Alpine Ascents Kilimanjaro Climb: Team Mwanasimba and Mtotos Summit

Kili Team Mwanasimba and the Mtotos celebrates their climb with songs and great meals before heading out on safari:

Hello everyone, this is Sarah calling from Mwanasimba and the Mtotos and it is August 28th and I am happy to be calling and letting you know that folks are safely off the mountain, and Mani and Aswin must be home yesterday afternoon, once we got picked up. And the rest of the group headed out this morning and are on safari, so hopefully they’re having a blast seeing all sorts of wild animals.

Our last day on the mountain was a good one, with folks hiking downhill a long way, so we got some sore knees but everyone’s doing great. (transmission garbled)…. where everyone was greeted with songs from the rest of our crew and a big celebration with lunch, and really enjoyed saying “Goodbye” to the staff that took such great care of us on the mountain.

And we came back to the hotel and got showered and did some laundry, then had a great celebration dinner last night. We were at the restaurant, which is called Bailey’s, and had great food and drank wine and really enjoyed ourselves, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

So needless to say, this was a great group and we had a blast together. And this is the last cybercast from Mwanasimba and the Mtotos, so thanks for listening everyone and we will talk to you later, bye!


Team Mwanasimba and the Mtotos summited Kilimanjaro with beautiful views from the rooftop of Africa!:
Hello everyone, this is Sarah from Mwanasimba and the Mtotos and I am calling from Millenium Camp (which is about 12,200 feet). It’s about 8:30 in the evening and everyone is in bed, and I’m hearing a chorus of snoring.

We had quite a day, we got up about 11 at our high camp which was windy, fortunately the wind died down at 11 and we headed up to the summit around 12:15. And we had a gorgeous summit day! The wind died down until we got up to Stella Point, which is where we get to see into the crater. And walked up to the summit as a couple groups and had beautiful views from the summit of Kilimanjaro, the rooftop of Africa. So ten of our climbers, ten out of eleven climbers headed out on the summit day and all ten of those climbers made it.

Last night at high camp we did have one climber, Richard, come down with signs and symptoms of pulmonary edema, so Richard unfortunately was not able to join us on the summit climb. He descended and is in Mweka Camp, healthy, happy, doing really well after descending several thousand feet.

So, I’m happy to be calling from Millenium Camp where everyone is healthy and safe and sound, having had a great summit day and/or a safe descent. And we’re tired, but everyone is looking forward to a nice walk out tomorrow and folks are starting to think about showers.

So all is well and we’ll talk to you tomorrow, bye!


Team Mwanasimba and the Mtotos feeling strong and excited as they prepare for summit bid tonight:
Hey everyone, this is Sarah calling back from Mwanasimba and the Mtotos here on


Kilimanjaro, at our high camp at Kosovo (which is at about 15,800 feet). And I got cut off last call but I’m happy to be calling from high camp.

It’s about 4pm our time and we got into high camp at about 1, and got moved in. The nice thing is, we pretty much have high camp to ourselves, most folks camp below us. And so we’re all moved in, and tucked in, we had a great lunch. And then we spent about 45 minutes talking about the summit and getting prepped for our summit bid which will be tonight. Folks are getting ready right now, everyone’s packing their day pack, changing batteries in head lamps, making sure the snack food they have looks good to them and in general getting nice and organized because we’re going to get up around 11pm and start walking at midnight for the summit.

We’re all excited and folks are feeling good and strong here at 15,800 and it’s a new altitude record for a bunch of our crew, which is really exciting and we’re all excited. We’ve been working hard this whole week to get to this point to have a jump off and have a summit bid. So tomorrow’s our day and we will be calling you tomorrow afternoon once we’re done with our climb.

So all is well and we’ll talk to you later, bye!


Team Mwanasimba and the Mtotos at Kosovo, the high camp on Kilimanjaro, resting up under clear skies before the summit attempt:
Hello everyone, this is Sarah calling from Mwanasimba and the Mtotos and it is August 25th. It’s about 4 o’clock our time and I’m happy to be calling from our high camp at Kosovo.

We had a great walk this morning. Again we had beautiful weather, clear skies. We left camp at about 8:30 and everyone was feeling pretty strong and had a nice four hour walk. Folks did a great job pacing themselves, and taking care of themselves and we rolled into Kosovo, which is our high camp (which is at about 15,800) at about 1 o’clock.

(transmission cuts out)

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Earlier:

Team Mwanasimba and the Mtotos climbed the Barranco Wall into the sun, enjoying stunning views of Kilimanjaro and the Tanzanian valley below:
Hello everyone, this is Sarah calling from Kilimanjaro climb, Mwanasimba and the Mtotos. And I am calling from the Karanga Camp (which is at about, just under, 13,000 feet). And it’s about 8:30 in the evening right now, and everyone is tucked into bed. It’s a little bit breezy out there but we’re all doing well, everyone’s healthy and warm, and getting rested up for the move to high camp tomorrow.

We had a great day today. Again, we had a little sleep in time today and didn’t get up till about 7:15 and left our campsite at Barranco around 9:30 and had a great climb out of the Barranco headwall. Folks moved really well on rock and were in high spirits getting up into the sun, up on the top of the Barranco headwall. Then we had a beautiful hike over here to camp and I’d say, all in all we hiked for about 4 hours and had amazing views and clear skies all day. So we had some great photo ops and just a really nice hike in general.

We got to camp and our cook got set up and our tents were set up and we quickly rolled into lunch and had a huge lunch. They fed us really well with fish, and meat pies, and soup and all sorts of stuff. And then we actually had a couple hours to chill and relax, and folks took naps, folks read books, just enjoyed the views of both Kilimanjaro and down into the valley. And then we had a great dinner along with the story of how Kilimanjaro got its name.

So everyone’s doing great, happy, healthy, getting really excited to move up to high camp and we’re starting to think about, looking towards the summit. So all is well and we will call you from high camp tomorrow. Bye!


Kili Team Mwanasimba and Mtotos (Swahili for lion cub and the small children) scramble up the Lava Tower before descending to Barranco Camp:
Hello everyone, this is Sarah calling from Mwanasimba and the Mtotos, here on Kilimanjaro. And I am happy to be calling from the Barranco Camp (which is at about 12,700 feet) and we had a great day today, it’s one of our longer days.

We got up nice and early and left camp at about 8 this morning and it was a little cool, but it was beautiful clear skies, we had great views of Kilimanjaro. We had a great hike up towards Kili, and towards the Lava Tower. Had a really good lunch, and after/at lunch the clouds started rolling in, so our views disappeared for a little while. We headed up towards Lava Tower, and ended up at about 15,000 feet, which is a new personal record for a bunch of folks, in terms of their highest altitude they’ve been to. And at 15 we had some folks continue down to the Barranco Camp and we had the rest of the group actually do a little scrambling up to the top of Lava Tower (which is at 4637 meters, I don’t have the feet calculations right here). We had beautiful views, it had cleared up so we had gorgeous views again of Kili and looking down towards the Barranco Camp. And we rolled down into the Barranco Camp around 5:30 and were greeted with the songs and dances of our whole support crew here, which is just a great, fun occasion for all of us.

And it’s about 8:30 right now and everyone’s tucked into bed, after a great dinner and hot drinks, and folks are feeling good. And we’re all looking forward to going up the Barranco headwall tomorrow. So we’re going to have a little sleep in tomorrow and we will call tomorrow afternoon when we get to the Karanga Camp.

All is well, bye!


Kilimanjaro Team in high spirits at Shira Camp after hiking up to 12,400 feet with clear views of the gorgeous African wilderness:
Hello everyone, this is Sarah Carpenter calling from Shira Camp (which is about 12,400 feet). And I’m calling from the Team Mwanasimba and the Mtotos. All is well here up at Shira Camp, we had a beautiful day on Kilimanjaro.

We woke up and there was not a cloud in the sky, so we had great views all the way back towards Arusha, Mira Peak, and we could see down to the valley floor. So we headed out on a gorgeous hike this morning, and hiked for about 3 hours before we got to lunch. And during that time we finally got some glimpses of the high peaks, which was really exciting. So we got to see some snow and looking up towards the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, which always got us all excited. After lunch we had about a 2 hour hike, even a little less into camp. Folks came in with high spirits and great energy, and we had actually a few hours to relax before we had some hot drinks and popcorn and rolled into dinner.

It’s a beautiful night, the stars are out and we can see the silhouette of the mountain in the background and folks are tucked in until 8 o’clock tonight. And we are looking forward to a beautiful day tomorrow but all is well and we’ll talk to you tomorrow. Bye!


