Baranco Camp
One of the unpleasant side effects of altitude is that, with less pressure, all of the gas in your body expands and needs somewhere to exit. Combined with some other intestinal problems, this leads to one of the riskiest maneuvers on the mountain – venting the system without spray painting your shorts. There are a few close calls during the night, and it’s stressful enough that I finally break out the [azithromycin] (for reasons I’ll never understand, the doctor prescribed only two tablets so I’ve been hoarding them like [the one true ring]).
After our wake up tea and hot chocolate, we step out of the tent to clear skies and the sun just starting to light up the mountain. Nick, trooper that he is, sticks with the porridge but I feel like I’d rather go hungry or eat grubs so I’m tapping out.
We climb quite a lot today, passing by the Lava Tower at roughly 15,000 feet (higher than the summit of Mount Rainier). It will be two more days before we get to this altitude again so we rest for thirty minutes of so to get a bit of acclimatization.
From there we start down towards Baranco Camp, back at 13,000 feet. Doing so, we pass through another unique ecosystem, full of trees straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.
After a dusting off by Thumsif, we’re back in the tent for a nap. When I first saw the itinerary and noticed how few miles we’d hike some days, I wondered what else we’d do to fill the time. Turns out, we fill it all with sleep. Putting in ten hour nights plus two to three hours in the afternoon, our schedules are actually pretty full.
Dinner is more of the usual (soup, salad, and some kind of entree). The guides say it is pretty common to lose your appetite as you get higher and I wonder if that is finally starting to happen, or if meals are just getting a bit monotonous. Probably the latter as I feel like I’d pay top dollar for a freeze dried Phad Thai right about now.
We’re both looking good on the health check (heart rate rising, oxygen levels dropping, but no big swings that would indicate a problem) and apparently, if you stand on just the right pile of rocks, you can get cell service here so we set off to give that a try. Internet is a no go, but we do get a voice call through to let everyone back home know that everything is OK.
They are probably getting a little boring by this point, but I can’t stop taking pictures of the mountain. Maybe I’ll end up with enough that I can put them all together when I get hope and make a flip book.
While on a pee run, sponsored by Diamox, I also try a few shots of the Milky Way. For an iPhone camera they turned out not half bad.
