Africa 080Today we start out by climbing up the Baranco wall, a massive 1000 foot vertical lava flow. It is mostly straight up from the stream valley. When you first see it, it is hard to imagine that there can be a trail on it. For some of the time, we use ropes so that if we fall we will not go all the way to the bottom. After we get to the top of the Baranco wall, the climb becomes more gradual. We continue on upward until we get to the ridge at about 14,100 feet. We then begin descending through the Karanga Valley towards the Karanga camp, at 13,200 feet. The Karanga camp is on a very rocky slope facing southwest. At night, we can see lights from the town of Moshi. It looks like you are seeing it out of an airplane window it is so far below us. During the night, the wind picks up gusting at times to about 30 knots and several times it seems like it is going to pick us up inside our tents. Because of the wind, it is very cold outside of the tents that night. We have to make a run for it between the mess tent and our tents. At this altitude, the vegetation is mostly gone. We are camped on an old sloping lava flow with lots of large rocks and boulders.