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Posts for Kilimanjaro from 07/2012

Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team Enjoy First Day on Safari

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 31, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro

All right you deserve to know.  We have to be honest to all of you that have been following our trip. We have not been roughing it.

Tables and chairs on the mountain, hot water for washing at each camp. Fifty five local staff with us throughout the Kilimanjaro climb. We could carry any or nothing throughout the day.  Fresh foods at each meal. You would have loved it.

Now here we are at the Plantation Lodge with white table cloths and fine china, eating incredible curry chicken and organic garden fresh salad, do not even want to rub in what we had for desert.  All this after an awesome day of game viewing in Lake Manyara National Park.

I feel so much better now that you are in the loop.  Wish I could say that it’s tough surviving here in wild Africa but that would just not be true.

It is a real vacation now after a pretty physical week on the big hill.  There are a few sore and tired muscles but over all the team is in great shape.  We said a sad good-bye to one member of the group as he started his trip back to the USA, he had to get back for work.  We will miss his wonderful sense of humor and great companionship.

Tomorrow we are off to one of the great natural wonders of the world - Ngorongoro Crater.  Where there are so many animals in a small space,  I better get the camera battery charged up tonight.

All is well,
RMI Guide Mark Tucker

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Kilimanjaro: Seth & Team Arrive Arusha

Posted by: Seth Waterfall | July 31, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro

Everyone has made it to Arusha, Tanzania!  A few of the team arrived early and the rest of us just flew in.  It’s a loooong trip from the USA!  All of our baggage is here so tomorrow we’ll check the gear and pack up for our Kilimanjaro ascent.

RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

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Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team Getting Ready for their Safari

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 30, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro

We had an easy hike out of Kilimanjaro National Park this morning.  After such a full day on the mountain yesterday, it was just a walk in the park today. A nice lunch was prepared for us at the Mweka Gate, which is the exit point from our route in Kilimanjaro National Park. Had a nice send off with our local staff with singing, dancing and gifting for the great service we had throughout the trip.

After our celebration dinner it is now time to repack for the next part of the adventure…. SAFARI here we come! 

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

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Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team Safely Back to 10,000’ Camp

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 29, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 10,000'

Mark Tucker checking in from Tanzania here at our last camp on this trip of Kilimanjaro.  We are all down safe and sound; good spirits and good health.  What a day! Beautiful summit, chilly and windy.  Hopefully you got that message from the top. We pushed our way down to 10,000’, so a 9,000’ descent. Everybody’s feeling it. Ready to go to sleep. A great meal.  Looking forward to getting up pretty early and getting out of here. Have a nice celebration and take care of our fabulous local staff that has been providing us with this great service. I’d love to think we could do it without them but we’d be here for a couple of months. Everybody back home, all your friends and family are in great shape. Everybody did a fantastic job of doing what they could on the mountain. We’ll check in after a good night’s rest.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

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Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team Summit!

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 29, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 19,340'

Darned if I’m not standing on the top of Africa!  Here on Uhuru Peak with the team. Everybody’s looking good.  A little beat up but not so bad; no issues.  We’re taking a few shots. It was a cold and windy one. Man, freezing, all layers on. But these guys know how to climb, they demonstrated it. They all did it with great style and impeccable technique. We’re looking forward to a safe descent and back to that high camp sooner than later.  All is well, we’ll check in again later.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

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Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team at Barafu Readying for Summit

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 28, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 15,000'

Mark Tucker checking in from High Camp, Kilimanjaro. It is very breezy but hopefully that will change. We are in clear skies. We have a sea of clouds below us. The route looks like it’s in pretty good shape. May need a little bit of luck with the weather. The team is all together up here. And you know, we’re doing okay. There is the typical this, that and the other thing, but so far so good. So we got our fingers crossed and we have a great group of support team with our local staffing and an early, early dinner. The sun is just setting or we’re gonna crawl into the tents for a 5-hour nap and then we’re gonna hop on up and get goin’. Hopefully the next call will be from the summit, if I get the chance. So we will be checking in sooner than later. Thanks for checking in with us as well.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

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Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team Move to Karanga

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 27, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 12,800'

