Mount Kilimanjaro Day 5 - Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp

At a glance:

Karanga Camp to Barafu Camp
2.5 miles
+2100 feet
Final altitude 15,100 feet

Today was another easy day. It was pretty much all uphill to base camp, a.k.a. Barafu Camp. It was a gradual incline and we didn’t even break a sweat because we were going pole pole. The only day we have broken a sweat on this climb was day 1 in the hot jungle. Other than that, the weather has been perfect: not too hot and not too cold.

Porters making their way uphill to Barafu Camp

Silhouette of porters on the ridge to Barafu Camp

It only took us a few hours to get to Barafu Camp. Raymond said it is going to be very cold tonight.

Checkers board with bottle cap pieces at Barafu Camp.

Tomorrow is summit day! Most of the groups leave at midnight to reach the summit at 6am, but since we are camping at Crater Camp tomorrow night, we get to leave at 7am. Raymond said it is only a 4km walk (2.5 miles), but we will be gaining about 4,000 feet of elevation.

We don’t have much of a view of Kilimanjaro from our campsite today, but we do have a nice view of the second highest peak, Mawenzi. It is very steep and jagged. Arden said nobody is allowed to climb it because the rock is very brittle.

View of Mawenzi from Barafu on Mount Kilimanjaro

My pulse ox is down to 82% at Barafu Camp (it went down to 75% at its lowest). Charlie was in the low 80s too.

We had lunch which was delicious, and we finished everything! We had spaghetti with butter, a chicken/veggie mix, pineapple, and watermelon.

After lunch it started to drizzle, then thunder, then snow. We played poker while it passed through, and Charlie put a whopping on me. Most of the thunder was below us, but it did get pretty close at one point.

Cool cairn at Barafu Campe with Kilimanjaro in the background

Next, we had dinner. We didn’t have an appetizer, but instead had a big pot roast with potatoes and other veggies. It was SO good and was probably our best dinner yet.