Keep On Moving…....

Third Cave Camp – 26^th February 

Everyone was a little bleary eyed this morning, given the nature of this site most of the tents had been pitched on a slope so folks spent much of the night either rolling into one another of sliding down towards the door.

Tent mate James enjoying his early morning coffee.

Fortunately I had another pretty good nights sleep.  This may be due to the fact that our porters had done an excellent job and pitched our tent on a comparatively flat spot or it may be because I had a decent tote of scotch before turning in for the night….personally I prefer the idea touted by John that I obviously have a clearer conscience than most!

 The crew getting ready to break camp.

This mornings walk was scheduled to take between 4-5 hours and with no real improvement in the weather and no change in the landscape I think the general consensus was to get our heads down and crack on with it.

 Heads down and cracking on!

Thankfully whatever may have been lacking in the weather/views was more than compensated by the spirits of the group and these were raised further when just a little over three hours we crested a ridge and were met with views of the campsite.

The welcome sight of the Third Cave Camp.

Morale was further boosted by the news that there had been a resupply that morning too, it’s remarkable just how much of a difference a can of hot chocolate can make but after several days the lack of variety was starting to tell making those little luxuries all the more important!

Again there was an afternoon excursion ascending to approx 350m higher before returning to camp.

To be honest it would have been very easy to have settled down in my tent with my book and spend the afternoon chilling out but it was an excellent chance to boost my acclimatisation and let’s face it I’m probably not going to be here again so it seemed foolish to pass it up.

As we were only going to be gone for a couple of hours I left my rucksack behind and it felt liberating to walk without the persistent tug at my shoulders.

 Making our way up to the ridge.

Motoring my way up to the top of the ridge we were rewarded with our first good views of Mawenzi, looking like Mount Doom from Lord of The Rings it is “other” peak on Kilimanjaro. 

A local Chagga legend tells how Mawenzi was always jealous of Kibo and one day having let it’s own fire burn out helped itself to some of it’s taller neighbours.

Returning to find his hot coals missing Kibo struck a crashing blow to Mawenzi rendering him forever dormant and creating the jagged formation that stands today!

Mawenzi, straight out of Mordor?

Over dinner there was an noticeable increase in everyone’s level of excitement, Kibo now feels tantalisingly close an tomorrow marks the start of our summit push with the climb to the Outward Bound School hut.