Having learned from the previous night I dressed for it and slept very well.
Day Four: Up ‘n’ Down
Downside of doing these things with a guide is they all think you need to see the sun rise from the summit. Four o’clock in the morning comes pretty early, so it takes a little to get moving at that hour, at 4780m ASL. I put on my head lamp and gloves and we started up in the dark. There was a layer of frost on the steep skree slopes we had to traverse along the edge of the glacier. This made it a bit tricky, especially in the dark.
The affect of altitude was startling. Every move I made was really difficult and had me short of breath. Eventually I weazed my way to the top, the wind was howling, it was really cold. We sat up there for about an hour, waited for the sun to rise, tried to see Kilimanjaro but couldn’t because of the haze. Once it was bright enough, we snapped some pictures and returned to the hut.
Back at the Austrian Hut, Ashford and Fred were preparing breakfast. We quickly ate and packed up for the trip down.
On the trip up, we were late and slow on every leg, the trip down had us at Met Station about three hours ahead of schedule. We got there, set up camp and ate our bag lunch. After that we made an evening meal and went to bed. Having come back down to ten thousand feet, the temperature and air was much more tolerable. This was a much more relaxing night. Mind you, the baboons were a bit of a problem at this camp. You couldn’t leave any food or garbage unattended for any length of time without having one try to steal it.