Day 7 – Karanga to Barafu Camp | Planetary Muffin Expeditions

After getting up earlier than normal(6 AM), we had breakfast and hit the trail by 8. We wanted to get an earlier start so that we’d arrive at Barafu earlier, in order to maximize our sleep. The climb was short & sweet. Despite the elevation gain, neither climber had too much trouble getting to Barafu, although Rushi had a mild headache.

Barafu was a very interesting camp. There must have been at 50-100 meters of elevation gain from the start of the camp to the registration hut. The entire camp is on a steep slope, and was covered in the clouds so again visibility was almost nothing. When we started to pitch camp, it started hailing on us – lightly at first but the intensity picked up once we were inside the tent. By the time we had lunch & got ready to sleep, there was a significant amount of hail on & around our tent. Luckily the cloud layer burned off as we slept & melted it all by nighttime. I was able to get some good sleep, but Rushi fought with a severe headache initially. We were rudely awakened to have dinner at 6 PM. We don’t understand why they didn’t wait until 11 PM, before we started the climb. It was very annoying to have to eat and then go back to sleep. I had mild sleep apnea, as the amount of oxygen in the air was much lower than what our bodies were used to, so our resting breathing rhythm didn’t provide enough air to the body. We now don our battle raiment(cold weather shells), and set forth to conquer Uhuru Peak!

Continue to The Final Battle: PLANETARY MUFFIN EXPEDITIONS VS UHURU PEAK

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