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Today was harder than I’d expected. We’re just below 18,500 ft (5,600 m) and Camp 3 is at 19,500 ft (5,950 m) but the altitude is really starting to make its presence felt. It’s getting hard to perform even basic tasks(like putting our shoes on to go get food). My resting heartrate was at around 80 bpm but even just getting out of the tent would spike it to 140. As such Huey & I have developed a system to make this more efficient – I feel like there’s some classic joke here about two engineers being tent-mates. Huey & I would alternate who gets the meals so that only one of us had to bundle up and undertake the herculean effort of getting out of our tent.
I’d like to point out the hilarity of this situation as the distance to the guide tent was shorter than the distance from our bed to the door in our hotel room. That should tell you something about how much extreme altitude sucks. (Yes that is a thing, high altitude is considered > 8,000 ft (2400 m). Extreme altitude is 18,000 ft (5500 m) & above).
It is definitely colder up here. Luke tells us that your body feels colder at higher altitude even if the temperature is the same due to the lower air pressure. My fingers were getting pretty cold and were starting to hurt even in my gloves due to the gusts of wind. My shortness of breath didn’t help either. It shouldn’t have been a hard day but it felt hard.
About 250 feet below Camp Three we saw some stones that formed the word “Kili” – indicating that’s about where Kili’s summit would be. Pretty cool!
Camp Three is pretty barren and is the most exposed camp to high winds. Teams don’t like hanging out here as the body isn’t really able to recover energy at this altitude. After spending a couple of minutes here and depositing our stashes, we headed back to Camp Two and generally relaxed for the rest of the day – what’s now become our usual routine. Slog for a few hours, rest for the rest of the day. Except you’re seemingly always out of breath, slightly cold, and constantly worrying about whether you should use the bathroom now or later. Not very pleasant.
I’m sure by now you’re seeing a pattern to our days – carry, move, carry, I bet you can guess what comes next…
Planetary Muffin Expeditions 