Day 2 (Feb 2)

Wake up time today was at 6:30 but with the help of going to bed at 8 last night and a 5:30 wake up call to visit the blue tent, I wasn't tired.  In fact I was already laying awake waiting for a voice to say wake up.  I slept pretty decent considering I was in a sleeping bag on a mat in a tent; I would say I probably woke up every hour or so but not for long.  One of the lead porters, Cast, brought us some tea in our tent a few minutes later as we packed up our day pack.  Luckily I was able to figure out a solution to my packing conundrum.  My sleeping bag is stored in an actual bag and that bag has some straps on it.  I was able to strap the bag to the outside of my duffle bag and free up just over half of the inside of my duffle.  Clutch.  I was then able to move about 2/3 of my day pack into my duffle so I would just be carrying up a warm layer, rain gear, my camera, and water.  My day pack was so much lighter!

The view of the mountain this morning when we emerged from the tent was phenomenal.  In fact, it was phenomenal at 5:30 this morning beneath the moon and star light too.  We had a nice breakfast of porridge, fruit, scrambled eggs and bacon.  Not sure how they cook all this stuff and make it taste so good...but they are really good at it.  We left the camp at 8:00 and walked through open rocky fields for the most part.  Occasionally it would be a large open area with not much of anything and other times there would be some rocky shale and boulders all over the place.  During our walk, we did our first acclimatization walk.  About 2 hrs into our 3 hr walk to the next camp, we climbed up to 13,035' to acclimate and explore an awesome area of volcanic rock and rocky spires and pinnacles.  It was a really cool area.  After a short time up there we started descending for a while before climbing up a steep approach to our camp.  When all was said and done, our camp is at 12,705' which is only 990' above yesterday's camp but we had a decently steep final 20 minutes to camp which winded and tired out most of us.

Unfortunately today I had an annoying headache for the second half of the walk which put a little bit of a damper on the cool volcanic rock scenery.  It also worries me a bit because even though it's gone now, if it comes back as we climb up it will probably get worse and I may have to break and take Diamox.  Once I got to camp and drank a lot of water my headache slowly disappeared so I'm hoping if I start drinking even more water each day I can avoid any real medicine.  I did up my aspirin regimen from 2 a day to 3 a day.  That's to help thin the blood which helps with altitude and also today acted as a pain reliever with my headache.

The camp was at a really awesome spot with an unreal view of all sorts of rocky columns and spires and cliffs.  What a view.  Plus since we made good time today, we got to camp in the early afternoon which led to an early tea and popcorn break.  While we were in the mess tent, a pretty solid thunderstorm roll in with thunder, lightning, and a mix of hail and rain.  Luckily it didn't last any more than 1/2 an hour and the sun broke through right after so we all got our chairs out of the mess tent and sat in the sun for a bit and just chatted.  It was a nice relaxing time and everybody we are climbing with are really cool so we had some good conversations.

Dinner was delicious yet again and the main meal was fried chicken and veggies plus some carrot soup which was actually quite good.  After dinner we all chatted for a bit and had our briefing for tomorrow.  We were told we would have another 3 hour walk tomorrow but would also have an acclimatization walk in the afternoon after tea and before dinner.  During dinner we took a break to enjoy a beautiful sunset over the rocky outcrops and then turned around the the top of the mountain staring us in the face.  Unbelievable view and experience.

I'm thinking early to bed again tonight, maybe after a few rounds of golf.  I'm starting to get used to this routine each day and I'm enjoying the hell out of it!