Breakfast Wall to Karanga

By some miracle I'd snagged a solid 10 hours of sleep, and I think it was mostly responsible for my recovery. The nausea was mostly gone, the headache had moved from an 8/10 back down to a 4, and I felt I had energy to work with. By no means cured, but improved enough to keep climbing. In truth I'd been expecting to wake a ragged mess and be sent down the mountain with a porter. We were all reporting improvements except Kelly, who appeared to be made for mountains and hadn't had a single complaint so far — aside from the obvious challenges of being a woman relieving herself on the side of one.

Ahead of us was the Breakfast Wall: a large, narrow ridge climbed straight after breakfast, hence the name. In ideal conditions a Magumu makes it in 30 minutes; we had hundreds of climbers and their support teams (a 4:1 ratio) all rushing to secure the best Karanga camp. Two ascent routes converged here, exacerbating the jam. Tempers flared. Magumu took serious risks on unestablished routes to get up the ridge. Below and above us we could hear arguments between teams, vomiting from climbers hit by the sudden elevation gain, and at one point the clanking of pots and pans falling down the escarpment as a porter lost his load making a 'first ascent' of a new line.

The climb itself took about two hours, and we were greeted at the top by yet more rain. As we walked the ridge we could hear ice seracs breaking off high above and tumbling down the mountain. Every roar made us look up. Kush confirmed we were well clear of danger but said to keep on our toes regardless. A shame the weather only let us see a few feet ahead — the scenery would have been incredible.

Five hours of valleys later we made the final ascent into Karanga, the last replenishable water source on the route.