We woke up to a great day and a great view from our tent of Mount Cameroon as the sun rose. We were looking forward to our hike up the mountain. We packed up our stuff, had a quick shower and breakfast, and then started to gather together the stuff we would need for our 3 day climb. As we were stuffing a number of different people's stuff into a few bags, it took some time, but we able to get it done in the end. We needed stuff for three days, including our sleeping stuff and food.
We were ready by 10:30 AM and jumped into a taxi to take us to the start of the Guinness trail up the mountain. There we met our guides and porters. Once the rest of our group has gathered, we began our walk shortly after 11 AM. Our goal today is hut 1 at 1,858 meters. Many people go up to hut 2 on the first day, and then ascend to the peak and back down to the bottom on the second day. We wanted to break the descent into two days, so we would climb to the peak and back down to hut 2 on the second day, and stay there over night, coming down the rest of the way on the third day.
The hike up to hut 1 is through rain forest and heavy tropical vegetation. It starts to get very hot and sticky as we climb, but we can take it slow as we have lots of time. We see lots of different plants and flowers on our walk up. It is quite a gradual slope up on this stage of the walk - a good way to start.
We arrive at hut 1 shortly after 1 PM and we have the rest of the afternoon to relax and take it easy. It is a nice place to rest. It has cooled off and there is a breeze blowing. We are just at the top's of the clouds that have blown in, so we are often in sun light. The one problem at hut 1 is the bees - they love our sweat and they are constantly flying around us and landing on us. We are able to do a good job of ignoring them (they do not sting unless provoked), until one of them flew up the back of Lars' shirt. He got stuck in there and, as a result, stung him. It was quite a painful sting, but we were bale to get the stinger out and apply some lotion. After that, we tucked our shirts in (or, at least Lars did)!!!
We collected our water from a stream about 100 meters down the trail from hut 1. We would treat it prior to drinking. During the afternoon, we had various activities to keep us busy, such as napping, reading, writing in journals and playing poker. Lars and Paolo had a poker game going that was getting into big sums, but it all evened out in the end. While Lars was napping, a big bug crawled onto his "pillow". It kept us busy for a while.
At 3:30 PM, we prepared some hot water with oxo cubes and noodles as a mid-afternoon snack. At 5:30m PM we prepared our dinner - mushroom soup into which we put pasta noodles. It became pasta with mushroom sauce by the time it was finished - and it was great and very filling. Dinner was done and we were all cleaned up by 7 PM.
As it was now dark and beginning to get cold (and we were getting up at 4 AM the next morning), we decided to get ready for bed. A number of us decided to sleep outside on the deck - the room was a bit dark and dirty. It turned out to be quite a cold night, with a good wind blowing, but our sleeping bags were up to the task of keeping us warm. It is always nice to sleep in the open.