#10 after a cloudy first day climb up to Machame Camp:
Hello everyone, this is Sarah calling from Alpine Ascents Kilimanjaro climb… (transmission garbled). We got to the Machame Gate and connected with our African guides, and our porters and cooks, and got underway around 11 o’clock today. And we had beautiful hiking weather, it was cloudy, so it was nice and cool but it wasn’t raining on us and the trail was in great shape. (transmission garbled)

Had a nice lunch stop, folks are getting used to the fact that we even have a nice lunch (transmission intermittently cuts out)… then headed… Machame Camp… we gained about 4,000… today and had a really nice hike.

And everyone had a great dinner tonight, steaks, potatoes, great dessert. And folks are in high spirits so everyone’s feeling really good and really enjoying getting started on our Kilimanjaro climb. And we’re still working on a team name, so for now you can call us Team (transmission cuts out) and we’ll keep you posted if that name changes.

So all is well from our first camp and we’ll talk to you tomorrow, bye!
 

Earlier:

Team: Poa kichizi kama ndizi, Crazy cool bananas are safely back in Arusha!

Hi Everyone!

We had a successful day today, making it safely to the Mweka gate of Kilimanjaro national park and finally back to Arusha! We had a very nice buffet lunch at the gate before loading up in Land Cruiser’s and heading back to Arusha. The trail on the way down started out dry and sunny and ended in a little rain as we descended into the rain forest and into the clouds. Overall it took us a little over 5 hours of hiking to complete our climb of Kilimanjaro (Kibo).

Tonight we had a very civilized celebratory dinner after being reunited with all of the creature comforts of a fine hotel!

Below are a few pictures of our trip! Tomorrow almost all of us will be heading out on Safari and Amrish will be heading home back to Singapore.

Everyone in this group did an incredible job of staying focused and mentally positive throughout the trip despite the hardships of climbing to over 19,000ft! I want to thank them all for making this a great trip!

Thanks,
Ben Jones
 

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Earlier:

Kilimanjaro has been successfully summitted with style by our Team Poa kichizi kama ndizi, Crazy Cool Bananas!:
Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Poa kichizi kama ndizi, Crazy Cool Bananas, here on Kilimanjaro. We are down at Millenium Camp (which is just over 12,000 feet right now).

We all summited today! From about 6:30 until about 7, in a couple different groups as we all went up but 100% success today on the summit. Everybody made it; everybody made it with style and back down. And we’re doing well, we’re tired, it was a long night. We got up at 11pm, left at midnight, arrived at the summit at around 6:30 – 7 am, and all made it safely back down. And packed up camp, headed down here for another couple hours, down here to Millenium Camp (at just over 12,000 feet).

We’re feeling much better now that we’re out of the higher altitudes and we’re looking forward to some rest tonight. Just had a great dinner and a congratulatory cake was baked here in camp, by our Chef Hudson, did a fantastic job. So we just finished that, and now we’re heading off to bed.
We are going to hike out tomorrow and be picked up and go back to Arusha. So we’ve got about maybe around a 4 or 5 hour hike tomorrow and we’ll have a last day lunch at the Gate tomorrow, where we get picked up at the park, the Kilimanjaro National Park. Then we’ll head back to Arusha. We’ll let you know how tomorrow goes and let you know that we’re all safely back in Arusha and that’ll be our last cybercast.

Thanks for following along!


Kili Team Crazy Cool Bananas feeling awesome at Kosovo (high camp at 15,800 feet) as they prepare for a midnight summit attempt:
Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Poa kichizi kama ndizi, Crazy Cool Bananas. We’re doing awesome! We just got up to high camp, well a few hours ago I suppose, we didn’t just get up here. We got up here a few hours ago, took us about 4 and a half – 5 hours to get up here to high camp, at Kosovo Camp (which is at 15,800 feet).

Everybody did a great job getting up here. When we got up here we had lunch and we kind of talked about the summit to prepare for that, as far as what to pack, and what to expect time wise and what to wear to stay warm enough. Everybody went back to their tents and kind of got things organized and packed up and ready. And then we had an early dinner, went to bed for just a few hours and now we’re up and at ‘em.

We just had breakfast; it’s about midnight, just after midnight and we are setting off for the summit right now. So we will let you know how today goes but it looks like everybody’s starting off with a good start here, we just finished up a hot breakfast so we got some warm food in our bellies and we’re heading out.

We’ll let you know how tonight goes and talk to you soon.


Tanzanian staff at Karanga Camp welcome our Team Poa kichizi kama ndizi with beautiful singing and dancing!:
Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Poa kichizi kama ndizi, here on Kilimanjaro, Team Cool as a Banana. We’re doing great.

We are at Karanga Camp, which means “peanut” in Swahili. We are at about 13,300 feet today. This morning we ascended from Barranco Camp (Barranco Camp is about 12,800 feet). We ascended up the Barranco Wall and climbed a couple thousand feet, got up over 14,000 feet, and then we descended back down, a couple times up and down a little bit towards the Karanga Valley here. And we were up at camp, we got in this afternoon, we had a nice lunch.

We were welcomed by some great singing from all the Tanzanian staff here that works with us, coming up the mountain here, which was great. They’ve been doing that at every camp we get in, each day to camp, they sing us four or five songs, and sing and dance. It’s been really nice, it’s been great.

Everybody’s doing good, we’re here at Karanga Camp, just finished up dinner, so we are heading off to bed. Tomorrow we will head up to our high camp at Kosovo Camp (at about 15,800 feet) and then we will prepare to go to the summit tomorrow night or early the next morning.

So we’ll let you know how tomorrow goes but la la salama for now, which is “good night” in Swahili.

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Earlier:

Team “Cool as a Banana” scrambled up Lava Tower, after a long day of hiking and enjoying lunch gazing out at stunning Tanzania:

Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Poa kichizi kama ndizi, Team cool as a banana. We’re doing great here at Barranco Camp (at about 12,800 feet). We had a very long, but great day of hiking that took us around, about 9 hours all together today to get to Barranco Camp, but then that’s including lunch and a few breaks along the way. A few of us decided, after lunch, to take the Lava Tower option, which got us a little bit more elevation gained today. And a few of us scrambled up to the top of Lava Tower, which gave us a nice view of the surrounding peaks and clouds below, still looking up at Kibo here. We had a great day hiking.

Everybody’s doing great, just a few minor altitude symptoms but everybody’s taking care of those, and drinking lots of water to help with that as well. Tomorrow we’re going to have our shortest hiking day actually, we’re going to head on up to Karanga Camp (at about 13,300 feet). Tomorrow morning we’ll ascend the Barranco Wall and head up to nearly 14,000 feet, then we’ll drop back down a little and climb back up to our camp.

The weather’s been great, a sea of clouds below us, we can see Mount Mero popping up in the distance here, which is the second highest peak here in Tanzania. It’s a beautiful volcano out near Arusha, that we can see. The weather’s been great up here, kind of nice and cool for hiking, lots of sun today. We hope the weather holds out for us the next few days, as we climb higher on Kilimanjaro here and go for the summit here in just a couple days.

Everybody says “Hello” to family, friends, and loved ones back home and we will talk to you soon.
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Earlier:

Team #9, named “Poa kichizi kama ndizi, cool like a banana”, heading to bed after a beautiful sunny day hiking to Shira Camp, on the southwest corner of Kilimanjaro:

Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with the Team “Poa kichizi kama ndizi, cool like a banana”. We’re doing great! We’re at the Shira Camp, within the Shira Plateau now.

We had a great day of hiking today, just beautiful weather most of the day. Cooled off a little bit this evening here, and we had some clouds in the afternoon but for the most part, it was a beautiful sunny day all day long. We’re at about 12,300 feet now, and started at about 10,000 feet this morning at our first camp, at Machame Camp.

Everybody’s doing good, feeling a little bit of the altitude, when we first got up here, but everybody’s taking care of themselves and drinking lots of water, which helps our bodies adjust to the altitude here. So, we just finished up dinner, we had a nice rice dinner, with beef, and sauce, and some curry, it was a great dinner. And now we’re off to bed here.

Tomorrow is our longest day of hiking; we’re going to be heading towards, kind of directly at the mountain here. We’ve kind of just traversed up on the side of the mountain and now we’re going to kind of be heading straight at it and then start to curve around it, just a little bit toward the east. We’re kind of on the southwest corner of the mountain right now, looking up at it. So tomorrow we’ll head towards the mountain, we will top out at close to 15,000 feet tomorrow, have a chance to climb what we call Lava Tower, which is a little scramble up to the top of a rock, a couple hundred feet higher. We’ll see if we’re all feeling good to go up there or not, if not, we’ll head back down to camp, Barranco Camp (which is at about 12,800 feet). So we’re going to be going up a little high tomorrow and then dropping back down to camp to sleep tomorrow night, which will be beneficial to us for our acclimatizing.

Anyway, we’re all doing well and everybody says Hello to everyone back home and we’ll talk to you soon.