Mark Tucker checking in from Mt. Kilimanjaro 12,826’ at Karanga Camp.  We had an ascent of the Barranco Wall today.  More fun than fear.  We have some great photos,  that I can’t wait to see.  The Karanga Camp is situation a bit on a hillside so we had to get creative with our extra clothing to buffer up some of the slope.  Hopefully, it is not going to take away from a good night’s rest.  Everybody is pretty fired up for, really the start of the ascent, tomorrow morning.  We will move up to our high camp, spend a few hours of rest and then begin our climb tomorrow evening, early, early morning. 
We experienced intermittent clouds and a high of about 65 degrees today, cool, but not bad, reasonable weather.  We have a good view of the upper mountain from our camp here right now.  At times in the clouds, but a bright half moon above us and the team is doing well.  Wishing you were all here.  Maybe next time.
We’ll check in tomorrow.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

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Kilimanjaro: Team Members Reach New Altitude

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 26, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 12,800'

Hello!
Mark Tucker checking in from the Barranco Camp, situated at 12,992’ on Mt. Kilimanjaro.  We had great conditions for our hike today.  Sunny and a little bit of clouds down in the low lands.  Our conditions were just perfect.  Everyone on the team, except for myself, had record breaking altitudes.  We got up to 15,272’ was our high point and then descended back to his camp at 12,900’. 

It is a wonderful night out.  A little breezy, clear and lots of stars.  A half moon is illuminating quite a bit of snow cover up there on the summit, not the true summit but up to about 18,500’.  A really pretty night tonight, that we are all enjoying.
We had a birthday celebration, one of our team members Carlos, turned 50 today.  So, we had a cake, candles and the local staff did a sing-song and a beautiful red-rose covered card all signed by the team.  He had quite a day.

We are staring at the Barranco Wall which is our challenge in the morning.  It is more intimidating than the actual effort it takes to climb it.  It is usually one of the more fun parts of the whole climb.  [Call connection lost]

Well, checking back in had a dropped call there.  On a satellite phone here so sometimes it does that.
The team wanted to give a shout out a big “hello” to everyone back home.  Everyone is doing just fine.  Rumor has it there have been some comments made to the Blog site which we are unable to check.  But we look forward to taking a look at them when we get back to some computer access.  Much appreciated by everybody sending their best wishes.  Thanks for following.  We will be in touch.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

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Mt. Kilimanjaro: Team Moves to Shira Plateau

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 25, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 15,500'

Mark Tucker checking in from the Shira Plateau Camp at 12,500’ on Kilimanjaro.  The high today was about 80 degrees and mostly clear skies.  There were some cloud layers below but it has mostly cleared out and there are beautiful views of the mountain most of the day.
This evening the crescent moon was illuminating the southern and northern ice fields.  It’s been a fabulous night and we had a great dinner.  The team is doing well and having so much fun.  Wishing you were all here.
We are in the area of one of the three principal volcanoes that make up Kilimanjaro. The Shira Plateau has a bunch of parasitic cones that we are all staring at and getting some great pictures of. 
We are looking forward to a big day tomorrow to hit a high point of over 15,500’ feet and then we’ll drop back down to the Barranco Camp which will be situated at about 15,000’.  So, we have our work cut out for us but it will be good.  We’ll be just fine and will check in tomorrow when possible.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

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Kilimanjaro: Tucker & Team Begin Climb

Posted by: Mark Tucker | July 24, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Kilimanjaro
Elevation: 9,800'

Hello!
Mark Tucker checking in with an update from Tanzania, Africa.  We are on our day one of the ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro with RMI Expeditions.  We started under clear skies and beautiful weather with a high temperature of close to 80 degrees throughout the day.
We arrived our Camp 1, Machame Camp, around 10,000’ and everybody is in good shape.  Attitudes are very, very well.  We just finished a nice chicken dinner and we are getting ready to crawl into our tents.

Being a clear evening, I anticipate that it will probably get down to about freezing maybe a little frost on the tents in the morning.  But everybody’s gear is checking out and will be tucked into warm sleeping bags and we are looking forward to a good night’s rest.  We are still a little tired from our flights from the US.  Everyone is doing very well and excited to be here. 

We will check in tomorrow with another update.  All the best from Tanzania.

RMI Guide Mark Tucker

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