Day 3 and 4--Becoming quite the adventure

9/27, 0745, Shira Camp. Slept better last night. It was below freezing--the water bowls for washing were ice this morning.

1700--Good day of hiking today to Barranco Camp. Except for that hour before lunch where the Diamox and 2 cups of coffee kicked in and "pole, pole" was not getting us to the toilet tent soon enough. We got to climb Lava Tower--250 feet of hiking over rocks and bouldering--fantastic fun. Shanta and Hosea have taught us a lot of plants--paper flower, Scottish thistle flower, wild carrot, and a cool plant--giant senecio--that takes 15 years to grow a new branch, so you can tell its age roughly by the number of branches. We saw a huge one with 12 branches--180 years! [Was unable to verify this tidbit, but it makes for a good story. Wikipedia says they branch two at a time, so maybe not true.] Mary bit it today crossing the stream, and while she was mostly pissed at getting dirty, she did slice open her thumb enough for us to break out the first aid kit and feel all doctorly and thankfully not enough to use the sewing kit that I brought along just in case. Got to wash my hair with the waterless shampoo when we got to camp. The actual process was freezing because the shampoo lathered and I had taken off most of my layers to not get soap on them, but afterwards felt glorious.

Lava Tower

2100--Our Utah friends--Mary, Steve, Peter, and Michelle--came to visit us tonight. We chatted for a while about pharmacy questions (they love having Michelle at their disposal), being cake eaters (they tease us for some of our extra perks), and how much we're gonna freeze on summit day. And then they taught us the card game Golf and we played a few hands, laughing and teasing each other like we've known each other for longer than 5 days. They also reminded us of the hot-water-bottle-between-the-legs-at-night trick. And. It. Is. Heavenly. The sky is super clear and the snow-painted summit is looking mighty cold beneath the stars and soon-to-be-full moon. Trying to think positive.

New friends!

9/28, lunch time. Karanga Camp. "Karanga" means peanut. This morning Michelle and Mary weren't feeling so hot, so it was a difficult hike. Even I didn't realize how physically and mentally exhausted I was until I sat down at camp. We didn't even hike 4 hours. We started with the Barranco wall--several hundred feet of steep climbing, stepping up rocks, and using hand holds. There were several traffic jams as hundreds of people had to squeeze through tight climbing spots one at a time. We have the afternoon to rest which is a Godsend since right now we're tired, bordering on cranky.

If you look closely, you can see the single file line of hikers up the Barranco wall

1700--Well, after an afternoon of rest, several trips to the bathroom tent, enough Advil to kill a kidney, and us force-feeding Mary anything that wouldn't make her vomit, we're feeling a little better. [Remember that "better" is quite a relative term and I'm sure that when I say "we", I'm probably not speaking for them] Although Michelle just groaned and said, "I don't feel very good." [See?] So much for positive thinking. Our afternoon ritual is to sit in the mess tent, eat popcorn and drink tea, maybe play a hand of Euchre, and pile all of our newly-filled water bottles on the table to steripen them. Hosea said our camp uses about 200 liters of water a day, cooking, cleaning, and drinking, and all of it is carried by the porters from the closest stream fed from the glaciers. They balance the full 5-gallon buckets on their heads as they trek back to camp. It's so impressive. I was encouraged that I was warm enough to sleep well last night, until Hosea said, "Oh yeah, very warm last night, I sleep just in my underwear." I guess "warm" is relative. [Notice how many things are relative. This truly was a trip outside our comfort zone, but for them, it's just normal life. We should not have anything to complain about.]

Afternoon popcorn and Euchre

2000--bedtime. Spirits were down at dinner. Mary and Michelle still aren't feeling well, and I know Shanta and Hosea mean well when they say you have to force food at altitude but I know that internally, Michelle and Mary are cussing them out, because they know they have to eat, but even talking about food makes them want to vomit. And it's cold, even just at 13,200', and we have a long way to go. Michelle and I especially hate being cold, so it's discouraging to think about the fact that we're sitting in the mess tent 6,000 feet below the summit with nearly every layer we have, drinking hot tea and still shivering.

Shanta gave us a wonderful reminder tonight when he saw how down everyone was. "Excuse me. You believe in Jesus, right? I tell you, for me, when I first start on this mountain, it was very hard, and I say, 'Jesus, You be strong for me.' And He was. And when I am sick, I say, 'Jesus, You are the best doctor. Give me your medicine.' And I am better. So when you feel that way, you don't think about it, you just say, 'Jesus.'" [I knew for me going in that this trip would be offered up as one big prayer, but it was so refreshing and encouraging to hear Shanta talk about it this way as well, even though he's climbed the mountain a hundred times.]