Stars fill the sky above our Kilimanjaro Team #9, after a long first day hiking through the cool rainforest to Machame Camp:

Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team #9 or “Poa kichizi kama ndizi”, cool like a banana (Swahili). That’s our team name right now, but we may change that, we haven’t decided quite yet.

Everybody’s doing great, we had our first hiking day today, we got up here to Machame Camp (which is at 10,000 feet). Everybody doing awesome, feeling good, little tired after the long day today. We gained about 4,000 feet getting up here today, so it’s kind of a long first day to start with. But everybody’s excited, we just finished up dinner, and had some good laughs this evening and now we’re off to bed.

So tomorrow we’re going to hike up to Shira Camp (which is about 12,300 feet) and we’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. It was a pretty nice day today, nice and cool through the rainforest and looks like it’s clearing off now, we see lots of stars overhead tonight. But it was pretty cloudy, we didn’t get great views of Kilimanjaro, like we sometimes get. So hopefully tomorrow we’ll see Kilimanjaro and start heading a little bit more towards the mountain.

Talk to you soon!


Team 9 in Arusha……Heading to Machame!:
Hello Everyone!
Everyone on team 9 is safely in Arusha with all of their luggage! We had a somewhat busy day yesterday with an orientation in the morning followed by a gear check, a town tour, and finally our first team dinner last night! We are excited to be heading to the mountain today in just a little bit and begin our ascent of Kilimanjaro (Kibo).

I will be doing daily dispatches. So follow along as we climb to the "Roof of Africa"!

Ben
 

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Earlier:

Team “Rose Bowl”, Safely Back in Arusha!:
Hello Everyone!
Team Rose Bowl has successfully and safely completed the climbing and trekking portion of the trip! We have just returned from a very nice celebratory dinner here in Arusha and are looking forward to sleeping in a bed for the first time in a week!

Our last day of hiking was about 4 hours of descending through the rain forest to the Mweka gate of the national park where we had a buffet lunch and ended the intense exercise portion of the trip! Tomorrow, everyone but Britton will be heading out on Safari, and Britton will be heading home.

Thanks to team “Rose Bowl”, for an unforgettable and fun trip to the “Roof of Africa”! Everyone did an amazing job of accomplishing their goals of getting to the summit and back safely! Thanks for the hard work!

Ben Jones


After standing on the summit of Kilimanjaro, Team #7 finally heading to sleep at Millenium Camp!:
Hello, this is Don Carpenter from Mount Kilimanjaro Team #7, calling in on the 8th of August it’s about 8 o’clock in the evening and we are all hauling into bed after a successful but long day. We’ve essentially been up since about 11pm last night, on the 7th. We woke up at 11pm, had breakfast, and then started walking towards the summit, shortly after midnight. The summit climb went very well, everybody successfully made the summit!

We had good weather with a little bit of wind up high but successfully got the whole team up there. And then all back safe and sound back to our high camp, where we had lunch, got a little bit of rest, and then proceeded down the mountain, towards Millennium camp (and we’re camped at about 11,000 feet tonight) so everybody’s enjoying some thicker air. And we had a great dinner down here.

We’re all looking to get about 10 hours of sleep tonight before we hike out to the gate tomorrow. So about midday tomorrow we should be at the trailhead and driving towards Arusha by mid-afternoon, so folks should be able to make contacts from Arusha tomorrow night.

Thanks everybody for listening, we had a great trip! Bye!


Team Rosebowl watches a beautiful sunrise from the summit of Kilimanjaro, the top of Africa!:
Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Rosebowl here on Kilimanjaro. We all summited today, 100% success today on the summit of Kilimanjaro this morning! And we are back down at the Millenium Camp (at just over 12,000 feet).

And I’m going to pass around the phone for a few folks to say some things back home:

Hi everybody! This is Cindy, I know some of you are tuning into these things every night, thanks for doing that. We had a great day, the summit was awesome, got incredible shots of the glacier on the way down. And we all feel good! So we’re off to hit them one more last day tomorrow, and then we’re going to hit the Serengeti. So we’ll see you soon and thanks for keeping up with us. Hi Cod and Lins, bye!

(transmission cuts out for a moment, as phone is passed to another climber)

… Just saying hi, all is well here. Look forward to seeing you in a couple days. Little sore, little tired, actually exhausted, but other than that, in great shape and had a great time.

Hi Kitty, this is Jim. It was a long day, but a successful day. Everybody made it to the top, which was great. We had pretty good weather, we saw the sunrise over east Africa. And all told, we were on the trail for about 14 hours today. So we’re all excited to get out, and get on safari and we’ll see you in a few days. Take care, okay, bye!

Hey everybody, this is John and I’m here with Lindsay and we were on the mountain for our anniversary a few days ago, but now today we got to summit Kilimanjaro (19,341 feet). The sun was rising, so it was really exciting. We all are pretty tired, but we miss you all back home and we’ll see you when we get back there.
Bye!

(called out in the background, then as the phone is handed around, the transmission becomes choppy and ends)

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Earlier:

On a beautiful, calm, clear night on Kilimanjaro, Team Rosebowl is excited and well-rested as they head for the top of Africa:

Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Rosebowl, Team #8 here on Kilimanjaro. We are doing fantastic! We are at high camp, we are just leaving high camp to go for the summit. We’ve got nice clear skies, it’s about 12:30 right now, you can see the lights of the Moshi town, just below us here. It’s a pretty calm evening so far, so it’s looking good.

We got up here today in the early afternoon, or I guess yesterday now. Got up here at a really good time and had some time to relax, had lunch, got packed up for the summit, got ready for that. Then had a little rest time, had dinner, then we went to bed for a few hours and just got up about 11pm, had breakfast, and now we’re off for the summit.

So everybody’s excited, maybe a little nervous, but we’re all doing well, feeling good, and we’re looking forward to get to the top of Africa here. So I will let you know how everything goes today. Later on, the team will be summiting then coming all the way back down, packing up here at our high camp, and then moving down even lower. So once we get down lower, I will let you know how everything went. We will talk to you soon.


The Hunter family team celebrates their successful summit of Kilimanjaro and wonderful family vacation!:

Hi, this is Jonathon Spitzer from the Hunters private Kilimanjaro trip. Today is August 7th and we are back down in Arusha. We descended today, down at Mweke Gate, had a traditional celebration with all the porters, staff, cooks, and local guides. It was a lot of fun, good times and yeah everybody’s doing well. And we’re just going to hang out here at the hotel tonight and have some dinner before we all depart our different ways and back. The Hunters will be flying back towards Canada and yeah, that’s about it. And I’ll try to post some pictures when I get some internet.

Thank you, bye!


Kilimanjaro Team 7 hiked up to Kosovo High Camp, where they are resting before attempting the summit at midnight:

Hey everyone, this is Sara calling from Kilimanjaro expedition 7 and I am calling from Kosovo High Camp. And we had a great day today, we left the Karanga Camp about 8:30 this morning after a great breakfast. We hiked up through the clouds, all the way up to Kosovo Camp. Folks did great, everyone really enjoyed the hike, the pace was really nice and everyone rolled into Kosovo feeling pretty darn good.

Folks can feel the altitude, we’re up at about 15,600 feet, but everyone’s doing well. We had a really good lunch and folks are just relaxing right now and resting and getting ready for our summit bid tonight. We’re going to have dinner in another hour or so and go to bed, and get up somewhere around 11 pm and head towards the summit at midnight. So hopefully the next time we’re calling you we’ll be telling you about our summit day.

For now, all is well and folks are doing great and we’ll talk to you later, bye!


Kili Team #7 ascended the great Barranco Wall, a 1500 foot steep climb with some rock scrambling, before arriving in Karanga Camp:

Good morning, this is Don Carpenter with Kili Team #7. It’s currently August 7th about 7 in the morning and I’m calling in from Karanga Camp. We got cut off on the last call, so we’re repeating and hopefully this one comes through okay.

So we’re waking up here this morning, it’s a beautiful morning, there’s clouds below. We had a great day yesterday, we hiked from Barranco to Karanga. Right out of Barranco, we went up the Barranco Wall, a steep 1500 foot climb with a little bit of rock scrambling and everybody did great. We hiked through a few valleys, through some clouds, and a little bit of spitting rain and rolled into Karanga Camp in mid afternoon.

Everyone is in good spirits and doing well, we had some lunch and some downtime and early to bed last night for a big day today. Today we hike up to our high camp above Barranco and we’ll get ready for our summit attempt.

Two days ago we did have one of our expedition members, Elin Johansson, she was ill and we sent, we had her hike down and she arrived safe and sound in Arusha, where she should be feeling much, much better. We were sorry she needed to go down but that was the best thing for her.

Today we head to high camp, where everyone’s excited to get ready for summit attempt. So we’ll call you from high camp and let you know how everyone’s doing. We’ll talk to you later, bye!


