February 1, 2006: Machame Camp

The transition from the rain forest to the heath zone was rather abrupt. As the late afternoon rain quickly tapered to a drizzle, we emerged onto a plateau where the vegetation suddenly converted from the giant moss covered camphorwood trees to the shorter heather bushes. The mist and fog still hung heavy over us, obscuring any view of the landscape around us. Our hike had taken about 6 hours and we had ascended 1800 vertical meters (>5400 feet). This would be the larger gain in elevation that we would do in any single day. Within minutes, our first campsite, Machame Hut, appeared in view.


Our first task upon arriving was to sign in at a small hut. We waited in line briefly to do this behind a large group of loud but otherwise jovial french folk. The hut also had a small scale where the porters reweighed their cargo in order to assure that they were not carrying a significant amount of weight over the dictated limit.
























[Photos: The French wait to sign in; Ajay and Jen with Living, our assistant guide; signing in; Machame Camp)

We wound our way through the various campsites to find our tents that had been already set up by our porters.

We all felt well. At 10,000 feet of elevation (3000m), the only real indication of altitude at this point for me was an elevated baseline heart rate.