Kilimanjaro : Day 4 To Karanga Camp: Conquering Barranco Wall

Date: Feb 7, 2024

Distance Covered: ~3.1 Miles/5.0 Kms

Elevation Gain: 1450 ft: Elevation Loss: 1300 ft. Hike: From 13,000 ft to 14,100 ft back to 13,150 ft

Moving Time: ~ 3 Hrs , Total time (including breaks) ~ 5 hrs

Bernadette scaling up the climb like a seasoned pro.

At this point, sleeping throughout the night feels like a distant memory. These days, I'm lucky if I string together a few hours here and there, maybe 1-2 hours at a time, then spending, what feels like forever, trying to fall back asleep. Since we decided to kick off a bit later today, I took it easy to get ready.

The highlight of today's hike? Tackling the Barranco Wall!

It's this massive cliff of volcanic rock. Standing at the bottom looking up, it's pretty intimidating, it's about 850 feet tall.

Since it's the area where a bunch of routes come together trail is usually crowded during the peak times. Rashid given option to either head out 6:00 AM to avoid traffic or at 8:30 after traffic was cleared. Of course we chose the later and waited for the early birds to clear out.

Making our way to Karanga Camp was not easy, as you can see from the pics. Climbing it was like doing a bit of a scramble.

We were all packed up and on the move by 8:30 am. Initially the trail dipped down to a small stream of water before it took us over to the wall's base for the scramble part. We climbed a bit, then had to shimmy down a tight spot back to the main path. Emanuel (deputy guide) told us to not use poles for this part. We had to use our hands a lot, and there were some spots where it got pretty airy. Despite our later start, we still found ourselves in a bit of a traffic jam at some points.