From Kibo Hut, 4703m

It’s 10:40 on Saturday night.  In 20 minutes we’ll be getting up and suited up for our summit attempt.  It’s too bad that there is no reception here at Kibo Hut (15,400ft) because these messages are delayed however I’ll try to connect as we get higher on the mountain.  Saturday started out at 6AM with tea then breakfast.  Since we’d done most of our sorting the night before, breaking camp was fairly efficient and we were hiking up the trail to Kibo Hut by 8:10AM.  It was a long 8 hour slog to Kibo, with an elevation gain of about 3,000ft.  We all fared pretty well, helped no doubt from the Diamox (an acclimatization enhancing drug) that everyone except Sarah can take.  Unfortunately she has to do it “O naturelle” due to an allergy to this drug.  We’ve all taken some little green pill though – to reduce brain swelling apparently – it’s great to be traveling with 2 nurses in the group!  We got to Kibo at 4PM.  It’s a wood structure on a substantial concrete and rock foundation and thanfully it’s quite empty so the 4 of us are occupying a 12 bed bunk room by ourselves.  Supper was early and between 5 and 8PM we sorted gear, prepared water and energy supplies.  I modified some crutch tips with studs and also took the ice tip off the snow show attachments as that may be a good solution for descending through the scree.  At 8PM we got into bed – not to sleep.