Day 7: Climb to Kosovo

MOUNTAIN ROUTE OVERVIEW

As our climbers near the summit, they have another short day for acclimatization today. After breakfast, climbers leave Karanga Camp and make their way across moraine with a view of Mawenzi and Kibo to Barafu. The alpine desert terrain is full of boulders with lichen and moss. Upon reaching camp, climbers will spend the afternoon resting before packing for the summit and having an early dinner in preparation for their ascent to the summit to start at midnight. Summit begins at 5 PM EST!

MOUNTAIN ROUTE STATS

Starting elevation 13,300 feet

Ending elevation 16,000 feet

Elevation gain 2,700 feet

Distance hiked 3.5 miles

Average hiking time 4 to 5 hours

Talk about a literal up and down day. The start was rocky and steep, forcing our group to weave carefully over the first few hours. After that it was a continuous and slightly downhill slope until reaching a near perfect half scale resemblance match of the insanely straight up climbing wall from days prior…it would have been nice to keep away from our memory for awhile! The top of this wall is where we stopped to have lunch. Chicken wings, fries, watermelon and ketchup (might I point out that the ketchup was a hot chile flavor that hadn’t been discovered by our group yet… some of our tastebuds weren’t exactly fond of it to say the least). Proceeding from lunch was a short hour long hike to the camp that we will summit from early tomorrow morning. Just because the hike was short does not mean that it was easy. It was up large slabs of slanted rock with loose gravel that seemed like it was just waiting for us. Luckily, after many foot slips, our group made it to the camp where the long awaited summit night lingered. Another great day and plenty of rest awaits before our midnight wake up call. 

~ Witt Cayce