LIVE FROM MT. KILIMANJARO

10/29/2003
The trip is underway! After spending a few days wandering around Amsterdam by himself, Mike met Pietro and Katie at the airport and they all boarded
a plane to Africa. The group will spend the next two nights in a hotel getting organized and will begin climbing Kilimanjaro on Saturday. Stay tuned for
more updates!


10/30/2003
Today the team woke to sunshine and clear skies, after a good night sleep in the Impalla hotel in Arusha Tanzania. Katie, Pietro and Mike decided to
check out the town and headed to the Arusha city streets to see what the town is like. Mount Meru lies just to the north east of Arushs, and it was the
first peak here that the team would witness. Meru is enormous, rising to 16 thousand some feet, and with Arusha being at an altitude of only 4700, it
looked like an island in the sky. At first glance the team thought that it was kili, but learned from locals that they were not that lucky. Kili stands behind
Meru at 19,340 feet. We had lunch at Jambo's coffee house, and talked of the trip. Tomorrow Scott arives and the team is complete.


10/31/2003  Halloween in Tanzania?  
The team is all here now from halfway around the world, and all the effort, dreams and energy have come together for this moment. Our group
(minus Scott and Cindy) went for a short hike today up through a small village on the edge of Arusha.

Conditions look good on the mountain now, and wemet with the guides that will accompany us on our trip—Exaud, Benjamin and William. These guys
are stellar in helping put together the mountain logistics, cooking and porter organization for the climb. Scott has worked on several trips with this group
on Kilimanjaro and says they are some of the best guides working.

Now we have to check all the electronics out tomorrow, buy food, pack the equipment and basically get everything together for starting November 2nd
on our journey.

Tonight we are enjoying live music and dinner at the outdoor Mezza Luna Café near our hotel. We stay at the Impala Hotel here which really is quite nice.
A great pool, close to downtown, and excellent food.
 
11/3/03 A Rainy Day   
The group has started the long climb up the mountain and spent most of the day battling a steady rain. We are keeping dry with umbrellas and Gore-Tex clothing. Our hike was a small elevation gain, which helped us with aclimitizing. At 3:00 pm, we have reached 11,100 ft and we are staying at the Shiras Camp 2.  It is overcast, so our view is limited, but we are in good spirits. Our guides have been extremely helpful, and make the climb a lot easier on everyone.


11/4/03  Rain, rain go away!
Today the team woke to more rain showers!  Luckily, we have these great socks from Ullfrotte and shoes from LaFuma to keep our feet nice and dry
while we are continuing our climb up the mountain.  Last night, the weather cleared for a brief moment and we were able to glimpse Kilimanjaro for the
first time. We were all in awe of the sight!  We have been taking our oxygen levels every day at breakfast and dinner and everyone is still in good shape. 
Today we have reached 12,700 ft. and we are staying at the Fisher Camp, which is named after Scott Fisher,an avid mountaineer who perished during
a savage storm while climbing Mt. Everest for a second time. We have hiked up through the Shiras plateau and continue to make headway.
More updates to follow, stay tuned!
 

11/5  Sunny Days!
After two days of non-stop rain, the team awoke to a beautiful sunny day! Today we hiked the Northern Circuit and filled up our water at the Moir Hut
because we weren't sure how long we would have to go without it. We were able to see Kili today, and Mike and Pietro were extremely psyched about the snow on the peak. We are now at 14,300 ft and we have camped for the night at a spot we named "Spring Camp" after the natural water spring we found here. Everyone's oxygen levels are healthy and we are feeling great! Talk to you tomorrow.


11/6/03 Getting Closer!
Today we crossed the Northern Circuit Trail and we are all psyched that we are getting closer to reaching our goal. We were able to glimpse another side of Kili and it was an amazing, majestic site. The weather was sunny again today, but there was a heavy wind blowing. We have camped for the night, but will wake up tomorrow and head up to our high camp! Stay tuned, the climb is almost complete!


11/7/03 Summit, here we come!
 Greetings from 15,500 ft!  The group has settled in for the night at our high camp (the School Hut) after a long day of hiking 2300 vertical ft. We had a beautiful day of sunny skies and everyone can't believe what a wonderful experience this has been. We all haven't showered in about a week, so putting
on deodorant each morning is about as clean as we get! We look like genuine mountain men and women! Tonight, we will wake up at midnight and begin
our climb all the way to the summit. Our next update will be from the top of Kili!


11/8 Summit Reached!
We have reached the summit at 19,340 ft! We woke up at 12:30 am and began hiking at 2:00 am. We were all excited because it had started to snow, but
it turned out to only be a dusting. We summited at about 8:20 this morning to the most beautiful sunrise we have ever seen. It was like the sky was putting
on a show just for our arrival to the top of Kili. Mike and Pietro skied in the glacier for a while and took pictures, but there was very little new snow, so they were not able to go very far. Afterwards, we hiked down to 10,000 ft (Camp Six). It is now 4:00 pm, and needless to say, after a 14 hour ascent and descent, we are exhausted! Looking forward to taking showers tomorrow. We will try to post photos when we get to the bottom of the mountain. Thank you everyone for following our journey...it has been a very memorable experience!