Day 6: Mountain Day 4

Barranco Camp, 3960m ASL
Today was going to be a short day's hike, as we'd chosen the 7-day option rather than 6. This mean days 4 and 5 would be easy-ish half day hikes, rather than an 8 hour marathon before tackling the summit.

But the first order of business was the Barranco Wall, a several hundred metre high wall of mostly sheer cliffs that loomed over our camp, with a small trail zig-zagging upwards.

We made a slightly later start (9am) to let the 6-day trekkers through, then attacked the wall ourselves. Thankfully it was actually easier than expected, mostly because of the amount of scrambling involved. A couple of hours later we scaled the last ridge, tired but proud. Above us was another amazing view of the summit, and ahead of us was a mostly-flat desolate moonscape. Off we went for the rest of the day's walk, though the final annoying stage was a rocky descent of several hundred metres to Karanga river valley, followed by a several hundred metre climb up to the camp.

As it was a short day, we were basically finished by 1pm. Had a wash, a hot lunch, and a brief rest in our tent before heading out on another acclimatisation hike. We climbed a few hundred metres up a ridge above the camp, much easier going without backpacks and we stayed on the ridge for a while despite the cold chilly weather.

Back down to camp for another hot dinner and a frosty night. We both feel like we should socialise more with the other climbers but the reality is that it's simply too cold outside and our tents are too small to do much socialising.Read more