Millennium Camp – 28th February
Slowly, grudgingly we began our descent but high (quite literally) with our success we were able to absorb a lot more of the experience than we had on the way up.
The views were quite simply stunning, I’d become accustomed to photos of a snow capped Kibo but being here it was almost impossible to relate those images to the towering glaciers we were now walking past.
This photo keeps amazing me and then I remember that I TOOK IT!
Now working with gravity rather than against it, made the descent to Stella Point comparatively easy where we took a few moments to contemplate the path ahead.
Looking back to Uhuru Peak from Stella Point.
The angle and the shape of the slope made the route seem almost impossibly steep and complete with deep piles of scree and sand you just knew that there was still plenty of hard work left to be done.
It's almost like the tipping point at the top of a rollercoaster!
But our nagging headaches were a constant reminder of the altitude and so knowing the only way to clear these would be to descend as quickly as possible we resigned ourselves to whatever the next few hours would bring.
The best way forward is with big confident steps, sometimes bounding into welcoming piles of sand whilst at others almost “skiing” across a wave of tumbling scree.
Jas & Raj, slowing down but still going!
It can be immense fun but it also requires a huge amount of focus and energy so after a few near falls and untidy slips it was perhaps inevitable that our progressed slowed.
It took us little over an hour to descend what had taken us the entire morning (and night) to climb and as we broke through the 5,000m mark our heads began to clear the “thickening” of the air was almost tangible.
We thought we had broken the back of the descent as the gradient began to ease off but the as the cloud broke we caught our first glimpse of the brutal descent standing between us and our “lunch break” at Barufu Camp.
The scree had gone but had been replaced with boulders and rocks making the descent exhausting at best and treacherous at worst.
A familiar silence descended over us as we each focussed on the task at hand and searched for the strength to meet this new challenge.
I’m not sure what we must have looked like but I doubt we provided much inspiration to the trekkers based at Barafu camp (ahead of their forthcoming summit attempts) as we trudged wearily towards the flattest spot available before collapsing and tucking into a well earned lunch!
No comments:
Post a Comment