Team Rosebowl climbs the Barranco Wall, arriving for lunch and some relaxation in the sun at Karanga Camp:

Hi everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team Rosebowl here on Kilimanjaro. We were at the Karanga Camp today, we’re at 13,300 feet thereabouts, and we’re doing great. It’s our shortest hiking day to date to get up to the Karanga camp. We left the Barranco camp this morning and ascended the Barranco Wall, which is a pretty neat, kind of different variation of most of the trail that’s on Kilimanjaro. Here we kind of ascend up this rocky wall and there’s some tricky spots to go up there, but very doable and everybody did great along there. But that takes about a couple hours to get up, then descend a little bit back down, and then climb back up from the Karanga River back up to the Karanga Camp. It took us about four and a half hours or so to do the hike today.

And just got in early, had lunch here at Karanga and the clouds finally cleared up a little bit this afternoon. We got some good views of the mountain this evening. And we’re doing great, everybody’s heading off to bed now. We’ll get up tomorrow and head up to our high camp (at about 15,800 feet) tomorrow. Still we’re looking forward to moving up higher and getting up to the summit here in the next couple days.

We’ll let you know how tomorrow goes, but everybody’s doing great and everyone sends their love to everyone back home. Thanks.


The Hunter family expedition successfully summits Kilimanjaro on an amazingly beautiful day!:

Hi, this is Jonathan Spitzer with the Hunters expedition to Kilimanjaro. I am calling in currently from the summit of Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa, on an amazingly beautiful day here. We watched a sunrise come up over Stella Point and then traversed on over to the top of Kilimanjaro.

And here’s Paige with a little word too:

“Well, definitely harder than I expected, but definitely worth every struggling breath. It’s been an amazing day!”

Alright, yeah you heard that from one of our climbers. We’ll be in touch in the next day or two as we make our way down. Thank you very much, bye!


Team Rosebowl enjoys some sunshine ascending Lava Tower, before heading through clouds to spend the night at Barranco Camp:

Hi everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team #8, here on Kilimanjaro, Team Rosebowl. We had another great day today.

We left the Shira Camp this morning and ascended up to over 14,000 feet where we had lunch, just below the mountain here, kind of on the western/southwestern corner of the mountain, and got up to kind of the base of the mountain, and now we’re traversing around. After lunch we all went up to Lava Tower and a few of us climbed to the top of Lava Tower this afternoon. We had great views up there. Lava Tower is just a rock tower, that’s just a couple hundred feet tall and a few of us scrambled up there in the afternoon and had some really nice views and enjoyed the last bit of sunshine, because after that, we descended back down into the clouds down to Barranco camp here. It was… kind of just went straight down into the clouds, dropped a couple thousand feet to get back down here to about 12,800 feet and got a little wet coming down through the clouds. It wasn’t really raining, it was just kind of a mist over us but still got us a little wet, a little cold this afternoon.

Everybody’s doing great though, the altitude doesn’t seem to be a factor with anyone here, everyone’s acclimatizing well. And just a little cold and wet this afternoon, but we got dried out soon. Just had a great dinner this evening and now we’re all heading off to bed and try to stay warm and get ready for tomorrow. The wind has just picked up now, the clouds have left us, we can see a bunch of stars but it’s pretty breezy here at the moment. But we’re all doing well, getting ready to go to bed and get up.

We’re going to ascend the Barranco Wall, which is right out here from camp, just a thousand feet or so of just some, kind of rock terraces going up. So we’ll climb up there then we’ll go back down sort of towards the Karanga River, then we’ll continue back up to our camp tomorrow at Karanga Camp (which is at 13,300 feet). Tomorrow is our shortest day, today was our longest hiking day before the summit day and tomorrow will be our shortest, so it’ll be good to get in tomorrow early afternoon, have lunch, and do some relaxing and maybe get some things dried out as well.

But we’re doing great, everybody sends their love back home and we’re looking forward to tomorrow. Talk to you soon.

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Earlier:

“Occupy Kilimanjaro”, the July 31st team, got a taste of some thinner air climbing the Lava Tower, before descending to Barranco Camp for the night:

Hello, this is Don Carpenter, with the “Occupy Kilimanjaro” Kili climb team and it’s the 5th of August, about 7 pm, just before 7. I’m getting ready to go into the tent for dinner.

We had another great day today, we left Shira Camp (Shira Camp is at 3837 meters). We hiked up slowly and gradually, and up over the Lava Tower camp. And actually had a side excursion off Lava Tower, which topped us out at just over 4600 meters. And then descended back down, so it was an acclimatization day, going high and then coming low to sleep low, and we’re sleeping at Barranco Camp tonight (at 3976 meters). So overall we’ve only gained about 100 meters but we went up high today, to allow people to get a taste of the thinner air, then come back down low, to sleep low. So that’s for our acclimatization.

Everyone’s doing well, today was a longer day, we got into camp a little bit later and now we’re all heading into the dining tent for dinner. We’ll be climbing the Barranco Wall tomorrow, and going to Karanga Camp.

We’ll talk to you soon. Bye!



Team “Occupy Kilimanjaro”, the July 31st expedition, had a steep climb up from Machame, then traversed to the Shira Plateau and beautiful views of upper Kilimanjaro:

Good morning, this is Don Carpenter, with the July 31st Kili expedition, and we have a new team name which is “Occupy Kilimanjaro”. Currently the 5th of August, it’s about 7 in the morning and we’re waking up here at Shira Camp (which is 12,500 feet). We had a great day yesterday, we hiked from Machame Camp and up to Shira Camp on the Shira Plateau. We had a steep climb out of camp, for the first few hours, had a sit down lunch and then the last couple hours, the elevation mellows out a little bit and we traversed over to the Shira Plateau.

We were in the clouds in the morning and then shortly after lunch we broke out of the clouds and had our first real views of the upper mountain, of Mount Kilimanjaro. Everybody’s doing great, we rolled in, had some down time, and dinner last night. And today we’ll have a longer hiking day to Barranco Camp.

Everyone’s doing well and we have a message from the group:

“Hi Tom, hi Sally, it’s Mommy and Daddy. We love you, we miss you. Africa’s beautiful, Don’s doing a great job guiding and we’re super safe. Tom, I hope you had a wonderful time at summer camp. Bye!”

We’ll talk to you all tonight. Bye!



Team #8, Team Rosebowl hiked up through some clouds and mist, then were welcomed to sunny Shira Camp with songs and beautiful views:

Hi everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team #8, or Team Rosebowl. We’re doing just great here, we’re at Shira Camp tonight. We had a nice hike, today we left our first camp (at 10,000 feet) Machame Camp, then we climbed up here to around 12,300 feet at Shira Camp, up on the Shira Plateau. We had pretty nice weather most of the day, we had some clouds roll through as we were ascending up, some clouds and mist, and foggy conditions. As we kept continuing to get a little bit higher, about lunchtime, the clouds kind of broke and we had some great views down out over the clouds down below us. It was nice and sunny most of the afternoon. We got into camp, and once again all of our staff here, the Tanzanian staff sang us some great songs, welcoming us to camp. It got a little cloudy this afternoon, we had some clouds roll through and a little bit of wind here at Shira Camp, but overall a nice day.

Just finished up dinner. Everybody’s doing good with the altitude, no headaches, or no issues at all, as far as the altitude goes. Everybody is acclimatizing well, taking very good care of themselves, drinking lots of water. Our bodies need more water to process all of the extra activity we’re doing and acclimatize better, so we’re all doing that, we’re eating lots of food, and we’re having lots of laughs.

This group has a great sense of humor, they all know each other very well and it’s a fun group to be with so far. We’re at 12,300 feet tonight, tomorrow we will head up, get a little bit higher, up about 14,000 feet potentially or even around 15,000 feet up near lava tower and then we’ll descend back down to Barranco Camp tomorrow. We’ll be at 12,800 feet tomorrow night, so we’re staying around this 12-13,000 foot area the next, tonight, tomorrow night and the following night after that to help ourselves acclimatize and get ready for the big summit push up to 19,000 feet.

Having a great time, everybody says “hello” and “hi” back home to all those friends, family, and loved ones following along here. Talk to you tomorrow!


The Hunter family climbed the great Barranco Wall under a beautiful Tanzanian sky:
Hey, this is Jonathan Spitzer with the Hunters Kilimanjaro trip. Today is day 4 for us and we left Barranco Camp, climbed up the Barranco Wall and are slowly making our way over to Karanga Camp (up at about 3900 meters).

Another beautiful day here in Tanzania, with a sea of clouds below us and just blue skies above us. So far we’re having a really good time, the family is enjoying this unique family vacation halfway around the world. That’s about it for now, tomorrow we’re going to be moving up to our high camp and hopefully on the following day we’ll be making a summit attempt.

Thanks for following our cybercast. Bye!

