The Climb - Day 6

only a couple days from my last post and i'm back at it, i must be smelling the barn! hope everyone is sitting on the edge of their seats by now, waiting anxiously for the next day's climb!

the morning of day 6 was beautiful. everything, the sky and the air around us, seemed clean and crisp. days like that don't do anything but help attitudes as you roll out of your sleeping bag. we enjoyed, and used, the help from the nice morning, but were feeling remarkably well as we got ready to start our day on the trail even if there wouldn't have been the sunshine. though brad's eyes seemed to be "wearing out" just alittle quicker every day with the day in and day out tension and stress that he was putting on them, he would start the morning feeling good, "ready to go", after a good night's rest. it was the morning of this 6th day that saw, for the first time, brian, brad and i on the trail heading toward the next camp before any other climbers. it was a good feeling for all of us to look up the trail and only see a few porters ahead of us. not that it would last long:), but it was a good start! this day was a shorter day, but almost every step was up. really, i think there were only about 200 yards or so of slightly downhill movement. and the last half mile was pretty rough. steep and rocky with a couple slightly exposed areas just before camp. and sure enough, even though it took us longer to make the climb than brad had hoped, we made it to the barafu hut in good time, giving us plenty of time to rest in the afternoon. brad really did great this day! he had made it to the highest camp of the trip, at close to 15,000 feet. but although brian and i were proud of what brad had done, it was increasingly obvious that the visual tension and stress that he was dealing with was effecting his physical performance. physically he was fine, but the "quick stops" needed to rest his eyes and head were becoming more and more regular with slightly longer stops need as the day progressed. we were glad to get to camp early to give him the opportunity to rest his eyes as much as possible, as we were to leave EARLY the next morning for our summit bid.

like i said, this was a high camp. being at a high elevation regularly brings with it wind, cold and rock. this camp was no exception! there was rock EVERYWHERE, and no chance of anything level to pitch a tent on. as a result, it was, by far (in my opinion), the worst night of sleep of the whole trip. waking up every 20-30 minutes finding myself coiled up like an achordian at the downhill (downcliff) door of my tent was far from that good night's sleep i was hoping for before our early departure! anyway...i've gotten ahead of myself. let me backtrack just a bit. when we arrived at our rocky ridge they called camp, brian headed to the ranger hut to sign the 3 of us into the camp while i found a place for brad and i to sit as the porters busily hustled around camp putting up the last of the tents. as we were sitting there, i notice that the 2 remaining tents are brian and brad's tent, and my tent. after looking around, i informed brad that it didn't look good for either of us, 'cause there's not a flat spot within a mile! shortly i see brian and brad's tent going up right there near us, in close proximity to the dining tent and toilet tent, which seemed to put brad at ease, but i didn't see an area that was big enough for my tent anywhere around. about that time, the porters had put my tent together and were carrying it around looking for a place to put it and happened to spy a nice site just a very short piece back the trail. i wish i had gotten video of what ensued, but instead stood there as a spectator in awe of what was developing. it seems as though a rival guide company and porter team had "claimed" that spot already, though there sure wasn't a tent on it at the time. so, as an arguement about the "ownership" of the little halfway level pile of rock got underway, and the volume increased, porters from both sides streamed in to defend their position. wow! it got heated. they were swahili-ing back and forth like i hadn't ever heard! and though my swahili is limited (very limited), i could make a fairly accurate guess as to the words that were being spoken! now there's 6 porters to a side. now 8. now 10. now 11, no wait, maybe only 10, it's just so hard to count when they're pushing and shoving and rumbling like that! if they would have held still i'm sure i could have gotten a better count! anyway, after all the mayhem, noone got hurt (too badly) and in the end the ranger gave the spot to the other group, though i think our guys had a better case (and could have "taken" the other guys if that dang ranger wouldn't have gotten control of the situation). i'll tell you, it was really something. and to think, they were fighting over my tent! those porters really were a good bunch of dedicated guys! the bummer of the whole thing was that my tent ended up being set up on a very steep angle (thus the achordian thing).

the camp was beautiful! rocky, but a rugged gradure that is tough to match. this was the evening before summit, and, as luck would have it, a full moon. the moon rose from behind mwenzi just as the last glows from a spectacular sunset, that seemed to last forever, were fading into night sky. there was great anticipation for the next day, summit day, that would start very early the next morning. i'm hoping anyone reading this is anxious too...and patient, 'cause i'm going to get to the summit day next time!