Mawenzi Tarn Camp to School Hut Camp (Day #7( (2/18/2011)

We woke to a beautiful, crisp, sunny morning.  The sun was out and Mawenzi looked great bathed in the early morning light.  The steep Western slopes of Mawenzi rise abruptly from the surrounding flatness to numerous craggy peaks, the highest point being Hans Meyer peak at a height of about 16990 ft (5149 m).  Mawenzi is actually shaped like a horse-shoe with the Northern and Eastern portions destroyed in earlier eruptions.  The Chagga, the people of Kilimanjaro, have a great story about the two peaks.  Mawenzi was the older of the two, but Kibo was the nicer, he was kinder to the folk who lived on his slopes and was always out doing errands and all kinds of charity work.  Mawenzi,on the other hand, was usually at home, sat around and did nothing worthy of note.  In spite of his hectic schedule Kibo kept his fires burning while Mawenzi was so bloody lazy that he let the fires in his hearth die off often.  He usually took a quick walk across the saddle to Kibo and Kibo would always give him the fire.  One day Mawenzi lets the fire die once again and as was his habit, he walks over to Kibo.  Mawenzi looks around and not seeing Kibo, who was on his rounds helping his people, helps himself to Kibo's fire.  Mawenzi is well on his way back to his abode when Kibo gets back to find his fire making its way to his neighbor's'.  He loses his temper and with a mighty roar he hits Mawenzi with such force that he puts out Mawenzi's fire forever and destroys the once beautiful and taller citadel.  And there you have it.  Look at Mawenzi, and you can tell where Kibo's mighty fist landed and took out a good portion of its peak.

We left camp the way we had come in the evening before.  Once at the top of the ridge we walk along the undulating trail through the foot hills of Mawenzi till we get to the saddle.  The saddle is the barren alpine desert between Kibo and Mawenzi.  Barren, except for a few tufts of grass here and there and scattered rocks and the wreckage of a plane.  Bernard first pointed out the piece of metal on a rock, which I immediately recognized as one of the control surfaces of a plane.  It looked like the flaps or aileron of a Cessna.  I couldn't see the rest of the plane and on questioning Bernard, he points out a white speck in the distance, which turns out to be a Cessna, a 206 most likely.  It had crashed about three years back on a sight seeing trip from Kenya.  We hear that four passengers died in the crash and the pilot was seriously injured.

Crashed Cessna 206

The Saddle

The path is wide and easy and we meet up with a few of our acquaintances and trade stories. The clouds move in along with mist and the temperature drops.  The trail splits in two, the on one on the left to Kibo Huts Camp and the one on the right to Outward Bound Camp.  The trails steepens from here on and the going slows down.  Lunch is around 1:30 pm and we come to the dining tent set up by our fantastic crew, amid a field of boulders.  Lunch was sumptuous, and while we were at it the wind picked up and the temperature drops even further.  We emerge from the tent to a howling, and bitingly cold wind.  The trail is steeper still and the wind, cold rain and the altitude don't help.  One helluva slog and two and a half hours later we get to School Hut Camp.  This camp is also known as Outward Bound Camp but this name is not in common use any more.  School Hut is at 15,584 ft and there is a permanent hut here which on this occasion was unoccupied.  It was a grey evening and there certainly was no view to be enjoyed.   Today we split our kit in two, one, which had only the things we absolutely needed at the summit, and the other, everything else.  Everyone is doing great and the altitude sickness that had plagued Renee had resolved.  Norah and Ken are doing well except for a slight headache.  Appetites are still good and thankfully no one has diarrhea.  Altitude sickness could become a real problem but we were all not showing any overt signs of it.  Bernard checked our oxygen saturation with a small pulse oximeter everyday and today was not any different.  All our saturations were at levels which would set off a case of extreme panic in the nursing staff back home.  But here, on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, we were all just happy we were breathing and not panting nor feeling out of breath.  We go to bed early as it was going to be a wake-up call at 4am.

The Saddle (Photo by Ken)

I was longing to see the splendor of the African sky at night but it was not to be and the beautiful sky hid behind a blanket of clouds and mist.  May be another night…