The invitingly clear view of Mt. Meru the evening before our 3 day adventure began. This was one of only two times in 5 days-before, after and including our climb-when the mountain was free from its veil of clouds. We had amazing luck!
The base of Mt. Meru is surrounded by Arusha National Park, so the baboons and giraffes were there to greet us and make our trip even more exciting.
Here we go! The hunchback is our gun-toting, National Park issued ranger along to protect us from the buffalo and whatever other dangers we might encounter.
The guides re-packing the bags before we head up the mountain.
I mentioned the inclement weather and this should give you a good idea of what it was like. Luckily, it was rainy buckets before we began the hike, but 20 minutes out it let up. We arrived at this camp about an hour before it started pouring again. This was the morning we set out for the second camp, but it cleared up and just remained foggy until we reached the second camp. We got settled at the second camp and had hoped to run up Little Meru to acclimatize ourselves but it was raining. An hour later the sun came out and burned away some of the clouds making for brilliant conditions for a sunset hike. And the ultimate luck...for our hike to and from the summit we had perfectly blue skies. And as we were driving away from the National Park we looked back to see Mt. Meru engulfed in clouds yet again.
The amazing Tanzanian guides carrying all of our gear and food and charging up the mountain effortlessly. This is hiking African style! You carry only your day bag and water and create a job for 6 guys for 3 days.
The peaceful view of the vast expanses that spread out from the lower slopes of Mt. Meru.
The first camp was posh! Plenty of water, rooms with 4 bunk beds, sinks, toilets, dining hall...not what we were expecting.
Catherine and Jo taking afternoon tea, looking out from the deck, willing the clouds to part so we could get our first view of Kili.
Our first view of the summit of Mt. Meru since we started our walk (a bit daunting!)
Right out of a story book!
Encountering unique vegetation on mountains is always one of my favorite parts about hiking.
Amazing! This is what it's all about!
In the running for a spot in my top ten favorite scenes.
Looking down at the second camp from the summit of Little Meru.
Do you see the hippo?
And there she is, poking out of the clouds to show us the challenge awaiting us in the morning.
This high mountain meadow with the clouds racing across was breathtaking.
On the summit of Mt. Meru with Mt. Kilimanjaro in the distance.
Mt Meru's ash cone.
This was the foggy scene at 2:00 am when we reached Rhino Point-only 700 meters left!
The hikers at sunrise.
Hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro may be an amazing experience but you would miss this incredible view!
Jeff, our tour guide extraordinaire (who also took us to Mt. Kenya) , on the phone at 4500 meters.
The towering shadow of Mt. Meru.
Catherine, Hannah, Jo and me stand triumphantly on Socialist Peak.
The only snow I have seen since December 2006!
Happy, hearty flowers at 14,000 feet!
Yep, there it is and we were just there!
To think we had just walked this stretch in the dark 3 hours ago! It was an amazing morning, the sky was clear and the stars were brilliant. Sirius overhead chasing after Orion-was happy to see the familiar sight while hiking on top of a mountain.
Good thing we didn't miss a step on this little hill on the way up!
How about this job? Carrying bags of cement and lumber up to 3000 meters to build the camp you see in the picture above.
And the adventure didn't even end when we got off the hiking trails!
Not a bad way to end a good adventure.
A fig tree you can drive through.
2 comments:
Ho. Ly. Crap. That looks freakin' amazing! Man, now I want to go to Africa simply for the hikes!
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