Day 8: Ascend to Karanga Camp

MOUNTAIN ROUTE OVERVIEW

After breakfast, one of the biggest challenges for our climbers begins. They’ll climb up and over the Great Barranco Wall. Getting to the top of it will take 1 to 2 hours. After the wall, climbers will cross a barren and rocky plateau with views of Kibo and three glaciers before descending into Karanga Camp. As they cross the plateau on a trail of gravel and sand, climbers will pass streams and giant boulders for 2 to 3 hours. As they walk into camp, they have a good view of tomorrow’s route. They’ll get to camp by lunch. But this short day is planned for resting which helps with acclimatization.

MOUNTAIN ROUTE STATS

Starting elevation 12,900 feet

Ending elevation 13,300 feet

Elevation gain 400 feet

Distance hiked 3 miles

Average hiking time 4 to 6 hours

JOURNAL ENTRY BY KEITH WOSNESKI

Woke up as usual some had a great night sleep other not so much. As we were getting dressed and prepared it started to sleet it sounded like hell outside and all we wanted to do was crawl back into our warm sleeping bags. After 20 min we were all packed up and ready for breakfast and the sleet stoped. Thank you God!

We headed to breakfast and had pancakes with nuttela, pourage and hot drinks. We talked a lot about missing Steve and asked about his return to the hotel, we will miss him. During breakfast we cranked some tunes, Blues Travelers - The Mountain Wins Again along with Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’ to name a few. After breakfast we gathered our gear, filled water bottles, took team photos and Brian led us in our daily prayer.

The climb today was the most hands on /challenging climbing not hiking. We had to put our poles away and hang onto the side of the mountain at times as we scaled the Baranco wall. Pamoja Pamoja (Together Together) and Polle Polle were our themes during this technical part of the climb. After we scaled the wall we hiked and went down then up and as we finally saw camp the floor dropped out on us as we had to climb down a crevasse and scale back up to camp.

We arrived at camp and our tents were waiting for us along with a hot meal. We had the afternoon off to relax, we played cards, tried to nap and hung out telling stories and getting to know each other better. The guides and porters surprised with some singing to lift our spirits and bless us for good look reaching the summit. Man can Mountain Lion dance! Jonny led the way and hopped in dancing like the ball of energy that he is. There should be some great photos to follow.

We concluded our evening with a hot meal of chicken, potato’s, cooked carrots and spinach. We all discussed missing our family and friends along with our comfy warm beds. Drew asked that we all share our greatest success and challenges over the past year along with our hopes for the coming year. It was an awesome way bond over dinner. We asked Drew some questions about summit night and he helped to set expectations that we will do this together!

We are pretty tired and want to get a good nights sleep before the final push up to the peak tomorrow.

Pamoja Pamoja!