Sunday, August 27, 2023 - 7:56 am PT

Big Day!  And night.  We were awake at 11 PM sharp last night.  Thankfully, it was calm and not too cold at 15,200 ft at that hour.  We geared up, ate a quick “breakfast” and got walking at 12:05 AM.  Everybody else at Barafu Camp did so too.  It was a great parade of headlights converging on the steep start to the route.  Naiman led our team nice and steady through various teams that were stopping and starting to deal with difficulties.  Once we were through the rocky start to the route, the walking got a little easier and one could pay a little attention to the stars and the lights of Moshi and other towns and cities.  The moon was about half full and threw back some useful light for us.  As expected, it got cold as we got a few hours into the climb.  By the halfway point we pretty much had every scrap of clothing on.  Water bottles within our packs were freezing up.  Our main strategy for dealing with the cold was to keep moving.  We hit Stella Point at the crater rim at 6AM.  The walking got easier then… and absolutely beautiful as the light came up.  Sunrise came as we were halfway to Uhuru -the highest point.  We got to Uhuru at 7 AM.  It was a little cold and breezy at 19,341 ft above sea level and so we didn’t stay long.  Long enough for some victorious pics with the big sign board up there.  The breeze/wind motivated us to move down the mountain at a pretty good clip, boot skiing in the scree.  We were back to Barafu at 10:10 AM.  Tosha presented us with a pizza brunch and we had some time for taking care of ourselves and packing up.  Nobody was all that psyched at the prospect of four more hours on our feet to descend 5,000 ft but we got after it anyway.  We made it down to a 10,000 ft camp in the woods by 3:35 PM.  The team is safe and relieved to be back on flat ground (everything at high camp is tilted) and so happy to be breathing oxygen rich air with actual humidity again. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn