Cold and dark.  Our guide said the snow wouldn’t be on the trail and there would be no steep rocks to climb, he was trying to keep us from being nervous.  We were the second group out of camp at 1140 pm which was nice to have the trail to ourselves.  Day 6 is not when you want to deal with crowds on slippery dark trails/rocks.  On arriving at Barafu 10 hours earlier we saw someone with a broken wrist from trying to summit earlier that morning.  Later on we heard that someone had broken their back the day before, fun.  Just over two years ago we were learning about the Italian tourist that fell to her death two days before we began our first volcano climb in Indonesia.  So a broken back on top of the tallest free standing mountain in the world is not fun, not enough money for helicopters so they were carried down the mountain on a stretcher for 6 miles.

Five and half hour chilly hike up to Stella Point.  We stopped about every 30 minutes to breath, eat a bite of granola bar, and try to drink our water that was rapidly turning to ice even though it was wrapped in dirty wool socks.  Around 18000 feet there is 50% as much oxygen as at sea level due to the lower air pressure.  We were headed up to 19341 feet.  Luckily we remembered our head lights for this climb.  Slow and steady through about 4 inches of snow trying not to fall or run out of energy.  The temperature was not too bad with 7 layers on top and 4 layers on bottom until Stella Point at 18,652 feet.  We reached  Stella just after 5oo am.  After Stella we headed left to hike for another 45 minutes up to Uhuru (Freedom) Point/Summit.  This last bit is not terribly steep along the crater rim but is a bit colder with significantly more wind.  Walking from the summit was an exciting and amazing view.  To the left we could see the glaciers becoming clearer as night turned to day.  To the right we could see the amazing sunrise from the roof of Africa over the crater.  To our front you could see hikers beaming and cringing as they got closer.  We even passed a 78 year old NCSU graduate from Charlotte smiling underneath an icicle encrusted mustache.

The descent took 2.5 days, or at least that’s what it felt like.  Once we got back to Barafu Camp we had a celebratory juice with our porters and a quick nap before waking up to hike another few hours down to Mweka Camp.  On the way down to Mweka it was neat to watch the shrubs turn back to trees.  Mweka Camp was the closest thing to civilization since Machame Camp on day 1 and was a welcome site.