After 11 days of traveling I’ve eventually arrived at Barunste Base Camp. I think the title says it all! I’m at the highest I’ve been since the beginning of the trip at 5,426m and the summit of Barunste looms another 1,703 vertical metres above me and about 8.5km… 8.5km, even I can run that in an hour, but this I believe will take considerably longer!

Today is a rest day. To leisurely sleep in your nice warm tent as the sun makes it feels like a greenhouse, or sit in the mess tent reading or listening to music or a story book. But I decided to go for a walk. There’s good reasoning for my decision, well two good reasons, anyway. The first to better acclimatise, the old adage’ walk high sleep low’ and the second, I wanted to look at the head wall climb and to see whether it looked as vertical close up as it did from a distance. Fortunately perspective and reality were at odds and what appeared vertical from Base Camp is about 45 degrees, so in fact half way off vertical!

The walk was a three and a half hour round trip and I was at least 30 minutes from where we’d start climbing the head wall and I’m going to be doing this at least a couple more times. Not an unpleasant walk when doing it once but multiple times just might be a tad tedious.

Another thing about a rest day, it’s time to look at one’s hygiene. So I splashed out and had a shower, not the sort of shower most of you are accustomed too, though,,. Half a bucket of warm water inside a shower sized tent with a rock floor as a drain! It’s also a time for assessing whether or not you’ve been wearing the same clothes for too long, my wash bag is filling slowly, after 11 days I have two dirty pairs of pants, two dirty pairs of socks, one dirty shirt and two dirty handkerchiefs. I can also say that my shorts and summer weight walking trousers are also dirty and are of no further use on this expedition. It’s true that the body learns to clean itself when no longer attacked by detergents on a daily basis! Would I clear a train carriage… probably, but no-one notices up here.

This, the second rest day will be spent sorting out my climbing gear. Double checking everything works and is there. A little late, but it’s just peace of mind. I’ll make sure all those pesky, heavy electronics are all charged up and ready to go. Most of all the second test day will be a day of doing nothing, but eating, napping and aimlessly wandering around Base Camp!

I’ve just watched ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’. I downloaded on my iPad to watch during these rest days… isn’t just the most amazing film, is there a Walter in all of us?