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Earlier:

July 30th Kili Team hikes from Machame Gate, through rainforests to the heather and a wonderful dinner in Machame Camp:

Hello, this is Don Carpenter with the July 30th Kilimanjaro expedition. Today is August 3rd and today was our first day on the mountain. We left Arusha this morning and drove up to the Machame Gate, where we registered for our climb and met our crew of staff and we started hiking. We had about five or six hours on the trail and gained close to 4000 feet of elevation, camped at Machame Camp tonight.

Walked through the rainforests today, through nice overcast and cool, perfect weather for hiking and broke out of the rainforest into the heather and here we are at Machame Camp. So we had our first night in the field, with a beautiful dinner and everybody’s getting to know each other and everybody’s feeling good. And we’re going to bed early, everybody’s been traveling so folks are excited for a good night …. (transmission cuts out). We will talk (transmission ends)


The Hunter family team enjoys spectacular views and delicious dinner under a full moon at Barranco Camp on Kilimanjaro:

Hello, this is Jonathan Spitzer with Team Hunter here on Kilimanjaro. Today is day 3 for us, we’re just finishing up here after a nice long day as we climbed from Shira Camp (up over to 4400 feet, 4400 meters sorry) and back down to Barranco Camp (here at 3900 meters). Paige, Wyatt, and myself did a little variation, we climbed the Lava Tower, on the way up (to 4600 meters) while Tammy and David just enjoyed the sights and scenery and walked down to Barranco Camp.

The food so far has been amazing! Tonight we were greeted with juice and pork chops and fresh salad. Just enjoying the scenery lately, we’ve had amazing weather with a sea of clouds below us, clear skies and some of the most spectacular stars we’ve seen. And luckily we’re here during a full moon, and the moon’s been up every night, keeping us awake!

Thanks for following our cybercasts, and we’ll stay in touch shortly. Bye!


Team #8 “Team Rosebowl” starting to see Kilimanjaro, as the clouds clear their first night on the mountain:

Hi everyone, this is Ben calling in with Team #8 here on Kilimanjaro. We’re doing great, our first view at 10,000 feet. And our team name is going to be “Team Rosebowl”. We’re doing really well, we’ve got quite the group, quite a team sitting here, it’s been a fun trip so far, just in the first day here of the journey. Excellent!

We’re hiking very efficient and slow today and looking forward to tomorrow. It was cloudy most of the day today and we’re starting to get some views here of the mountains, as the clouds are clearing off this evening. We’re going to hike up to about 12,300 feet tomorrow and we’re doing very well.

We’ll talk to you tomorrow as we climb higher up on Kilimanjaro. Talk to you soon!


Mambo #5 finishes climb and heads to safari
Hi Everyone!:

We wrapped up the climbing portion of the trip last night, with a celebration dinner in Arusha, and lots of toasts to the team!

Today folks departed for their 4 day/3 night safari journey on the beautiful Northern Tanzania circuit. Tarangire, NgoroNgoro, and Serengeti National parks.

I would like to thank everyone for their awesome effort and support of each other during our climb. It was great to have Ron Farb and his team here- 10 folks on this trip raised over $100,000 dollars on behalf of the Climb for Cancer Foundation in Gainesville, Florida!

As usual our Tanzanian crew did an awesome job and deserves much thanks and respect! We removed 45 kg of extra trash (from other groups/companies) in our on-going effort to help keep Kilimanjaro clean.
Thanks for following along! Our Summer season will continue thru mid September, with Ben Jones, Don Carpenter, and Sarah Carpenter leading trips. Time for me to head home and get some winery work done- it has been a very busy last 8 months- Tanzania-Seattle-Nepal-Seattle-Tanzania!

All My Best!

Eric


Kilimanjaro Team 8 Arrives in Arusha!!!:

Hello Everyone!

All members and all luggage are now safely here in Arusha for Team #8! For most of the team we had a day of checking gear, an orientation about the trip, a town tour, and a Welcome dinner! After dinner the remaining members arrived at the hotel after a long few days of travel and a cancelled flight! We were all happy to see them here with their luggage though and I was able to get them caught up and ready for the start of the trip today!

In a couple hours we will be loading up in ‘Land Cruisers’ and heading to the Machame gate at Kilimanjaro national park. From there we will begin our hike to the first camp tonight which is at around 10,000 feet.

Follow along as we climb to the "Roof of Africa"! There will be daily dispatches.

Ben Jones

Our route up the Machame and down the Mweka


 

The Hunters heading to Shira Camp, enjoying an amazing family vacation on Kilimanjaro!:

Hello, this is Jonathon Spitzer with the Hunters on Kilimanjaro. Today we’re on Day 2, we’re moving from 3000 meters to 3900 meters. Everybody’s doing very well, we’re having a lot of fun here with the family. This is an amazing family vacation, as we’re playing games on the trails and having a good time.

The food so far has been amazing and we’re eating fresh fruit and the service here is phenomenal! Our two local guides and our chef doing a great job! And everybody’s feeling really good with the altitude so far. It’s a beautiful day here in Tanzania.

Thanks for following, and we’ll be in touch more throughout the week. Thanks!

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Earlier:

Team Mambo #5 Made it to the Summit of Kilimanjaro! Heading to Arusha tomorrow, then on to Safari:
Hey Everyone, it’s Mambo #5, calling in from Kilimanjaro. It’s the 1st of August, at about 6pm and we would like the world to know that everybody made the summit today! We had a fantastic day, climbing to the top of Africa and everyone made it.

We are now down at our low camp, Millenium (at about 12,300 feet) where we’re going to spend the night and get ourselves a good night’s sleep, since we didn’t get much last night. Tomorrow we’re going to head down to the Mweka Gate and make our way back to Arusha, have a safari briefing, talk about the second part of the program, and go out and have a nice celebration dinner.

We’ll give you one more call from dinner tomorrow night. Thanks for following along!
 

Kilimanjaro Team 6 AKA “The Hunters”:Today we met at the very nice Arusha Hotel and went over all our equipment for our Kilimanjaro climb. The Hunter Family climb includes, David (father), Tammy (mother), and both the kids Paige and Wyatt.
The family has been traveling around Africa over two weeks on various safari and wildlife refugee trips. Paige prior to meeting up with her family was on a 3 week project with her school from Vancouver helping to build homes in a remote part of Kenya.
Tomorrow we will start to make our ascent up Kilimanjaro.
Thanks for following our cybercast.

Jonathon


Mambo #5 In Great Spirits At High Camp, Getting Ready For A Midnight Climb To The Summit Of Kilimanjaro:
Hey Everyone, it’s Mambo #5 (team all chimes in from background, amidst cheering)! We’re in good spirits here at high camp, Kosovo (15,600 feet) above sea level. It’s the 31st of July, about 5:30 in the afternoon and we’re getting ready to have an early dinner and go to bed.

We’re going to get up at 11 and head up to the summit starting at midnight. The weather looks awesome and everybody’s doing great. So wish us a great summit climb and we’ll give you guys a call from our low camp at Millenium tomorrow night.

Ta ta!
 

Team 4: Mountain Simbas Finish Climb, Head Out On Safari!:
Hello Everyone!
Last night we had an excellent celebratory dinner at a local restaurant here in Arusha. It felt good to get a hot shower and have the luxuries of a bed in the New Arusha Hotel before most of the team headed out on the safari today! We had some great times on this trip and what a great group of people to share this great experience with. I wish them the best on the safari and a huge congratulations again on all of their successes here in Tanzania! Below are a bunch of pictures of the group during the last week together on the mountain. I’ll be heading back to Kilimanjaro in a couple days, and the rest of the team will be finishing up the safari and heading home in a few more days. Thanks for following along!

Ben Jones

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Earlier:

Hey all y’all, it’s Mambo #5 here on Kilimanjaro! It is the 30th of July and we are all here in Karanga Camp, camp 4 (13,000 feet above sea level) and we’re having a great, awesome day. Everybody is doing well and we’ve got a surprise for you.

(Beautiful singing in Swahili and joyous cheering at the end.)

Good times here on Kilimanjaro!
 

Hi everyone, this is Ben calling in with the Mountain Simbas, Kilimanjaro Team #4. We summited! 12 out of 15 of us made it to the summit yesterday, and made it back down to base camp a few hours later, and made our way all the way back down to a lower camp called Millenium Camp, at 12,000 feet last night. Calling in a little late, I wasn’t able to get a cybercast out last night.

It was a very long day, but everyone did a fantastic job of most everyone getting to the top and the couple of other people turning around, got as high as they could. It was a very cold night, which made it a little more difficult and we had some high winds up on the ridge as we were going up to the true summit, Uhuru Peak. But overall it was a great day, people pushed really hard to get themselves up to the summit and to try to stay warm as well. We had a great time though, we’re back down safely.

