Sept 16 - Karanga, Decisions & Porters

We planned to spend two nights at Karanga Camp.  It was a pleasure to awaken and just get ready for our acclimatization climb without doing all the packing necessary to break camp.  We were also starting our climb at 10 AM, an hour later than usual. 

When we stepped out of our tents, were we treated to the sight of the rising sun illuminating Kilimanjaro.  The mountain looked a lot smaller and the glaciers looked a lot closer, probably because we had already completed more than 2/3 of our climb.







We had decisions to make that were critical to our climb. The next day we would climb to Barafu Camp, the base camp for our push to the summit.  We had three options:

1. Go from Barafu to the summit and back to Carter Camp for the night.  It shortens the summit day and there is something romantic about sleeping at Crater Camp at 18,700 ft, higher than Everest base camp.
2. Go from Barafu to Crater Camp, sleep there and then make the final push to the summit the following morning.  It divides the push to the summit into two days and we would still get to sleep at Crater Camp.
3. Go from Barafu to the summit and back to Barafu in the same day.  It makes for a long day but climbing to Crater Camp is almost as difficult as the summit.

Decision:  Option 3.  Our rationale was simple.  We wanted to summit and if we had the strength to get to Crater Camp we would almost certainly make it to the summit.  We had also spent enough time on the mountain to understand that sleeping at 18,700 ft could be very unpleasant when you had slept at 15,200 ft the night before.  In fact, the guides told us the many climbers had made it Crater Camp, spent the night, got altitude sickness and not made it to the summit.  Sleeping at Crater Camp sounded great when you were reading the website from the comfort of home, but when you're on the mountain reality tempered the sense of adventure.

The second decision was whether we wanted to ask six of the strongest porters to carry our day packs on summit day.  Although many of us felt strong enough to carry our own packs, we agreed to accept the porters' assistance, in part, due to the fact that we had chosen the tough option for summit day.

We started our acclimatization climb at 10 AM.  It was uneventful and even though we climbed above 14,500 ft everyone felt great, a very good sign that our bodies were adjusting well to the altitude.  We were also getting used to the daily weather pattern.  Kilimanjaro sits on the Serengeti, which has an elevation of about 3,000 ft.  The mountain then rises from the savannah an additional 16,300 ft to a total elevation of 19,300 ft.  When you are on the Serengeti it is very dry and it is hard to believe that there is any humidity in the air.  However, there is.  At lower elevations, 5 - 10,000 ft, there are clouds that encircle the mountain for days at a time.  It is the moisture from these clouds that make the rain forest possible.  There is a second layer of cloud that forms and dissipates on a daily basis.  It is typically clear above 10,000 ft from 3 - 4 PM in the afternoon until 10 - 11 AM.  However, during the late morning the high mountain cloud will form almost every day dramatically lowering the temperature and the visibility.
We climbed high enough to see the outline of Barafu camp in the distance and had a snack.

While stopping for a snack we saw a young porter stop for a rest.  We were shocked at how poorly he was dressed, shorts, T-shirt and slip-on canvas deck shoes with no socks at 14,500 ft!  We had all been shocked to see porters wearing flip-flops and crocs carrying 20 kg plus their own gear.  Thankfully, our outfitter Tusker, was a high end operation and the porters all had decent hiking boots and clothing.  Not so for the discount operators, whose porters often carried more that the maximum 20 kg.  Every year about 20 - 30 people die on Kilimanjaro; about 2/3 of these people are porters and 1/3 climbers.  The climbers usually succumb to severe altitude sickness leading to pulmonary or cerebral edema.  The porters usually die from exposure, when a sustained snow or rain storm leads to hypothermia.

If any of the readers of this blog decide to do this climb, we ask you to use a quality outfitter for your safety and the porters' as well.  The following pictures show a few of the porters that we saw on the mountain.  They are the heroes of any high altitude climb!