Today's walk was for 3 hours but it was probably the hardest one yet as it was a pretty steady climb. We walked up 1,155' overall with a good steep bit at the end. That makes our camp set at 15,015' which is actually tied with the highest we'll get. We go down a bit tomorrow and then back up to summit camp at the same height as today but on the other side of the mountain. The weather wasn't great today as it was chilly, foggy, and hailed occasionally. I'm not sure if foggy actually counts seeing as how we were simply walking in the clouds. The walk however was pretty cool and had some great views. We walked through a lot of loose rocky shale and kept getting closer the to the top of the mountain (when I say top I mean the 4,500' top mound of volcano that only has one way up on the other side of the mountain). Of course we can't get to the top from this side of the mountain...not ever since they closed the trail due to extreme danger of rock slides and just the pure steepness of it. The steepness of it and the loose rocks do make it quite a sight. Beautiful if you like picturesque snowy and rocky mountains.
Our camp today is ridiculously amazing. We got there and I was in awe of the surroundings, mainly the lava tower which was this giant column of rock at the other side of our camp. About 20 minutes after we got to the campsite...it started to sleet/hail; and it kept sleeting/hailing for an hour or so, right through our lunch. An hour or two after lunch we began our acclimatization walk which took us up to 15,840'. This walk was absolutely ridiculous. I don't think I've ever been somewhere so awesome looking. When I looked right, I saw the distant ground of Arusha and surrounding towns down near sea level and when I looked left, I saw the cliffs and spires of the top of Kilimanjaro. Just stupid beautiful. Every 100 feet or so we all just stopped and looked around. It was that good. Plus it gave us all a boost of confidence as we were pretty much right below the mountaintop now. Granted we have to walk down and around to be able to go up it, but still...it's right there! We walked to an old abandoned campsite near a glacier which had even better views. Unfortunately that's when the clouds rolled in again and cut off our views down the mountain. I started a bit of a snowball fight at the top of our walk which was a lot of fun. Our walk back down to camp wasn't as good since it was in the clouds and down a somewhat slippery slope since this part of the mountain was covered in snow and sleet. The view of our camp from above it was really cool though. What a place to put a bunch of tents...pretty surreal. My nickname of Batman is starting to pick up haha. I was called it multiple times on the walk as I quickly jumped up and down the rock walls. I also managed to somehow catch a falling food tray with barely looking up. That brought the comment of "you really are batman aren't you?" haha.
We got back and had some tea and then had a break before lunch and everybody met in the mess tent for a 7 person game of UNO. I brought regular cards as well as UNO cards which ended up being a great decision. It was a lot of fun. Dinner was yet again great and Erik and I were called machines since we had yet to use Diamox. Most of the others were commenting on how tiring and how much of a hard work the day's hikes were but I loved them and thought they were relatively easy to be honest. So that's exciting for me moving forward. I feel great and my confidence in reaching the peak (and hopefully with no oxygen or altitude sickness pills to boot) is very high.
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