Start: Shira 2; 3,850 meters
Midpoint: Lava Tower; 4,600 meters
End: Baronko; 4,000 meters
Hiking time Shira 2 to Lava Tower: 3:27
Hiking time Lava Tower to Baronko: 1:20
It’s getting much colder every morning! The good news is my sleeping bag is keeping me generally warm enough at night but that makes it even harder to tear myself from it in the morning.
The altitude is starting to hit our group. A lot of us have upset stomachs and at breakfast we were much quieter than normal. I’m feeling pretty good overall so I’m just hoping this lasts as long as possible.
Today’s hike took us to out highest elevation yet: 4,600 meters at Lava Tower. We hiked on a rocky, dusty trail up a steady incline for most of the morning before we reached a sudden, steep descent. It leveled out briefly and then we climbed the last hill to reach Lava Tower, a rock wall about twenty meters tall that resembled an Easter Island moai lying on its back.
We ate our boxed lunches huddled under the towering rocks in a vain attempt to block the howling wind. I only had a thick, bulky pair of mittens appropriate for summiting, so I ate my lunch wearing the complimentary socks from my Swiss Air flight on my hands. We spent a freezing forty six minutes at Lava Tower before G and Jimmy said we could continue on to our campsite. Meanwhile, the pair of them had been sitting out in the open as if they hadn’t even noticed the wind!
The trail from Lava Tower was purely downhill so we traveled pretty fast along the mini switchbacks. My knees were a little sore afterwards because it was hard to control my speed but the soreness didn’t last for too long.
At Baronko, we had a snack and then I took a solid nap, interrupted only by snoring from the boys’ tent. Dinner was a platter of plain noodles, which probably doesn’t sound very exciting but it was perfect for me. My companions are starting to really suffer from the altitude. I can’t explain why I’m not feeling it, too. Last year I had horrendous altitude sickness in the Himalayas so I can only hope Kilimanjaro has decided to give me a pass on the altitude sickness just this once.
