The One Where We Hiked Kili – Day 3 (1/15/2013)

The day began like the previous one and then took us out of the tundra and eventually across a high altitude desert and out of all vegetation to our base camp from which we would attempt the summit that night.  Unknown to us at the time, an Irish climber had been tragically killed by lightning 2 days before we begun on that same desert.

Base camp consisted of a handful of stone dormitories which a member of our group likened to Alcatraz (although I personally didn’t think the accommodations were bad at all).  As we huddled over our dinner, teeth chattering, and in dread of our 11pm wake up call, a distraught Norwegian man collapsed on a bunk with the dreaded look of defeat in his eyes.  When asked, he said he had become so sick and disoriented (likening to feeling to that of being completely drunk) that he had been forced to turn back just 50 meters below the crater rim.  The rest of his team of 5 filtered in over the next few hours, regrettably only one of whom successfully reached the summit.  We were intimidated to say the least.  But to bed we went at 8:00pm where, for the next three hours we tossed and turned, some of us without sleeping a wink.