The acclimatization seems to be helping, because we can tell that we’re feeling better each morning waking up at 13,000ft. Today we’re off to Base Camp before our final summit assault. One of our favorite porters, Goonda (a.k.a. “strong man”) received a phone call from home that he was needed. Calvin said that despite being the oldest person in the group that he can climb down twice as fast as the normal person. He said that Goonda and Adinani are the fastest men in the whole group.
The hike to Base Camp was beautiful. Light snow pellets were falling. The landscape started to change from Moorland to Highland Desert, which resembled what I would expect a less red Mars to look like. There were very few plants sticking out from under the rocks. We reached Barafu around noon to relax. We layed down at 7pm to take a nap before our 11pm wake up call for our summit assault. We’re getting a little nervous. Annie didn’t sleep at all – she claims to have just laid there for 4 hours, waiting.
Modi woke us up right at 11 PM. Adam hadn’t slept much either from the combination of nervousness and the thin air at almost 16,000ft. We switched on our headlamps, put on our warmest clothes, and gathered our gear to head for the summit. We finished up breakfast right at midnight, then made our way into a light, and romantic-looking snowfall in the middle of the night.
