A "better" night's sleep I guess last night, woke up a number of times either too hot, too cold or unable to breathe comfortably..that one wasn't much fun at all, my breathing was really shallow, quick breathes and very difficult - managed not to panic but it was a close call not to.. anyway, got some hours though.
Woken up at 5.45am as agreed with coffee and hot water bowls and we sorted our bags out. We were much better organised and sorted but it was a bloody cold morning, ice was on the outside of our tent, I even added the bottom leggings to my zip off shorts. It's become a bit of a joke that I am the only one around wearing shorts all the time, both in our group and others that pass us! Even the porters are commenting on it..as Tash said, years of playing football in the cold means I am more used to it than most.
Anyway, we were greeted with the sad, but not really unexpected, news that Lynn & Denise were going to call it a day and return back to the hotel. They had struggled yesterday as I mentioned, they have not slept properly in about 5 days because of their travelling in from the US, they hadn't enjoyed the camping experience but then many of us will have struggled with that too. Still, it's such a shame as you want as many people as possible make a successful trip of it. They can still be rightly proud of even attempting it and yesterday was pretty brutal, I too was at a low ebb. (Thankfully, less so today)
So we had a last photo with them as a group and shared well wishes and hugs and goodbyes and Naomi took them back to the pick up point (that's her trip over now too) and we then went and got ready to get on the move for the day.
After breakfast, we set our from the camp quite wrapped up but very soon the sun cleared the mountain and within 15 minutes we'd stopped to shed layers (including my zip off leggings - back to shorts!). I needed to keep adding factor 30 to my face, neck and arms as everything was bright red from yesterday's sun - they looked very sore but weren't thank goodness. But that definitely led to my feeling that I was ill yesterday with heat stroke of sorts.
Where I just said "the sun cleared the mountain", that mountain was Kili! It's snow-covered in areas and with the sun glinting off it, it looked great. I don't "think" we were looking at the actual summit, I think it's like Helvelyn in that you think it's there but it's slightly further along and not visible from lower down..of course, I could be talking bollocks!
So, we climbed in warm sunshine at a very slow and steady pace today. I do like the pace we're maintaining and you don't feel under pressure from your team-mates around you; no one is trying to push ahead and we have regular stops too.
We continued along and it soon became apparent across the way that there were loads of people walking along a different route but going to the same camp that we were.
We stopped at one point and it was explained we had moved from the Moorlands Zone into the Alpine Zone, and we continued trudging along and eventually made it to the Lava Tower camp at 4,600m. We stopped for our usual photos and then found some shelter (hidden between rocks basically) to eat the snacks we'd been provided with. During this 20mins break we noticed it started to hail, very small and light hail but a big difference to the sunshine we had experienced.
A couple of things of note:
Today's hike was an acclimatisation hike to 4,600m, which is 200m higher than Mount Kinabalu. Phil was great, he had his altimeter watch and told me when we'd reached that milestone. I have to admit I was very nervous about it today because of how I felt in Borneo. The clear and obvious difference being the pace of the ascent, it was so much quicker in Borneo but here it's great that it's so steady. The massive positive for me was I felt perfectly normal, no sign of any sickness or anything, especially how shit I felt yesterday.
Which brings me onto my second point, a number of people struggled at one point or another, it was tough going but the whole point of the hike really. Dan seemed worst hit, much more subdued and just not himself. He (and the others) didn't make any fuss about it but he was clearly not good. I think he has sun-stroke too as it's the brightest red.
Phil struggled on with his knee, he needs an op and when we got to the camp he was really nauseous. John fell down and hurt his leg too as we were coming down a steep section after our lunch break, fingers crossed he's able to continue tomorrow - I suspect a good night's sleep will help. Only problem is that we don't get a good night's sleep here!
And Pauline struggled with the descent (that John fell on) which I'll come to as many others did. I'd noticed before that Pauline struggles with balance on tricky terrain sometimes but the guides were great and helped her every step of the way of course.
So, the descent to Baranco Camp!
The sleet/hail was coming down and we all had waterproofs on, but luckily it light, partly because we were travelling through cloud s it wasn't "rain-forest" rain. The first part was through a very steep, narrow gap through the rocks, it was really impressive scenery and I enjoyed going through that. The rest of the hike was a constant downhill trudge and you couldn't see much further than 50 yards. Chatted more with people as I felt better in myself (compared to yesterday) - James from Thame and Nicole (+ Chris) the nurse.
Not a lot to talk about regarding this stage to be honest, some good opportunities for photos and videos and I will need to get people's details so I can share them on Dropbox or something. We were walking down into the valley and eventually the camp came into sight.
The cloud cover turns so quickly, one minute it's clear and 45 seconds later you can't see a thing. As we got closer the porters greeted us and took more rucksacks today and we made it to our destination, signed in and had photos and then directed to our tents. This was about 3.00pm and straight to the Mess tent for cooked lunch but everyone just wanted to sleep. The problem was it was soon 4.10pm and Chediel said "sleep now and waster will come at 5.00pm"..."Say WHAT?". We convinced him to give us 90 minutes and I fell fast asleep for an hour and then washed and it was time for tea.
Nicole dragged us out of our tents because the view of Kili was magnificent and cloud cover was coming in fast. Took some more photos around camp, it's a big one here and then into the Mess tent, but it's cold today and even I needed leggings on.
Food was good again (spag bol) and we had our briefing from Chediel and a discussion about summit night because we were offered different times to get up but after we'd agreed a time it was explained (badly) we'd have to bring it forward a day. Two major issues with that, it would mean a massive hike tomorrow and the loss of an acclimatisation day but more importantly, Chris's 40th birthday falls on the 14th and we would have summitted on the 13th which takes away from the significance of summitting on his actual birthday. Chediel immediately back-tracked and changed the plans back to the original ones so we that we could summit on his birthday - an absolute no brainer to be honest. Shouldn't have even been a discussion!
Spirits were quite high over dinner today again even with the kamikaze moth in the tent! With all that done and dusted our heart-rate and bloods tested we made our way to bed. We get a lie-in tomorrow with a 6.30am wake up call as we're only hiking 4 hours - we have a games day tomorrow to look forward to. Came here into the tent/bed and it's taken me 75 minutes to write today's diary entry.
A really good day, personally I am so relieved how good I feel - phew!
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