Barranco Camp to Karanga Camp
Hiking distance: 4 miles
Starting elevation: 13,000’
Highest elevation: 13,840’
Ending elevation: 13,240’
Before getting out of the tent this morning I sponge myself down with baby wipes and put on a few clean items of clothing, but the improvement is negligible. I have never been this dirty before, and that’s saying a lot. I’ve been out for two weeks at a stretch on several backpacking and canoeing trips, but for some reason, four days on K-man is worse. Must be the ever-present wind-borne dust. I have become Pigpen from the Charlie Brown comic strip. A cloud of fine volcanic powder follows me everywhere. Expect to spend some time coughing if you so much as pat me on the shoulder.
The alarm on my digital watch didn't go off this morning. Several other trekkers reported the same phenomenon yesterday. No doubt it's a result of the cold, not the altitude, but it’s still disconcerting that basic technologies are beginning to fail up here. Soon it will be cold enough that we’ll have to take steps to keep our water bottles from freezing and our headlamp batteries from draining early. At night now our breath condenses in the brittle air and frosts everything in our tent while we sleep.
The group gathers for breakfast this morning wearing full winter gear, hats on, hoods up, clapping our hands and hugging our own chests in an attempt to get warm. The extra layers make me feel isolated – almost quarantined – from my trekking partners, as if we’re all wearing space suits. Thermoses of hot water arrive and we quickly make coffee and cocoa. Then we cup our gloved hands around the mugs, stare straight ahead, zoned out, teeth chattering, many of us rocking back and forth like Stevie Wonder. Gradually – very gradually – our combined body heat begins to raise the temperature in the tent. After several minutes, Fuad finally warms up enough to tell us a story.
We all laugh and nod appreciatively. No one needs to ask Fuad what made him think of that particular story at this particular moment.
Right outside the breakfast tent, nearly a thousand feet high, the Barranco Wall towers over camp. Trekkers who've gotten an early start look like tiny flecks of color against the massive tawny bluffs. When our turn comes, we approach reverently, like supplicants. After a little boulder-hopping across an icy stream we strap our trekking poles to our packs and start scrambling up the steep, rugged trail. On crowded days, the Wall can become a bottleneck because there are so few places where trekkers can safely pass each other. But today is not one of those days. We’re sharing the Wall with only a handful of other climbing parties, and we’re spaced out pretty comfortably. Our porters – unencumbered by quaint notions of safety – scramble all around us with no interest in the actual trail. They crawl up the slopes under their heavy loads wherever they can find an open path.
It would be too extreme to say that Mo' is afraid of heights. She does, however, have a problem with what mountaineer’s call exposure – alpine jargon for the experience of being very close to a big drop. And you might say we’re kind of close to one of those right now. I start to ask Mo’ how she’s doing, but I’m only two words into the sentence when Stephen passes me like a gentle breeze – on the side of a cliff, mind you – and materializes next to Monica, practically hovering beside her. Tinkerbell couldn't have gotten there faster.
Like the smoothest of pickpockets, he removes her backpack while wishing her a Good Morning and smiling beatifically. Before Mo’ can ask what he’s doing, Stephen is wearing her pack on top of his own and asking matter-of-factly how she slept last night. She’s stuttering now because she doesn’t know what to say first. “Good morning, Stephen,” “What are you doing with my pack?” and “I slept well last night” are all appropriate responses, but she doesn’t know in which order to say them. It was like watching a magic trick, and we could see his hands the whole time. For all I know, he’s also got her wristwatch, wallet, and bra. Still smiling, Stephen gestures graciously for Monica to proceed up the trail. "After you," he says courteously.
In less than two hours we’re at the top of the Barranco Wall, looking down on last night’s camp. Mo' is much relieved to be done with the cliff-hanging, and I am much relieved not be suffering from AMS. Fuad and I clown around at the top, perhaps a little too giddy for men our age, and certainly too close to the edge for Mo’s comfort.
Most guide books tout the Barranco Wall as the main feature of this section of our route. It was certainly memorable, but so too, it turns out, is the Karanga Valley. Our descent takes us back down into the heath and moorland zones where giant groundsels and lobelias abide. The scenery is stunning and the trail is precipitous, rugged, and demanding. There’s ice in nearly every shadow because at this elevation, whatever the sun doesn’t hit directly stays frozen all day. I have to force myself to make frequent stops so that I can gawk safely without taking a fatally bad step. Mo’ and I agree that getting into and out of the Karanga Valley is actually more demanding than climbing the Barranco Wall had been, if for no other reason than that we’re doing it at the end of a very long day of difficult hiking. Today’s route would qualify as a burly hike at any altitude, all the more so at this elevation.
Regrettably, Karanga Camp isn’t in the valley; it's pitched high on a start, barren ridge on the other side, up in the alpine climate zone. As a result, the site is even colder and windier than Shira 2. It's also pitched on a slope. We do a lot of stumbling at Karanga because the few level patches of ground here are occupied by tents. The paths between shelters are vexingly angled and irregular, and we’re already feeling clumsy from oxygen deprivation. I’m nervous about losing my balance and crashing down on someone’s tent, and I’m not alone in this. It’s rare to pass someone in this camp without both parties reaching out to steady each other.
While hanging out near the lunch tent, I notice that, for the first time since we arrived on the mountain, the clouds below us have broken apart just enough that I can see the telltale geometry of Tanzania’s farmlands below us. Far below us. It’s practically the same view one gets from a cruising airliner. Several trekkers are milling about so I call their attention to it. “Look at that,” I say. “We can finally see Tanzania down there.” Fuad grins wryly and I know exactly what’s coming. He’s not one to miss a chance to exploit a carelessly-worded statement, and I’ve just been woefully inexact. “Yes,” he says, looking at his boots with false enthusiasm, “There’s Tanzania down there, too.” Then he swings around and faces Kibo. “Oh, look! There it is again.” His point, of course, is that Kilimanjaro itself is part of Tanzania. I shake my head in mock disgust and shuffle away, taking my cloud of Pigpen dust with me.
Over dinner, Deirdre gives us a preview of Summit Day, which will actually begin late tomorrow night. Just like our flight to Tanzania, Summit Day is going to smear two days into one. The plan is to start climbing around 11:00 pm, summit heroically between 6:00 and 7:00 am the following morning, and return triumphantly to camp by 10:00 am. But that’s not the end of it. After a short rest and a late lunch, we’ll hit the trail again to descend another 3,000’ before camping for the night. To summarize, in a period of less than 24 hours, we intend to climb 4,000’, descend 4,000’, and descend another 3,000’, all with little or no sleep. It sounds impossible, yet thousands of people do it every year.
It gets quiet in the dinner tent as each of us imagines him or herself in the forbidding picture that Deirdre has just painted. For a while there’s no sound but the swishing of nylon parkas caused by our ceaseless rocking to stay warm. Even the imperturbable Fuad is somber and pensive now. I decide that we could use a little comic relief, so I catch Fuad’s eye from across the table, lean forward as if I have a private message for him, but then, in a stage whisper loud enough for everyone to hear, I say, “You thought this was a good idea.”