Everybody’s feeling good, we got a good night’s sleep last night, after not really sleeping for a whole night as we travelled up to the summit but we’re doing good now. We hiked out about 5 and a half hours to hike out this morning from our camp at Millenium Camp. And got down to the gate, where we had a nice buffet lunch and relaxed there for a little bit. Just drove back the two hours back to Arusha here and we just got checked in to the hotel.

Everybody’s doing great now, we’re going to have a celebratory dinner tonight and end the trip. Most people will be going on the safari tomorrow and a few people will be heading home. We’ve had a great trip. I’m going to post some pictures here in just a little while, so you can see how our trip was, but everybody did great again. It was a lot of fun, we had a great trip and a great group.

So thanks everyone for following along and I look forward to doing another one really soon. Talk to you soon!


Hey all y’all its Mambo #5, here on Kilimanjaro, it’s the 29th of July, about 8pm and we’re at Barranco Camp, elevation 12,900 feet. We’re doing awesome, we had a great day today, beautiful weather, warm temperatures, and very few clouds, lots of visibility, great mountain views, and everyone got into Barranco Camp well. We just had dinner and it was a long day so folks are headed to bed.

A couple messages from the group: Ron and the Climb for Cancer Foundation Team would like to thank everyone for their support of this year’s Kilimanjaro Climb! Mitzi would like to remind Sammy to study for that A.C.T.! And Logan, Happy Birthday from Dad!

We’re going to get ourselves a good 8 hours of sleep y’all, and tomorrow we have a short day going to Karanga, at 13,300 feet, where we will rest up in preparation to move to high camp and to climb this baby, so we will talk to you tomorrow. Usiku Mwema! (Good Night in Swahili)


Hi, it’s Don Carpenter, with the July 20th Kili expedition, calling on July 29th. It appears I got cut off on the last call. So I just wanted to make sure my message got out, I’ll give an abbreviated version. We are all safe and sound back in Arusha.

Had a great hike out today and a great lunch celebration at Mweka Gate and everybody’s here at the hotel in Arusha, looking forward to showers and some rest and dinner this evening and then everyone’s off for safari starting tomorrow. Take care and thanks for listening.


This is Don Carpenter, with the July 20th Kili expedition, and it’s July 29th about 3 in the afternoon and we are all safe and sound back in Arusha. I’m making this call out the window at the Arusha Hotel, so you might be able to hear the sounds of Arusha in the background. (Transmission cuts out)… a long hike down the trail (Transmission ends).


Hey everybody, it’s Team #5 here on Kilimanjaro! It’s the 28th of July, we’re here in Shira Camp (at 12,400 feet) having an awesome time. We just had dinner, we’ve got some music going, thanks to Ali with the guitar (music in background).
And we are now “Mambo #5”, that’s our team name, “Mambo #5” and with me here I have:
Boston Pops, Tech Support, Happy Stuff, The Sweeper, Zipper, Duchess of Long Island, Rebound, Inquisitor, Big Wig, Hobbit, and Emurf. We’re going to enjoy ourselves tonight with a little music, get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll give you guys a call tomorrow from Barranco Camp.


Hi everyone, this is Ben calling in with Mountain Simbas, Team #4 here on Kilimanjaro. We’re at high camp (at 15,800 feet) and we’re doing great. We had another great hiking day today, it was a little bit windy but we had some clear views around the mountain and some low clouds down below us but overall a beautiful day.

Everybody continues to do really well with the altitude and taking care of themselves, as far as drinking lots of water and eating enough to sustain themselves up here. We’re doing well, we just had dinner. We got up to high camp in the early afternoon to get a little rest here before we wake up around 11pm tonight to go for the summit at midnight. We just had an early dinner, everybody’s off to bed now. We’ve done some packing to get ready for tonight, and we’ll wake up at about 11pm and have breakfast then be ready to leave by midnight. So we’ll let you know how tomorrow goes, but it’s a little windy right now here at high camp, but hopefully those winds will come down this evening before we go. And hopefully we’ll have a beautiful day on the summit.

Wish us well, and we’ll let you know how tomorrow goes. We’ll give you a call once we start heading down the mountain. We’re going to summit, then pack up gear at high camp and descend down the mountain a few more thousand feet and camp around 12,000 feet tomorrow night. So I’ll let you know how everything goes tomorrow and we’ll talk to you soon.

Ciao!


Hey everyone!
We’re calling from the July 20th Kilimanjaro expedition and we had a full day, it was a great day. And it is currently July 28th, about 3:30 in the afternoon. So we woke up last night at 11pm, for a light breakfast and then headed off on our summit climb. Climbed uphill for quite awhile in the pitch dark, with beautiful stars overhead, yeah it was just a great night, a great summit night.
We hit Stella Point probably about 5 and got into quite bit of wind, then we pushed on up to Uhuru Peak, and summited at about 8am this morning. And our entire group got up there, we had a beautiful sunrise looking down on a big sea of clouds. And descended back down to our high camp, where we rested, had some lunch, then packed up and continued descending down the mountain. So we’ve gone from the summit at 5895 meters all the way down to millennium camp at 3800 meters.
So quite a day, 3:30 in the afternoon, folks are now just taking naps and relaxing, and we’re going to have dinner at 6:30, then we’ll head out to the trailhead tomorrow. We’ll be in Arusha by tomorrow afternoon. Everybody’s doing well and happy and we’ll talk to you soon.
Bye!


Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with The Mountain Simbas, Team #4 here on Kili. We’re doing great, another great day.

Today we ascended up the Barranco Wall, which was right out of camp. We ascended up a couple thousand feet, first thing in the morning. Pretty neat climb going up there, you have to kind of do a couple little rock climbing moves, but a lot of just little scrambling and weaving our ways in and out of around some big rocks and things. Got up to the top, and we would’ve had a great view but we had some pretty cloudy weather most of the day today, but it kept it nice and cool along the trail. And we just had a great day hiking, getting to know each other more on the trail. And we ascended up to a little over 14,000 feet, then we dropped back down another thousand feet or so and we climbed up just a little bit more up to camp today, up to Karanga Camp.

This is our shortest day of the hike, which is nice in preparation for the summit day, which is coming up very soon. People did great, got a good night of sleep the night before and are feeling great today here at camp. We got in nice and early, had lunch at camp and had a few hours in the afternoon just to kind of relax around camp and get ready for the summit here coming up in the next couple days.

Everybody’s doing great, feeling good, getting acclimatized and no headaches or anything at this point. Everybody’s doing great with the altitude, they’re really taking care of themselves, drinking lots of water, and eating lots of food too, which is great. Tomorrow we’re going to climb up to our high camp and get ready for the summit push. So we just had a great dinner here this evening, and we’re heading off to bed, and we’ll wake up tomorrow and head up to our high camp (at about 15,800 feet).

So wish us luck, everybody says hello back home and we’ll talk to you very soon. Ciao!

 

Earlier:

Hey y’all, it’s Team #5 here on Kilimanjaro! It’s the 27th of July and we’re here at Machame Camp (10,000 feet above sea level). We had a great day today, left Arusha and got to the trailhead, starting at about 6,500 feet and walked on up to Machame Camp, here at 10,000 feet, in about 6 hours.

Everyone’s doing well, we’re going to get a good night’s sleep here, it’s about 8:30pm, we just had a nice dinner. And hopefully we’ll be above the clouds tomorrow, and we’ll have a nice climb up to Shira Camp, at 12,400 feet. A little bit shorter day tomorrow, with some more downtime and our first real views of the mountain.

Everyone sends their best home!

Hello! This is Don Carpenter with the July 20th Kili trip and we are installed here at high camp. It’s July 27th, it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon and having another good day. The weather’s been beautiful, folks are doing well. We left camp at 8am, moved nice and slowly and efficiently, and rolled into high camp here at Kosovo Camp, at around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. And yeah, that’s about 4800 meters so we’re getting up there.
Everybody’s feeling great, and we just got into our tents and had a little bit of relaxation and then we had lunch at 1:30, big big meal, everybody’s eating well. And now we’re just relaxing, as we’re going to have an early night tonight for our summit attempt. So the plan for this evening, we’re going to get up at 5pm for dinner, an early dinner, brace ourselves for the summit. And try and get a few hours of sleep. Then we’ll wake up at about 11pm, have some breakfast, and be walking shortly after midnight for our summit attempt. The weather looks great so far, it’s sunny and calm up high and a big sea of clouds below us, but we’re well above those clouds so…
We shall call you tomorrow, after our summit day and everyone’s doing well and feeling strong, so should have good news to report. Talk to you later, bye!
 

Earlier:

Hey all ya’all! Uhuru, ya’all are you following along? That was for you We are all doing great. The photo is Team 5 enjoying our welcome dinner after a day of orientation and organizing. Rich’s bag showed up from Ethiopian Air, so we are all in a great position to head to Kilimanjaro tomorrow!

