Entries By seth waterfall

Good afternoon from Kilimanjaro. The group is all doing good after a really strong showing on the trail today. We are at Karanga Valley which sits at 13,100ft and is our last camp before high camp. We tackled the Barranco Wall this morning and had a pretty smooth ascent up the steep slopes. We climbed it in exactly 1.5 hours which is what we were aiming for. When we were about 2/3 of the way up we could look back down on last night's camp which looked like a camp for ants. The rest of the way felt like a dance off with a bunch of ups and downs. Everyone agreed that this was the most picturesque day so far. We're all relaxing now before dinner and tomorrow we head up to Barafu Camp at 15,000ft. I'll check back in from there. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

On The Map

Hello! The team has moved camp once again and everyone is doing well. We had a long-ish (6.5 hour) day today and everyone handled it really well. We left the Shira Plateau at 8:00 AM under cloudy skies. After a little bit we started to get some rain and I was sure we were going to get poured on all day but it tapered off after about 1/2 hour. The weather for the rest of the day was what I would call misty as we were in a cloud for the most part. Our route climbed about 2500' from our camp at a gentle grade. Our high point was 14,900' at the base of a large lava tower. We grabbed lunch up there and the walked the steep downhill trail to our camp. The team thought we might see some R.O.U.S.'s at one point on the way down but we did not. We are all looking forward to another great dinner provided by the Dik Dik staff and then a good night's rest That's all for now. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

On The Map

Rain, rain, rain that's the name of the game on Kilimanjaro this month. The unseasonably wet weather has continued for another day. We only had it for the last 45 minutes on the trail though and we were eating lunch in camp for some heavier showers that came through. Despite that the team is doing really well. We all came into camp together after a 4.5 hour hike today. The start of the hike was sunny and warm and the views were great for a couple hours. Before it got a chance to get too hot for us the clouds moved in and that kept the temps mild. That was perfect as today's hike is up a fairly steep ridge formed by an old lava flow. The vegetation is pretty low to the ground too so if the sun is out you can really cook. There's a couple of scrambling sections that we did in the rain so that added a little challenge at the end of the day. Everyone handled those like the champs they are so no problem with slippery, steep terrain for these folks. As I type this the sun is poking back out and warming our tents. Most of the team is relaxing and letting their bodies adjust to our altitude of 12,500'. Tomorrow we will head up again to 14,900' before dropping to below 13,000' to the next camp. I'll check in again there. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

On The Map

Jambo! All is well at Camp One, otherwise known as Machame Hut. We are already up at 10,000' for our first night on the mountain. Interestingly 10,000' here is still below tree line whereas back home on Mt. Rainier 10,000' is way above the trees. That's due to the fact that the atmosphere bulges around the equator so 10k here in Tanzania feels lower than 10k in Washington State. The hiking today was great with just a few sprinkles of rain. My group from last week would have considered this a dry day. We did pull out some rain gear briefly but the trail through the forest was mud free and the temperatures were very pleasant. We have a real fun group and everyone was chatting away between themselves and with the African guides who will accompany us the whole time we are on the mountain. We spent a total of 5 hours on the trail and combined with the jet lag should make for hungry appetites and good sleeping tonight. I'll check in again tomorrow. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

On The Map

Hello from the Dik Dik Hotel. The team is all assembled for dinner and we are packed and ready to go to Kilimanjaro tomorrow. Everyone arrived late last night and after a few hours of sleep we met up for our first meeting and then a session on packing our gear for the next week on the mountain. We spent the afternoon napping and finalizing the preparations. Tomorrow we will get up at 6 AM and depart at 7:00. We have a five-hour hike to get to camp so it's nice to get an early start. The weather reports from the mountain have been good for the past three days so we are hoping for that to continue. I'll check in again in about 24 hours. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

Hello from Seth and the last of the team. We are at the end of the road, so-to-speak. Three of the team have left the group to continue their adventure in Zanzibar, we have a person flying out in a few minutes and the final three are leaving at 10pm tonight. We have had a great trip with basically non-stop action the whole time. What I thought was going to be a mellow day started with our safari trucks getting dragged by tractor across a rising river. (Click on Seth's video below.) The trucks can usually handle anything we come across but our drivers thought better of chancing the crossing and called in a tractor from our safari camp. That machine made quick work of the river and hauled both our vehicles across in less than ten minutes. After that it was a breeze through Tarangire National Park where the elephants were out in full force. We saw hundreds of them. That was a very appropriate ending to a whirlwind trip. I can't wait to see what the next one brings! RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

A video posted by Seth Waterfall (@sethwaterfall) on Jan 22, 2016 at 4:30am PST

Hey there, this is Seth checking in from the Kikoti Camp way out on the far side of Tarangire National Park. We had a good day on safari again. Within the first half hour of entering the Park, we saw lions and elephants. The elephants kept going all day long. We had lunch, a little late lunch, around 2 o'clock and right before we pulled into our picnic site, we saw about 25 mother elephants with their babies. We got some really good close-up shots of some more on the way out so the Garden of Elephants, Tarangire National Park, was sure living up to its name. It is our last night on safari and everybody is pretty psyched to get home and see their loved ones. We do have some more fun stuff planned for tomorrow before everyone catches their flights home and a few folks are going on to Zanzibar and keep going on their vacation. It's been a great climb and safari. We'll say goodbye to this group and then I'll meet the next RMI group that will be checking-in in a couple of days. Ciao. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

Hi! This is Seth. We are in the Ngorongoro Crater where, miraculously, I have 3G service. We are having a great day exploring the area. We got an early start and visited a Maasai village located on the rim of the crater. After that we dropped down to the crater floor and started the game drive. It started off pretty slow for the first hour but then we saw a pride of eleven lions, a single rhino and then a pair of rhinos. The last two rhinos were pretty active which was really cool. After lunch we spotted a completely different pair of rhinos making it a five rhino day. Now we're heading back to the Plantation Lodge for another night before heading out to Tarangire National Park and Kikoti Camp tomorrow. PS: We did not get rained on today. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall & Team

Hello, I am emailing from our safari at Lake Manyara National Park. We are having a great afternoon of game viewing. The day started at the Dik Dik Hotel where we said goodbye to some of our team. About half the team is either headed back home or doing their own safari. The rest of us have successfully shifted gears from mountain living to wildlife viewing. We were on the road just after 9 am and a few hours later we pulled into Lake Manyara. We had lunch just inside the park and then started the game drive. True to the nature of the trip we had 45 minutes of rain but now the clouds have parted, the top of the truck is open and there are animals everywhere. Tonight we will stay at the Plantation Lodge, home of the best margaritas in Tanzania. We'll check in again tomorrow. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall and the Safari All Stars

Hi this is Seth checking in from the lobby bar at the Dik Dik hotel. Everyone is already in party mode. We awoke to mostly cloudy skies this morning but no rain. After a french toast breakfast we enjoyed a song from our awesome crew and then hit the trail. The group shows out a little on the decent as everyone was anxious to get down but some caution was still required on the slick rocks and roots. We had a quick lunch at the park gate and then loaded up in the truck. After driving back to the hotel everyone has cleaned up nicely and is getting ready for our celebration dinner. I'll send some summit pics from yesterday as well. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall