After breakfast we will leave Barranco through the Karanga Valley for an 7-hour walk.
Trek from Barranco Camp to Barafu Camp (4681m) via the 257m high Breach Wall across the valley from Barranco.
We've been told that we should be aware that there are three rises and falls before reaching Karanga Camp where we have lunch at 4040m.
We depart from Karanga the route ascends 640m to Barafu. Distance from Barranco to Barafu is 9.4km.
They say that it is advantageous to have a mental image of today’s profile so we don’t get psyched-out by all the rise and fall:
OUCH!
We overnight at Barafu camp at an elevation of 4600m.
Tonight the Full Moon rises. Climbers are generally advised to try and plan their summit attempts to coincide with the Full Moon. Can you imagine being on the roof of Africa on a cloudless night with the light of the full moon shining on you?
We've actually planned our summit to fall 2 days after the full moon because we've been told that at this time we will still have the bright light from the full moon, but a couple of days later it rises later, which means it'll up and shining later in the night (early morning) when we need it most.
THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:
This particular day did not go as planned above. The route that we took was much better, I think.
We were woken up at 7:30. Later this morning as today was to be a short day for us. We took our time getting ready and eventually left at 9am.
The total hike today was only 4 1/2 hours. The first portion of the hike was going up Barranco Wall. This was very steep and required some 'climbing' and 'kiss the wall' manoeuvres to get up and around. It is very steep and if you are scared of heights this is the one part of the trip that could be quite testing for you.
Luckily none of us were, so we enjoyed it. This was an absolute highlight for me. The views were spectacular.
Unfortunately, however, my camera battery died and the manual charger I had brought along was not in my luggage - this charger never turned up, so I don't know where it went missing. I suspect somewhere around the time I had all my gear laid out on the ground at the start of our climb when I was repacking everything.
What I did have was my cheap point & shoot which had been brought along for our Zanzibar diving trip. It has an underwater casing and was (luckily) accidentally packed in. Although the pics from here weren't great, we're happy to just have some.
After we got over the wall, we hiked up and down valleys which seemed never ending. It was also very cold here. Very cold = around 0 Celsius - I think.
There were more strange plants that we came across:
On arrival at Karanga camp, we had lunch at about 2:30pm and then dinner was at 5:30pm. We could just chill out for the day, which was pretty awesome.
This particular camp is pretty steep and has mist and fog rolling in and out very quickly. We're advised not to wonder off as ppl have wondered right off, never to be seen again. Pretty scary thought, so we just hung out together with the other hikers and talked about the climb so far and what each of us was expecting for the next day.
The "Queen" as the guides referred the peak is very elusive - only showing parts of herself through the clouds every so often.
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