Brutal! - Summit Day - Mount Meru

Up at midnight to reach the summit of Mount Meru.  I’m so glad you start the walk in the dark because if you actually see how far you’ve got to go in the day time, you’d say thanks but no thanks.  Your walk to the summit requires all sorts of skills, walking, scrambling and even a bit of via ferrata.  Altitude sickness hit me again and I fell behind in the group, but I already knew one of our guides Clemence was going to keep an eye on me, and so we marched to the summit together.

It takes 7 hours to reach the summit, yes it’s a hell of a slog, and after we met up with the rest of the group and had group photographs I had a chance to eat and drink.  We set off after the main group, and it was a struggle all the way down.  Every impact affected my guts and I had to take regular stops.  You go down the same way as you came up, so yet again we were facing a 7 hour journey to camp.

When we got to the camp the rest of the group had already packed and we had to set off down to the huts from the night before to make tomorrow a short day.  In total I walked 17 hours today, by the time I got to the camp I was spent and slept for quite some time.

It was brutal!