Summit Sistas

2:30 am and we are ready to go…. I guess we should have taken that melatonin last night.  Plus we have been up 3-4 times to pee already.  In these early hours we are second-guessing the new route proposed by our guide.  Does he have our best interests in mind, or some other motivation?  Juli, we wish you were here, too, but hopefully thoughts of you rushing us up the mountain will keep us going when it starts to get tough.

Well, I guess we will try to go back to sleep if we can get our minds to quiet down (and Jill’s incessant chatter.)

We are in bed.  It has been a busy day and I have to say I’ve been amazed at Jill’s energy; after such a horribly long trip, I expected today to be more filled with siestas than sightseeing but we didn’t take a nap at all.  No wonder, I guess, that upon exiting the shower, I found Jill asleep over the laptop instead of completing the photo uploads.   I woke her up long enough to properly get into bed, now she’s already slumbering while I post the last real update for a few days.

The briefing with the guide was good and to his quiz of: “do you have….?”, we were able to consistently provide positive responses, so we’re feeling well equipped.  Whether or not we’re ready is another question altogether!  He informed us that we’ll have to slightly change our route to avoid spending 2 nights at a high camp – there has been a lot of precipitation and temperatures are well below zero so he’s worried too long up high is unnecessarily taxing. We also received confirmation that summit day will be between 12 – 14 hours with very short stops (3-5 min) at Gillman’s Point and Uhuru, then a longer break on our way down again to enjoy a hot breakfast.  After the briefing, we came back and started packing (and re-packing – everything now sealed in Ziploc bags to avoid getting drenched in the downpours they’ve been having); Jill suddenly mid-seal looks at me and says, “Wow. I just really got bungy-stomach!”  And she is right; this is definitely reminiscent of pre-Bloukrans Bridge!

We won’t have the computer with us on the mountain, so the updates during the coming 7 days will be brief (typed in with the phone when we have a signal).  But keep your comments coming!  We will be avidly reading them for motivation at each camp!

P.S. Reader poll: what to do with long hair for a 7-day hike and no washing opportunities? 

P.S. 2   A big “Thank you!” to all our equipment helpers – esp Lou for the sleeping bags, waterproof bag, drink bottles, etc.  and Achim for the high-tech goodies and power gel!

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