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.