Nico finishes the day perched at 4600m on Mawenzi. Tommorrow we will traverse the saddle and tomorrow night we will make our summit attempt on Kibo. 

Looking back as we begin our acclimatization climb you can see that our camp is right at the base of Mawenzi.  The green tent is the cook tent and where the porters sleep. Nico and I are in the blue tent to its left while our guides are in the smaller one to its right.

Mawenzi Tarn is a tiny but beautiful lake surrounded by moss and lichen covered boulders. It is our most serene camp site of the trip and once again we are the only climb team to occupy it on this day.

Nicolai looks on as the clouds disperse to reveal the sharktooth like ridgeline of Mawenzi. Although climbing Kibo will take us much higher than Mawenzi, the later remains a much harder mountain to climb. 

Climbing today becomes significantly more difficult with large rock formations to traverse. The guides repeatedly offer to carry Nicolai over difficult sections but he insists on doing it himself. Nonetheless, notice how carefully they position themselves to catch Nicolai should he fall. I could not be more impressed with how attentive our climb team was to our safety.

Temperatures continue to drop as we ascend and we add warmth layers to compensate. Nico has reverted to his soccer shoe for climbing as it is one fourth the weight of his boot. This makes covering long distances much easier for him. He will go back to the boot when we make our bid for the summit.

Nico sees another photographic opportunity to make a self portrait of his reflection in my sunglasses.

Today’s destination is Mawenzi Tarn at 4330m, a tiny little lake at the base of Mawenzi. We are now hiking above the clouds and it is amazing to look down on them moving in below us.

Nico and I with the Scenecios to add a sense of scale.

On our acclimitaztion walk, we enter the valley of Giant Scenecios. These beautiful trees grow only on Kilimanjaro and only in a few places. They are absolutely stunning.

Jeanine will be proud that Nicolai is diligent about completing his summer reading assignment while resting between climbs.

White-necked ravens can be found at almost every camp site cleaning up the little morsels left by climbers.

Beauty abounds and I am overwhelmed with subjects without having to hike more than 5 minutes in any direction.

We arrive at our 3600m high camp site at Kikelelwa Cave by 1PM. By now you will recognize our tent. The large tent is the mess tent and where all the porters sleep. The dome shaped blue tent is where the guides sleep, and the green rectangular tent is our portable out house. There was an additional fee for the later but it was worth every penny, affording us a small measure of convenience and comfort. Almost every day begins with clear skys and then by late morning the clouds roll in. Generally by late afternoon the skies clear again.

During a snack break, Nico offers his father a soft lap in an environment of hard rocks. My knee has been holding up fairly well until today. One missed foot plant and I tweaked it rather badly. It will bother me for the next two days but will not hurt on the day we attempt to summit.

Assistant guide Zablon. Everyone calls him Marieson.

Even though our destination is Kibo, we will climb for two more days to reach the base of Mawenzi pictured here.

Assistant guide Last. Everyone calls him Lasti (Lastee).

The flowers remain exquisite and I only wish I had noted the names for each variety.

Our main guide, Charles. 

On the path our assistant guide Lasti spots chameleons left and right. Here Nico poses with one that is in the process of molting. 

Today’s climb is only about 4 hours but very rugged over difficult rock terrain. Before we start, I take a telephoto image of the Kibo crater rim. Click for a larger view and see if you can find the path we will use to climb to the top.

Each day we each receive a small allotment of very hot water with which we do our best to stay clean and groomed. By the end of the trip we will both be craving a hot shower and soft bed above all else.

Just before midnight I make a visit to the latrine and am treated to a crystal clear night sky with more stars than you can imagine. Despite the frigid temperatures I go back for my camera and tripod to make several long exposures with Kibo as a backdrop. Unfortuanately, the small camera I am using for this trip does not do well with this type of photography and you will have to trust me when I say that you could see millions of stars on this evening.

We stand at the entrace to the cave which bears the name of our camp site for the evening.

The idea of an acclimatization walk is that you climb with no pack several hundred meters higher than you will sleep that evening and stay there for at least 15 minutes. This helps your body adapt to the higher altitudes by adjsuting the consistency of your blood so that it can carry more oxygen.

Nico is exhausted after today’s climb and collapses in the tent for a brief nap before we begin our afternoon acclimitization walk. At this altitude we are again bathed in a cloud.

Our camp today is filled with bird song mostly attributeable to this little fellow and his many friends. Our guides called them Tennis Ball birds for reasons not entirely clear to me.

Nico saw an opportunity for an interesting photo and asked me to hold still while he captured this image of my zipper pulls. Throughout the journey I was impressed by many of the photos Nicolai took.

Everywhere we turn there are wonderful creatures and plant life. We spend a lot of time looking at the path to make sure we don’t twist an ankle making it easy to spot this little fellow.

The temperature continues to drop as we ascend and the vegetation continues to diminish in stature.