Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Day 10: Camp V to Camp III

Today was a hellishly long day. We combined two of the days from the hike-in and the result was an epic 9-hour slog through hail, mud, and jungle. The day started well enough; the weather was fine until around midday. By noon we had reached the intermediary camp site and ate some lunch. However, almost as soon as we started out after that it began to hail very, very hard. Though they weren't golf-ball sized, the hail was very hard and I was afraid we might have to stop and take cover at one point.

Luckily, it eventually abated and we continued. Because of the wet conditions, however, we were all soaked to the bone and freezing cold. I was legitimately worried that my mother would get hypothermia. We didn't take any breaks for the remainder of the day, and rolled into Camp III in the early evening.

We dried our gear in the porters' smokey tent and then barely made it through dinner before falling asleep. We're seriously going to need it if we intend to get out of this jungle in two more days...

Back to the crazy jungle trekking...notice how our porters are barefoot. They are incredibly strong and have totally awesome hobbit feet!

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