Day 3 (Feb 3)

We got to sleep in a little today...until 6:45.  Yet again I was laying awake anticipating the wake up call for about 20-30 minutes due to another 5:30 blue tent visit...seems to becoming clock work.  I did sleep a little better last night which was nice.  A sounder sleep without waking up as much during the night.  It is already getting considerably colder at night though which is slightly annoying.  I had to sleep with thermal underwear, pants, and a fleece on last night and that's while in a cold weather sleeping bag.  Getting out of that thing on a cold morning is not enjoyable at all!  We had our usual tea and then packed and had a breakfast that was much similar to yesterday's.  By the way, the pineapple here is insanely delicious; and the oranges are green and limes don't exist...everything is a lemon.

We left camp around 8:00 and had a very enjoyable walk over volcanic rock and lots of loose shale.  The terrain is really neat and getting better...we are climbing a volcano!  We walked for about 3 hours with just a couple short water, snack, and pee breaks.  I have been drinking about 5-6 liters of water a day and plan to drink even more to alleviate any altitude sickness like the headache I had yesterday.  That obviously equates to quite a few pee breaks.  My headache didn't return today which was nice and I am a little surprised at how good I feel this high up.  It was a steady but gradual climb to our campsite which is situated at 13,860' which means our climb today was 1,155'.  After we got to camp Erik and I we were feeling pretty good and we finally had a large flat campsite so we decided to play some actual golf.  Erik has his first ever golf club with him and we each have 3 or 4 golf balls with significance (more on these later in the blog) so we each took a ball and played some golf.  We picked a bare area and used it as the tee box and the hole was just a decent sized rock some distance away.  A couple of the others came out of their tents to watch as it was quite a funny and odd scene...playing golf on a volcano at almost 14,000' above sea level.  We decided to have a match of 6 holes but we only played 5 as I won 2 &1.  I'm thinking of putting it on my resume under playing accomplishments.

After golf we had some tea and peanuts and headed back to our tents for an hour or so before our acclimatization walk.  That's when it started to rain and hail...hard.  Our lead guide Florence went to each tent to tell us that if it kept up that hard we would skip the walk due to safety concerns of slippery slopes but if it was only raining a bit we would go.  An hour later the rain/hail had calmed down just enough to be able to go so we all put on our rain gear and covered our day packs.  Another example of how much better prepared the others were than Erik and I was that I wore a $2 from Job Lot poncho over my backpack to keep it dry and he wore his bag under his big rain coat whereas all the others had bag covers that came out of a hidden zippered pouch at the bottom of their bags.  Fancy haha.  At least we saved money!  We were also given the opportunity to use the Altox Personal Oxygen System we had rented on the walk to get used to it and to prevent any sickness we may get since we were climbing up to 15,510' which is when serious symptoms can begin to appear.  One of the others was already showing some signs and feeling quite bad but decided to tough out the walk anyway.  Erik and I as well as the two others who rented the Altox all decided against it as we all felt pretty good or at least decent.  I didn't even want to rent the Altox at all (probably due to my pride and considering the use of it cheating) but succumbed to the pressure and want of a certain girl I am lucky enough to be marrying in April.  Anyway, I felt great and didn't want to use it unless I absolutely needed it...just like the Diamox.  I am beginning to believe I can do this climb without either, which is quite rare as I was told from the guides.

Back to the acclimatization walk.  We were told we were walking to the top of a large pillar we could see a little bit in the distance but none of us were really sure because it was quite large, quite high, and quite steep. It didn't look very climbable from our vantage point.  The walk up was awesome!  It was hailing a little bit but luckily had calmed down considerably so it was nothing more than an annoyance really.  I was ready for it as I was decked out in my FootJoy rain bucket hat and my Titleist rain jacket.  We walked from about an hour before we came to the base of the pillar we saw from camp.  At that point we walked a little ways around it and began to climb it.  It wasn't as steep on this side but still involved some actual rock climbing with our hands.  It was a pretty tiring and strenuous effort at this altitude but I enjoyed it.  A couple people had some difficulty but I was moving up the rocks very quickly and loving the experience.  When we got to the top of the pillar we realized it was quite big on top and also a ridiculous terrain.  We had another 30 yards or so to the edge of it that would look out over our camp and our route and the top was covered with large but thin shards of volcanic rock.  Most of them were sticking out of the top of the pillar like they had came crashing down onto it and stuck into the rock, which they probably had during a previous eruption.  Very cool.  The view from the top and from the edge was absolutely unbelievable.  Beautiful views and very surreal.  It made me feel like I was on top of the world...I can't imagine what the views from the peak at 19,341' will look like.  I am getting pumped!!  We all took some pictures and then turned around to head back down to camp.  The way down the steep rocks was even harder for people since it involved decent drops from rock to rock.  I skipped and jumped my way down quite quickly again and waited for others. One of the other guys actually gave me the nickname of Batman because I was so nimble up and down the rocks haha.  I love walking on and climbing on rocks and trees.

We got back down to camp and rested for a short bit before dinner.  The person who was feeling kind of cruddy earlier felt worse and actually threw up once or twice.  A little bit of an eye opener considering they had already done a couple high altitude treks and were on Diamox but were still feeling the effects of altitude.  I just hope my body and brain continue their dominance over altitude sickness.  Fingers crossed!  Dinner was yet again very good...as was lunch which I think I've forgotten to mention so far.  We have had lunch each day shortly after arriving to camp and before a break and tea.  We chatted for a while after dinner per usual and were given a briefing about tomorrow.  I'm excited for tomorrow because we are camping at a place called Lava Tower...which just sounds cool.  It'll be about 3 hrs of walking very slowly since we are getting higher and higher.  Since we are very high and in a gully of sorts it is supposed to get very cold tonight so it's into the sleeping bag early for me.