Well, we hoped for better weather, and sure enough! Day 5 dawned bright and clear, revealing a panoramic view down-valley to the hazy plains 7000’ below…and in the other direction, the bulk of Kilimanjaro and the summit…almost 7000’ above us! Today’s journey would take us to our high camp, somewhere around 15,000’. We would continue our pattern of traversing counter-clockwise around Kilimanjaro, ascending as we went. Only this time, no descent to camp, just a steady climb the whole way.

After the ritualistic morning tea, breakfast, and gear-packing, we were off on the days’ trek. The trail from Karanga leads pretty much straight up the hill behind the camp, heading towards a small pass at around ~14,300. Soon after starting, the scant vegetation gave out completely and we found ourselves hiking up through a surreal, alien landscape of dirt, boulders, and jagged rocks, the remains of shattered rockfall. The clear morning began to give way to gathering clouds, and small banks of fog rolled around us for a couple hours. As always, the pace was slow but steady, and everyone seemed to be doing OK.

At the aforementioned pass, the scene in front of us opened up to reveal a huge amphitheatre, dropping below us and running upwards into the summit block of the mountain. The view sloped away to the hazy plains below, and in front of us, a mile or two distant (it gets really hard to judge distances up here) was the sharp ridgeline that marked the Barafu camp. The next couple hours was a steady trek across the amphitheatre, all the while enjoying tremendous views of Kilimanjaro’s summit and the increasing detail of the Barafu camp. A number of regular outlines on the craggy rocks resolved themselves to be newly-constructed outhouses, perched precariously on the edge of the ridge, a couple steps from a 400-foot drop!

The trek across the amphitheatre was refreshingly flat, and definitely punctuated the steep climb up the ridge and into camp, which was bustling. The Barafu camp is situated on a relatively narrow and exposed ridge, and there were dozens of parties setting up camp in the high wind, serving lunch, running for water (which was all the way back before the previous camp at Karanga – what a haul!) – it was certainly the most chaotic and cramped camp we’d been to yet. Right in the middle of it, there was our trademark blue dining tent…but the rest of our camp appeared to not be set up yet! This took us all a little by surprise – after all, these guys had been absolutely on the ball every other day. Where was the rest of camp? As we sat down to lunch, our tour guide, John, explained (with a mischievous grin) that this was merely our lunch stop, and that we had another couple hours and nearly 1000’ to go to get to our camp. We all raised our eyebrows…where the heck was our high camp, after all? John refused to elaborate further, and we ate lunch in speculative silence…well, silence except for the whipping winds which continually buffeted the tent.

After lunch and a trip to the newly constructed bathroom facilities (as nice as an outside lavatory is going to get at this altitude, trust me on that!), we hoisted backpacks and John led up further up the trail, along the path most of these people would be taking in the middle of the night to start their summit day. The trail above Barafu was a little tricky and required some scrambling up a number of smooth slabs (which we all agreed was hard enough in the day, and would absolutely suck in the middle of the night), but before long we were back on a well-defined dirt trail, and before long it began to level out and quite abruptly a number of tents popped up over the near horizon (our dining tent, which had been taken down right after lunch, was quickly being assembled as we approached).

Turned out that our high camp was situated on a small plateau, really the last flat space below the summit crater, at about 16,000’. From our vantage point we were right under the summit, and here in the bright midafternoon sunlight the trail to the crater rim was visible as it snaked through a number of small cliffs. While there was probably room on this little plateau for at least one or two other groups, we had the place completely to ourselves. Naturally there were many questions asked about how exactly we managed to score such a sweet spot for camp, and all to ourselves no less! But all inquires were deftly defected by John with that same grin, leaving us all to speculate about what kind of connections AAI must have with the park service.

We had an early dinner that afternoon, and many people had a noticeable lack of appetite, and a couple folks looked a bit on the pale side. The importance of a good meal and especially hydration was stressed, especially at this altitude and with a long, long summit day coming up. The plan would be to awake at 11:00pm, have a quick meal, and be on the trail by midnight. Everyone was encouraged to try to get as much rest as possible, and having been on other expeditions with similar summit-day starts, I did as much summit-day prep as I could (packing my day-pack, organizing clothes, etc.) and then forced myself to lay down in the tent and get some sleep. From about 5:00pm until 11:00pm I was able to get a few good hours of sleep, only occasionally disturbed by the wind and a pelting sound that I knew could only be snow…