Day five. Great sleep again which always involves some rolling around changing sleeping sides. Warm as toast Tonight. Filled my water bottle up with hot water and literally had a hot water bottle. We slept in the presence of the Baranco wall last night. A 300 ft wall of rock climbing and scrambling - no poles as the get in the way. It is a 2 hour big effort at altitude and one that my legs fatigued after about 220 ft. Doesn't sound much but there was still some way to go. Even though the wall is 300 ft the track zig zags so you end up doing a hell of a lot more. Peter, one of the guides took this old lady's back pack and I thank him so much. Having 6 or so kilos less did make a difference for sure. Then it was a slippery slide-fest down a deeply dusty track which was pretty steep. I was the 5th person to end up on their backside amidst peels of laughter. It really was great fun and I voted my slip as the most elegant!
Only 4 hours of hard trekking today and camp at lunch time. We are at 3,900 metres which is only a couple of metres higher than last night, but we have climbed high today and sleep low tonight which is best for acclimatisation. A lot of climbers here now and the weather closed in whilst we were walking, so we are in thick wet cloud and it is pretty cold. The down jacket has come out as the thick fleece and 2 layers of thermals is not enough.
I have to admit to being a bit worried about making the summit with my legs fatiguing like they do. No pain but they just don't have the strength to push up and up and up 3'continually climbing up one rock to the next. My breathing is not such a concern. As I will be wearing everything I need my pack should be light. Summit day starts around 11 pm tomorrow night. We climb up, up, up, for 1,000 metres - our biggest altitude increment! That will take around 8 hours again climbing up rocks but no scrambling. We'll I should be thankful for something I suppose. Then, because of winds and the expected -14 degrees at the top, we get a photo and start coming down to the next camp which will take around 7 hours. I think I should be barely alive after that!
Anyway, tomorrow is another short day of only 3 hour trekking and plenty of resting so we can be ready for our night departure for the summit. Kilimanjaro, here we come! As Hillary said "we will knock the b****** off". Or words to that effect.