Day 38 2/21/99: Sheffield Camp (14,800')
At 8:16a.m. Alex called everyone to start our
6-hour hike to the Sheffield Camp at 14,800'. Mt Meru is in the background.
Today we ascended through moorlands and saw the last of the
Senecio Kilimanjari.
If you have been eating carrots, then you must
have good eyes and will be able to find the Fischer camp that we just left 10 minutes ago.
The hint: look for the canvas dining tent.
Mt. Meru in the background. This picture will
take a whole to load as it's 1024x768 and 195K bytes.
Wait a minute. Do you detect a slight hint of a smile on
Stephen's face? Was it forced or genuine?
What's so interesting about this picture?
- The whole hiking group is in this picture: Alex in the lead, Brad, Alice, Lesley, Doyle,
Greg, Theresa, Anne, Bruce, Lois--now I'm guessing--Ede, Norman, Charito, and Liza. Samia
is toward the end on the side of the trail after.
- Mt Meru is in the background: upper left
- How quickly the mist and fog can move in to block the sun.
- This is NOT a picture of Kibo as it gets shrouded in clouds everyday starting at around
10:00am.
- The weather is getting cooler, as everyone has long pants and fleece.
- The lack of vegetation as we are moving out of the heather and moorland zones and into
the alpine high dessert zone.
What's the right answer? Give up?
Actually, the most interesting fact of this picture is that I was taking the picture by
first hiking to the FRONT of the group. Obviously, I was starting to acclimatize to the
high altitude. Yes, I was starting to have fun!
Send me mail if you know the scientific or the
common name for these plants along the trail. As we entered the alpine and high desert
zones, the vegetation changes to small and hardy alpine species, such as smaller lobelia
and flowering helichrysum.
We rested for a brief moment to drink some water.
Anne was saying, "Theresa, this trail is too flat and too easy for me. I'm used to
climbing Yosemite in California. Why don't we take a tour and go up that steeper
trail?" ... Okay, she did not say that.
I have a problem with this sign. No, I don't have
a problem of keeping the mountain clean. I did not litter. I kept all trash with us--the
porters were the ones who carried our duffel bags anyway. The problem I had was where the
heck is the the nearest hut station. I never saw one. Even as I'm sitting here writing on
the WEB page and looking at a map, I still don't see a hut station marked on the map
anywhere. So far the trail has been pretty clean. No plastic bags nor coca-cola bottles.
After three hours of hiking it was a picnic lunch
on the trail.
Alex, Samia, and the assistant guides all carry their own gears. I don't envy them. In
fact, it would have been great if someone else could have carried my small backpack, which
was weighed down by 2-3 quarts of water. I did not need to be told to drink water each
morning as we started to hike because I wanted to lighten my load as quickly as possible.
Theresa continued to have fun. Almost always I
hiked right behind Theresa. For inspiration and motivation I got to see the two luggage
tags that I made and were hanging from Theresa's backpack.
One tag was Gloria Estefan's song Reach:
- If I could Reach, higher
- Just for one moment touch the sky
- From that one moment in my life I'm gonna be stronger
- Know that I've tried my very best I'd put my spirit to the
test
- If I could reach
( Click here for a QuickTimeMovie,
or RealAudio
from http://www.estefan.net/clips/ )
The other tag has Rondo's picture: 
After lunch we hiked for ~1.25 hours and reached
the Sheffield Camp.
The men's bathroom is already ready for us. You
may laugh at this, but I think it worked great. To ensure maximum comfort, I used it
during the daytime when the wooden seat is warm. It's an entirely different experience if
you have to sit on the frozen seat at night or early in the morning. :-) I feel sorry for
Theresa.
It's necessary to burn the toilet paper because it does not
bio-degrade quickly enough. We had to soak it in some kerosene and then tried to light it.