It is a great pleasure to be back to Kilimanjaro with Ron Farb and his team, supporting the Climb For Cancer Foundation in Gainesville, Florida!

We will be calling in from each camp on the mountain.
Asante! Usiku Mwema!
Eric and Team 5

 

Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in for the Mountain Simbas, Team #4 here on Kili. We’re doing great, had another great day today, fantastic weather. We left Shira Camp this morning and hiked towards Barranco Camp, which is where we are at right now, at about 12,800 feet. We left Shira Camp at about 12,500, we’ve gained a few hundred feet of elevation, and along the way on the trail today we actually went up to about 14,800 feet. So we are helping acclimatize as we ascended up, kind of stressing our bodies a little bit and coming back down and sleeping low. Everybody did great today with the altitude as we ascended up, a few small headaches and just some minor altitude issues, but now that we are back down here we are doing well.

Just finished up a great dinner and everybody is off to bed. Today is our longest day, it’s about 7-8 hours of hiking and after lunch we split up into a couple of different groups, a couple of people opted to go just slightly higher, and part of the group decided just to go kind of straight towards camp, which was great, we all got great acclimatization, so it worked out well for everybody. Part of the group though, we went up to the Lava Tower option, we ascended a few hundred extra feet and went up a little bit of a rock climb, up the Lava Tower, got up to the top and had some nice views up there. It was a great time and came back down and made it back to Barranco Camp before too late.

For the most part everyone is doing well, just a little quiet tonight, but tomorrow will be our shortest day, up to Karanga Camp. We will actually hike and get all the way into camp before we have lunch, so it will be just about a 3-4 hour hike tomorrow. Doing great, everyone says hello back home to family and friends and we’ll let you know how tomorrow goes, but we are doing very well and looking forward to gaining more elevation here on the mountain and working towards the summit here in the next couple days. We will talk to you soon, Mountain Simbas signing off.


Hey! This is Don Carpenter with the July 20th Kili expedition and it is currently July 26th, it’s 6:30 in the evening here on Mount Kilimanjaro. We’ve had another great day. We had our normal morning routine with hot drinks at 6:30, packing up, breakfast a little after 7:00, and then we were on the go just after 8am this morning. Headed out of camp, and climbed the great Barranco Wall, a steep climb but everybody did great. It involved some rock scrambling, but then we topped out in the sun. From there we crossed through a couple of river valleys and pushing through the Karanga… (transmission cuts out) final climb up the half and here we are at the Karanga Camp (at 4000 meters, just over 13,000 feet).

So for the last three nights we’ve camped at about the same elevation, allowing everyone to acclimatize and everybody’s feeling well. So we rolled into camp midday today, around 1:00 and had some time to take naps and read, and we’re waiting on dinner. We’re having dinner at 7:00 and then tomorrow we move to high camp. So everyone’s doing well and looking forward to getting on up to high camp.

So we will talk to you from high camp tomorrow! Bye!


Good morning! This is Don Carpenter with the Kilimanjaro July 20th trip and it’s the morning of July 26th, about 6:30 in the morning. We’re up here at Barranco… (transmission cuts out) allows us to acclimatize and test the high altitude. Doing well, and doing good. We’re waking up this morning below the Barranco Wall. We have a steep climb out of camp this morning, and a relatively short day and we’ll have some time to rest when we get into camp this afternoon.

Everybody’s doing well, we’re looking out over and above us (transmission choppy) we can see the upper mountain above us and looking out on the clouds…. (transmission cuts out).


Hi Everyone! It’s about 10:30 PM here in Arusha, on Wednesday night. It has been a busy week! Teams 3 & 4 are on the mountain and Team 5 has now all arrived here to Arusha. We are only missing 1 bag, and are hopeful that it will arrive tomorrow during orientation day.

Tomorrow will be filled with organization, gear checks, town tour, and our first dinner as a team together. We head to Kilimanjaro on Friday the 27th for our first day’s walk from the Machame gate (elevation 6,450 feet) to Machame Camp (10,000 feet), about 6 miles and 5-6 hours, entirely in the lush and beautiful forest zone belt of the mountain. We will give you a shout from our first camp.

Thanks for following along!

Eric


Hello everyone! This is Ben calling in with Kilimanjaro Team #4, or now known as “The Mountain Simbas”. Simba is the Swahili word for lion, so we are The Mountain Simbas now. We’re doing great, we are at our second camp here at Shira Camp, up on the Shira Plateau, in between Shira and Kibo, which is Kilimanjaro. So we had a beautiful view out towards Shira, and a beautiful sunset here today. We’re up at about 12,500 feet, and everybody is feeling pretty good. We got some slight headaches here, since we just jumped up to 12,000 feet, but people are taking care of themselves, drinking lots of water, which will help. We’ll spend tomorrow night just a little bit higher, that will help people acclimatize a little bit more before we head up higher on the mountain.

Everybody is doing pretty good though and having fun. It was a great day, another beautiful day here. We had some fog roll in, in the early morning, but for the most part it was a nice sunny day, got beautiful views out towards the mountain up toward the peak and out towards the plains as well. Tomorrow we will be heading towards the mountain and starting the traverse around the mountain and we’ll be staying at Barranco Camp tomorrow evening. It’s a beautiful camp looking up towards the Barranco Wall, and up towards the top of the mountain.

We’ll let you know how tomorrow goes, but one shout out, Nicole wanted to thank her mom for the camera. That was a personal shout out from Nicole, and everybody else is having fun, missing their families and says hello back home. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.


Hello everyone, this is Ben calling in with Kilimanjaro team #4. We are doing great, we are at the first camp at around 10,000 feet, we got up here just a few hours ago, this afternoon, on a beautiful sunny day as we hiked through the jungle. Everybody did fantastic today and is feeling really good up here. We just finished dinner, and we’re getting tucked into our tents here. And we’ll wake up at around 6:30 tomorrow morning and pack up, have breakfast, and head on up to Shira Camp tomorrow (it’s just over 12,000 feet).

So we’re moving up quickly here and doing fantastic, doing great, everybody misses everyone back home and says “hello”. And tomorrow we will be moving here from Machame Camp up to Shira Camp. So we’ll let you know how tomorrow goes, it was a beautiful day all day today, and talk to you soon tomorrow. Ciao!


Hello this is Don Carpenter with the July 20th, Kili Climb. And we’re here at Shira Camp, up on the Shira Plateau, looking off at the upper cone of the mountain. So we had another beautiful day, good hike, it’s a steep climb out of our last camp, and everybody did really well, up that steep climb and then the trail backs off a little bit as we approach the Shira Plateau. We rolled into camp mid-afternoon, had some time to relax, and had some tea and popcorn, and then some more time to relax before dinner. We just had a great dinner, rice, vegetables, and beef stroganoff.

Everybody’s doing well, feeling good, it’s about a little after 8:00 right now and everybody is getting ready to crawl into bed. It’s a crystal clear night, the stars are out, and we are ready for another good day of hiking tomorrow. So everybody’s doing well and we’ll talk to you soon.

Bye!
 

Earlier:

July 24:

Morning this is Don Carpenter calling with the Alpine Ascents July 20th, Kilimanjaro Climb. It’s the morning of July 24th and we are on the mountain. We’re waking up here at Machame Camp, we had a great day yesterday, left the Arusha Hotel in the morning at about 8:00, had a two-hour drive up the trailhead, got all situated, got our permits, met our team and our guides, and started walking from Machame Gate up the trail. The first day is up through the rain forest, and we actually had a beautiful crystal clear day, and had some views of the mountain from a distance, so it was a wonderful day of hiking. We rolled into Machame Camp here last night, and had a beautiful evening, a big dinner, steaks and potatoes, and everyone is doing great, and acclimatizing well, and enjoying the trip. We’re camped here at 3,000m, about 10,000 feet, and we’re just waking up, we’re going to have breakfast and then get on the trail towards Shira Camp, we’ll call you tonight from Shira Camp, everybody’s doing well and we’ll talk to you soon, bye.

Posted on July 23, 2012
Hello everyone!
Everyone on team #4 has arrived safely in Arusha. Today we began the trip with a team breakfast followed by an orientation and gear check. After making sure everyone had the proper gear for a climb of Kilimanjaro we had lunch and went on a town tour of Arusha to see some of the local buildings, markets, and get a taste of the local culture. After a break in the afternoon we went out to dinner at a local restaurant and enjoyed a fantastic dinner just a few minutes from our lovely colonial but modern hotel “The Arusha Hotel”. Tomorrow morning we will head to the mountain to the Machame gate, where we will check in at the national park, meet some of our Tanzanian staff and begin our first day of hiking up to 10,000ft where we will spend our first night! We are all looking forward to our climb during the next week and excited that we will be able to share this experience with you all as we ascend to the roof of Africa! We will be posting daily and also will be using a a tracking device to show you our progress. Stay tuned as we come up with a clever team name, and make our way up and down Kilimanjaro in the following week.

