Against all odds, in a 25 year old Mercedes with just over 1 million kms on the clock, we made it safely to the base camp at 1740 metres.
Anna has been more interested than normal to look out of the car window on the way – Camels, Mules, Goats and Sheep all over the place! We have met the mountain guide who has advised us of a new plan, having assessed Anna.
We shall now proceed at 0800 tomorrow directly to the refuge at 3200m (so a 1500m climb in one go), where we will rest for the night. We expect this will take 7 hours of hard climbing.
We will spend the night in the refuge but have to get up at 0500 for the trek to the top of the mountain (this will be Jack’s fourth rise at 0500 or sooner this week so hopefully he will not snore) and we hope to be there by 1200.
We will try and catch the sunrise over the Sahara on the ascent, but will only stay at the top for 20 minutes or so. It is expect to be around 0°C at the top.
The good news is that we are told the weather is likely to be better than reported in the newspapers. The bad news is he has told us that 1 in 3 people get sick and they as a policy do not discuss continuing with you, and you are immediately brought down. So we will have two guides, in case one or two people get sick, to give Anna a better chance of making it to the top should she prove to be made of the toughest stuff!
Keep watching, we will provide an update tomorrow from the Refuge.
Thanks to Andrea Meister for managing the blog in our absence. We will just have mobile phones some snaps to relay from now on.
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