Mauna Kea summit

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IT'S JUST gone 2:00 in the morning and I've just arrive here at this stop. My guide is just over there somewhere packing up one of these vans. There's a few more of us in our group coming shortly. We're going to be heading up to the top of Mauna Kea at about 4200 metres above sea level and over ten kilometres high above the sea floor from here it stands making this the world's tallest mountain. This is one I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to add this one to Kilimanjaro, Kinabalu and a few other mountains I've done as part of the bucket list peaks I want to do. Unlike the other ones which I had to walk up right from the bottom, this one we're getting driven up almost right up to the very top so this will be a whole lot easier to do. With that being said being up at 2:00 in the morning is quite a challenge, but that's part of the joy of it. The best time of day to reach the top of a mountain is sunrise and that's what we're planning to do today.

OK the sun has just risen now. Being at very high altitude at over four kilometres above sea level the air pressure is about two thirds what it is at sea level. I'm really puffing even though I'm walking slowly which is quite normal at this altitude. If you look over here these are all observatories. They are put up here because the air is about as clear as anywhere on the planet. You've obviously got the altitude at 4.2 kilometres above sea level and the sky up here is very clear with very little wind. If you look past the towers you can actually see the shadow of the mountain extending several hundred kilometres in the distance. You can also see the coastline down there and further over in that direction you can see the island of Maui. If it were a bit clearer down there you'd also see some of the other islands.

It is absolutely spectacular up here and I'm huffing and puffing with the altitude. Normally when climbing at altitude above 3ooo metres above sea level you acclimatise gradually. Today was different though with such a rapid ascent. We did do an acclimatisation back further down the mountain where we did some star gazing but it's pretty extreme up here with huffing and puffing. It reminds me of when I was on Kilimanjaro a few years ago. That was a lot higher again at 5900 metres but here I ascended so quickly the breathing here is nearly as difficult.

I'm going to look around a bit more and do some more photography and then we're going to start heading down. We should see a lot going down as we didn't see much going up in the darkness. So hopefully I'll see you somewhere back down at sea level where the temperature is a lot warmer. It's actually freezing up here with just a little bit of ice formed on the surface.