Talk to you soon,

Ben

 

Earlier:

Hey everyone it’s Calimanjaro here on Kilimanjaro. It’s the 18th of July, about 8:20pm, and we are very happy to report that everyone summited the mountain today. We were all on top at Uhuru Peak by approximately 8:00 this morning, after 7-8 hours of climbing. We’re now down at Millennium Camp, 12,000 feet for our last night on the mountain and everyone is already in bed. We’re tired, we had a long day, but a great day. Tomorrow we are going to head down to the Mweka Gate and back to Arusha for some celebration, I’ll give you a call from there, thanks.
 

July 17:

Hey all it’s Calimanjaro on Kilimanjaro. We’re having a laughing attack at high camp, Kosovo, 15.600 feet, 6:20pm. (Laughter and shouting in background) As you guys can tell we are having lots of fun and we are getting ready to climb up to the roof of Africa. Everybody is doing well, we are going to head to bed for a few hours, get up at 11 and walk at midnight. Wish us a calm, lovely evening and we’ll give you a call from our last camp on the descent tomorrow evening.
 

July 16
Hey all y’all it’s Calimanjaro! (Cheers) We’re here at Karanga Camp, elevation 13,300 feet above sea level. It’s the 16th of July, and we had a great day, we just celebrated Joel’s Birthday (more cheers) and the General pulled out some balloon tricks to keep us entertained for the evening. We had lots of downtime this afternoon, after a long day yesterday and in preparation for moving up to high camp tomorrow. We are going to attempt to get a good night’s sleep, our last, before we go up to the roof of Africa, and tomorrow morning head up to high camp, we all send our best back home. We will give you a call from Kosovo Camp at 15,600 feet tomorrow, thanks for following along.

July 15
Hey folks its Calimanjaro here on Day 3, we are at Barranco Camp at 12,900 feet above sea level, and everyone is doing great. We had an awesome day today, about 8.5-9 hours on the trail, pretty good weather and just finished a nice big meal, and we are headed to bed, we’re bushed. Tomorrow we are going to head to Karanga Camp for our shortest day of the trip, get ourselves set up for our summit climb. Everyone send their best back home.
 

July 14:

Hey all, it’s Team #2 here on Kilimanjaro! We are no longer “Team #2″, we are now Calimanjaro, for the California contingent in the group. We’re here at Camp 2, Shira Camp, 12,400 feet above sea level. It is the 14th of July and we’re doing great. We had an awesome day today, about 5 and a half hours on the trail, a bunch of downtime in camp, and we just had a huge meal.
And with me, we have: General Gibbons, Ratatouille, Sunshine, Boogie, Ariel, Token, Indie, Whirling Dervish, and El Jefe. Pretty soon we are headed to bed for another good night’s sleep. Tomorrow is a long day for us to Baranco Camp. We’ll give you a call from there.
Lala salama! ["Good Night" in Swahili]

July 11:

Hi Everyone!

The team headed out on Safari today, beginning with a flight Seronera in the heart of Serengeti National Park.

We had an awesome climb and an awesome team this last week! My thanks, gratitude and congrats to a wonderful group of folks. As with last season, we brought along extra porter staff to remove excess garbage left behind by other groups. Our team of 2 hardworking staff removed an extra 90 Kg of garbage during the 7 days!

We are getting ready for team #2 here in Arusha, and we will depart for the mountain on July 13th.

Asante Sana!

Eric

July 10:
Team Uhuru Y’all Celebrates Their Climb In Arusha, Prepares to Embark on Safari

Hey everybody it’s Kilimanjaro Team Uhuru Y’all, it’s the 10th of July at about 10pm, and we are all here at the Bailey’s Hotel, enjoying a fine dinner and celebration together after a successful climb.

That’s a team of happy climbers.

Tomorrow they are going to head out on Safari for a four night, three day trip through Serengeti, Ngorongoro, and Tarangire National Parks. And we’d like to say thank you to our Tanzanian staff, and everybody here in Arusha and on the mountain for an awesome climb. We’ll send one more cybercast, thanks for following along everybody.
 

Earlier:
Team 1, Uhuru Y’all, Summits In Great Weather! Everyone Back Down Safely.
Posted on July 9, 2012 by alpineascents

Hey everyone it’s Uhuru Y’all, team #1 on Kilimanjaro. It’s the 9th of July, Monday at about 6:30 pm and we had a great summit day today, awesome weather, everybody did great. We are now down at our low camp on the mountain, at Millennium, about 12,200 feet and we are going to have our last dinner here on the mountain with our Tanzanian Crew, and tomorrow head on down to the Mweka gate and out to Arusha so we can have our celebration dinner and get set up for everyone to go on Safari. Uhuru would like to wish a happy birthday to Julie and to let her know that we did it! Everyone is doing awesome and sends their best back to everyone at home.

Team 1, Uhuru Y’all Heading to High Camp After Breakfast.
Posted on July 8, 2012 by alpineascents

Good Morning everybody it’s Uhuru Y’all here on Kilimanjaro. It is the morning of the 8th of July at about 8:45 and we are just wrapping up breakfast and headed up to high camp. Tonight we’ll be climbing to the roof of Africa and we’ll give you a call after we make our ascent and reach our low camp, the last night on the mountain. Thanks for following along.

Uhuru Y’all Reaches Karanga, Prepares for Summit Tomorrow Night.
Posted on July 7, 2012 by alpineascents

Hey everyone its Uhuru Y’all, it’s the 7th of July and we are currently at Camp 4, Karanga, currently have some pretty high winds and a lot of dust, but everyone is doing great. We had a short day to Karanga, today, lots of down time, and we are getting ready to push up to high camp, and to the roof of Africa, tomorrow night. So stay tuned for more.

Uhuru Y’all Heading To Bed At Barranco Camp After A Fantastic Day Of Climbing
Posted on July 6, 2012 by alpineascents

Hey everyone, it’s Uhuru Y’all, from Kilimanjaro… at 12,900 feet. We had a fantastic day today, a lot of sunshine, calm weather. Everyone is doing well. It was a very scenic day, up to about 15,000 feet, back down here to 12,900. It’s just before 9 o’clock, everyone’s headed to bed. I’ve got some tired climbers and we’re going to get a good night’s sleep. And hopefully we’ll have some more beautiful weather tomorrow, the shortest day of the trip, on up to Karanga Camp at 13,300 feet.

Everyone sends their best back home, Ciao for now!

Team 1, Uhuru Y’all, Enjoying Themselves At Camp 2
Posted on July 5, 2012 by alpineascents

Hey everyone, it’s Team #1 here on Kilimanjaro! It’s the 5th of July and we are at Camp 2, Shira Camp (12,450 feet). Everybody is doing fannntastic! We’re having a few phone difficulties, so we weren’t able to cybercast in last night, apologize for that. But we wanted to let you know that we’re all thinking of you, and we celebrated the 4th of July here, in Tanzania, on Kilimanjaro.

So we’ve decided on a team name, we will no longer be Team #1, we are team Uhuru Y’all. “Y’all” for the southern contingent in this group, and “uhuru” means “freedom” in Swahili… so Uhuru Y’all.

Tomorrow we’re looking forward to another great day, weather looks fantastic today. Tomorrow we’re going to climb up to about 15,000 feet, and then descend down to Barranco Camp, which is one of our longer… Transmission ends.
 

Machame Camp Arrival
Posted on July 4, 2012 by alpineascents
Team 1 wishes everyone a Happy Fourth of July! The team enjoyed the first day trekking through the gorgeous rainforest from Machame Gate to Machame Camp. We are working on a satellite phone problem that came up, but they did report back that everyone is safe and happy celebrating the holiday.
 

Team 1 arrives in Arusha
Posted on July 3, 2012 by alpineascents
A warm greetings from Arusha Tanzania everyone. I arrived on Saturday to begin the prep for our busy Summer 2012 season. Most of team 1 arrived fine last night (Monday), with 1 member having arrived a few days earlier and enjoying some relaxation African style. Everyone is excited to get to the mountain! 3 folks are still waiting on luggage from KLM, so keep your fingers crossed it comes on the flight tonight!

Today we had our orientation here at the hotel, followed by gear checks, and a walking town tour. Tonight we will enjoy our first dinner together as a team, and hopefully a great nights sleep before we head out tomorrow for Kilimanjaro.

Our first day of trekking will begin at the Machame gate, elevation 6,400′, ending at Machame camp 10,000′ and about 6 hours. Most of tomorrow is under the canopy of the rain forest, lush and beautiful.

We will be sending in a cybercast each day, so keep tuning in as we ascend to the roof of Africa together.

All The Best!

Eric and Team #1

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