It was especially frustrating if it was windy. Look at the 5 matches I used before I
succeeded. In the future I suggest to the trekkers who want to go on this trip to bring a
lighter (I almost brought one of those Scripto Aim N Flame lighters that has a long reach,
but I'm sorry I did not.), or better yet you can bring a blow torch!
When we got to
our camp, the porters would have set up the tent and put our duffel bugs and sleeping bags
inside the tent. Unfortunately for Theresa and I, who like to sleep with me always
sleeping to the left of Theresa (our 15-years-old habit dies hard even on the mountain),
our bags were always reversed. We just did not have the heart to tell our porters. It was
always nice to be greeted by the porters and shown to our tents. Here were the porters for
Anne, Theresa, and myself.
Our trip brochure states, "Sheffield Camp, at the foot of Kibo
Peak, offers wonderful view across the Shira Plateau and the plains below to the majestic
mountains in the distance." Oh really? All I saw was fog, fog, and more fog! Are you
sure that we are on the right mountain? :-)
Here were the porters and camp staff cooking up a storm and keeping themselves warm
with a bon fire. What, you don't see any trees for firewood? Hakuna Matata--no
problem--the porters carry up the firewood from below! I've been living such a soft and
comfortable life back at home. For warmth, I just have to turn up the thermostat; for
cooking, I just turn a knob to have my gas stove electronically lite. This was adventure
travel after all. So Theresa and I didn't miss her Starbuck Caramel Machiato hot espresso
drink and my rich chocolate ice-cream--not that much anyway. :-) This was during Lent when
we were supposed to give up something after all.
So what's interesting about this picture?
- The aluminum tubing legs of dining tables that have to be carried up the mountain.
- The three-legged, canvas stools that we get to sit down and dine with comfort. At times
it was difficult to keep our balance. I only fell flat on my butt once. Fortunately I did
not kill myself. That would have be so embarrassing if I have to tell people, "No, I
could not make it up Kili--I hurt myself while trying to sit down and eat." At least
I could not hurt myself by slipping in shower since there is no place and no water! 4 days
without a shower, and Theresa still loved me. I say that's a pretty good marriage. :-) (Of
course, she has not taken a shower, either. :-)
- I think the legs on the left belong to Alice. (Alice, please confirm this.) No, she did
not hike up the mountain in those shoes. There was someone else who hiked up and down the
mountain in his Nike running shoes, though. I'll reveal his identity later...
- I think the boot on the right belong to Lesley. I could be wrong. (Lesley, please
confirm this.) Look at how dusty and scuffed up the boots can get after just 4 days of
hiking--with our toughest hiking yet to come.
What's the answer? Give up?
In Tanzania if you want to see wildlife you should go on a safari. There are very few
animals or birds on this inhospitable mountain, especially in the alpine high desert zone.
However, in our case during dinner we were greeted by an animal. I'll give you a hint:
it's fuzzy, four-legged, and has a little tail. Yes, we were visited by a mouse! Having
been born in the Chinese year of the Rat, I'll take that as a good omen for myself. If
this little guy, who has a tiny pairs of lungs, can survive at 14,800 feet, surely I'll do
just fine. :-)
Wilderness Travel's brochure is accurate, after
all. Look at the dramatic view of Kibo glowing in the setting sun. I used my digital
camera to take this two-frame panoramic picture. You can see the various glaciers. By the
way, the peak of Kili is at the upper right-hand corner and is slightly covered by cloud.
We will scramble through the Western Breach Wall in just a few days. I wondered if the
brochure would still be accurate "This is our toughest day..." I have not had
the heart to tell Theresa the details of the Western Breach Wall scramble...Why get her
worried when nothing can be done...
Just to show you how quickly fog and cloud can
roll in and obscure Kibo. The two previous pictures were separated by one minute. I did
not even have time to get my Canon EOS camera with its 80-200mm zoom lense. Opportunity
lost. At least I'm happy that I had my digital camera with me and was able to snap a
picture of Kibo Most of the other people were not so lucky.
Click here for next day's adventure and find out why exactly we
gained ZERO feet in elevation 
