Baranco Camp Day 4 3900M 9/28/18
We slept pretty well last night, I slept mostly through the night while Andy slept off and on. I woke up at five because of the Germans again, that was OK because we are going to get an early start. We were on our way by 7 AM, Way before everybody else like usual. On the way out of our porters yelled, “go pro take a picture”. Ben told us that the porter, Kevin, told other porters in another camp that the go Pro was voice activated and they called him a liar. Well, it doesn’t always work but I’ll figure that out later.
We hiked up, up and up. The sunrise was beautiful. It was clear blue sky, the sun was coming up behind the peak cascading beautiful pinks across the whole sky. We could clearly see the mountaintop and all the snow around it. The sun just started to hit our face about 20 minutes into the hike which felt refreshing. The frost was glistening off of the rocks and the plants as we walked up. The path was icy but crunchy and not very slippery. Because the water froze so fast the night before, the ice had crystallized with the dirt which made it easier to gain traction walking.
After 3.5 hours and 2000 feet we reached the top, the lower towers. I have been fighting a headache the whole day although I took the altitude pills earlier this morning. We stopped for a brief lunch at the top, the fog was rolling in so everyone was here to get going and get to our camp. The first part of our hike down was a little gnarly. The sun had not thawed the ice and we were climbing down steep rocks, not my favorite, but it was very brief. Not long after we started our descent, it started raining. Not hard, it was very strong mist, which was beautiful against the change in the environment that went from I see cold rocks at the top two more they tropical feel with large succulent trees and beautiful flowers everywhere. Lobelias were everywhere, starting from their beautiful green with ruffle accents then blooming into large spires when flowering. The trees are Giant Encina, they look just like a regular succulent but then you see one which is turned into a 20 foot high tree with a solid trunk. We did get caught in some heavy rain but it didn’t matter much as we were warm and close the camp.
We hit camp around 1230 making good time, we were the first ones the camp again. It was raining so we had the rest of our lunches in the master tent, and then got into our tent to set up our mattresses for a quick nap. The nap turned into a two-hour nap, I could have slept a lot longer, but I knew I would pay for it tonight. It rained while we naps which made it so relaxing as we were super warm and snuggled and our sleeping bags.
There was a pause in the rain so we got up to try to take in some sites. I saw a huge waterfall in the distance which explains the water we heard rushing. We thought our afternoon tea with popcorn this time, delicious buttered warm popcorn high on the mountain. It started pouring hard again and we watched hikers walk in and the distance probably not too happy with the weather. We had dinner again I consisted of nice carrot soup rice with carrots and meat. We stayed up a little bit later going to bed about 8 o’clock 830.
We slept pretty well last night, I slept mostly through the night while Andy slept off and on. I woke up at five because of the Germans again, that was OK because we are going to get an early start. We were on our way by 7 AM, Way before everybody else like usual. On the way out of our porters yelled, “go pro take a picture”. Ben told us that the porter, Kevin, told other porters in another camp that the go Pro was voice activated and they called him a liar. Well, it doesn’t always work but I’ll figure that out later.
We hiked up, up and up. The sunrise was beautiful. It was clear blue sky, the sun was coming up behind the peak cascading beautiful pinks across the whole sky. We could clearly see the mountaintop and all the snow around it. The sun just started to hit our face about 20 minutes into the hike which felt refreshing. The frost was glistening off of the rocks and the plants as we walked up. The path was icy but crunchy and not very slippery. Because the water froze so fast the night before, the ice had crystallized with the dirt which made it easier to gain traction walking.
After 3.5 hours and 2000 feet we reached the top, the lower towers. I have been fighting a headache the whole day although I took the altitude pills earlier this morning. We stopped for a brief lunch at the top, the fog was rolling in so everyone was here to get going and get to our camp. The first part of our hike down was a little gnarly. The sun had not thawed the ice and we were climbing down steep rocks, not my favorite, but it was very brief. Not long after we started our descent, it started raining. Not hard, it was very strong mist, which was beautiful against the change in the environment that went from I see cold rocks at the top two more they tropical feel with large succulent trees and beautiful flowers everywhere. Lobelias were everywhere, starting from their beautiful green with ruffle accents then blooming into large spires when flowering. The trees are Giant Encina, they look just like a regular succulent but then you see one which is turned into a 20 foot high tree with a solid trunk. We did get caught in some heavy rain but it didn’t matter much as we were warm and close the camp.
We hit camp around 1230 making good time, we were the first ones the camp again. It was raining so we had the rest of our lunches in the master tent, and then got into our tent to set up our mattresses for a quick nap. The nap turned into a two-hour nap, I could have slept a lot longer, but I knew I would pay for it tonight. It rained while we naps which made it so relaxing as we were super warm and snuggled and our sleeping bags.
There was a pause in the rain so we got up to try to take in some sites. I saw a huge waterfall in the distance which explains the water we heard rushing. We thought our afternoon tea with popcorn this time, delicious buttered warm popcorn high on the mountain. It started pouring hard again and we watched hikers walk in and the distance probably not too happy with the weather. We had dinner again I consisted of nice carrot soup rice with carrots and meat. We stayed up a little bit later going to bed about 8 o’clock 830.