Africa 2014 - Kilimanjaro Day 2 - Shira Camp (9,900' to 12,500')

The 2nd night's sleep was sporadic.  I discovered the importance of covering your head when the temperature drops below freezing. We woke at 6:30 am to Joe poking his head in the tent to make sure we were properly dealing with the altitude. "Any headaches or nausea?", he asked.  "No, feeling great", I replied. The porters brought coffee to the tent along with warm water for rinsing off our face and hands. It wasn't a hot shower, but every bit helps.  There will be no shower for the next 6 days. The temperature is around 30 degrees.  Since there is no cloud cover, it promises to warm up through the day.

This morning, we caught our first partial glimpse of the peak since starting our climb.  It is still quite far away and above.  I'm trying to not think too much about summiting and concentrating on getting through each day's climb.

Kilimanjaro - Uhuru Peak

 

Machame Camp was inhabited by white-necked ravens looking for scraps of food discarded by the hoards of people in camp.  After packing up our sleeping bags and organizing our day packs, we ate a quick breakfast and hit the trail for today's half-day climb at around 8:00 am.  

The group prepping for Day 2



Today's destination is on the farthest visible ridge

The 5 mile climb was steep and slow up and over a few different ridges which required some scrambling over large boulders.  Our destination was the top of a final ridge that would allow us to traverse the mountain from West to East over the next three days.  We hit Shira camp at 12,500' well above the clouds at around 1:00 pm and had lunch around 1:30 pm.  The temperature was a balmy 70 degrees and thankfully, I'm still feeling no ill-affects from the altitude.


The first break of the day

A section of the trail to Shira Camp

A look back at the trail that brought us to the ridge

Some light scrambling to get us to Shira Camp

On top of the ridge with Kilimanjaro in view

A look back to Machame Camp and today's climb

The group is still in high spirits on Day 2

During lunch, the inevitable differences of opinion between members of the group arose into an ill-advised religious discussion.  The discussion was mostly broached and driven by Tim, the youth pastor from Bristow, OK, and his wife Becky.  Our guide Joe wisely stayed out of it, while two camps verbally sparred over various topics from gay marriage, drinking and Marijuana. Fortunately, the discussions remained mostly mature and respectful.  Although it bares mentioning that the conservative camp from Bristow did refer to the gay lifestyle as a "fad" and drinking alcohol and smoking weed as a "degradation" always ironically proceeded by the disclaimer, "I'm not judging anyone".  Within this particular group, the Oklahoma brand of conservative Christianity with which I am personally familiar, was relegated to minority opinion, exposed as out-of-touch with reality and out-dated. Bristow was not the only Christian representatives within the group, but they were isolated as the more extreme conservative view points regarding gay marriage and alcohol.  The rest of the group were quite progressive when it came to the idea that people are indeed born gay and have every right to love who they want to love equally. I do believe that this American microcosm represents the trend of what is happening in the larger American culture, an overall acceptance of those that are different from ourselves. It's sad to me that there are people that view this trend as a bad thing.

Intense faces during our discussion on religion

Religion was naturally avoided for the rest of the trip which I greatly appreciated. I didn't come on this trip to learn about people's views on religion, unless it was coming from the local culture. The discussion made me ever more grateful that I allowed the beliefs instilled by my Christian Oklahoma upbringing to be questioned and evolved in spite of religious teachings dogma. I now see much of what I believed about race, religion and culture as a young Oklahoman as grossly misinformed and unfortunate. The good news is that nothing expands a persons appreciation for diversity than traveling and seeing cultures different than your own. I hope that the Okies will embrace a more progressive view of the world as I have, but a commitment to the ministry makes that possibility very unlikely.

Since we had some time to kill, Stuart and I had so much energy that we hiked over to Shira Camp II over 2 miles away with a guide named Joshua.  Along the way, Joshua gave us lessons in Swahili.
 

Our side hike to Shira Camp 2 - Stuart strikes a pose

Shira Camp sits in the climate zone known as the Moorlands.  It consists of mostly shrubs and no trees over 8 feet tall.  It has a mostly arid desert feel.  The clouds tend to stop around 12,000' depriving this area of the moisture afforded to the lower elevations.  We can now see the crown of Kilimanjaro in all it's glory from the Northwest.  We will spend the next few days traversing across the mountain between 12,500' and 15,000' to the southeast side of the peak.  No one has experienced negative affects from the altitude.  The acclimation must be working.

The sun is a real concern from here until the trek is complete.  Since Kilimanjaro is so close to the equator and the high altitude removes much of the atmospheric protection you would enjoy at lower elevations, the sun is quite strong.  Covering my lily-white Irish skin is essential on Kilimanjaro.

 

Dinner was pleasantly quiet and uneventful.  Each night after dinner Joe gives us a briefing of what to expect during the next day's trek regarding weather, terrain, duration and exertion.  When the sun goes down the air gets cold immediately. The wind also kicked up to 20 - 30 mph on this night making it difficult to take in the unbelievable starry night.  At 12,500' with zero light surrounding us, there were more stars than I had ever seen. Unfortunately, the cold and wind allowed me only 30 seconds to admire them before I dove into my tent for the night. Stuart bundled up and braved the cold to gather some time lapse exposures of the sky before retiring to the tent.



Machame Route

Here you can see the full scope of the Machame Route.  We started at Machame Gate on the left and have climbed to Shira Camp.  You can see how the next three days will be spent crossing the mountain over to Barafu High Camp at 15,000'.

Day 2 is complete and I'm still here.  It looks as though the dream of summiting Kilimanjaro is still within my grasps and seemingly more likely to become real.  The real tests are still ahead of me, but I'm quite hopeful that Uhuru Peak is possible.

Next Entry: Africa 2014 - Kilimanjaro Day 3