The Kilimanjaro Family Climb climbed the Barranco Wall today, traversing beneath the southern side of Kilimanjaro to reach their camp at Karanga Valley. Climber John Dorn describes today's climb in the video dispatch:
The Kilimanjaro Family Climb departed Shira Plateau today, passing Lava Tower - and setting a few new personal altitude records along the way - before reaching Barranco Camp beneath Kilimanjaro's Southern Breach Wall. Watch the video dispatch of today's climb:
The Kilimanjaro Family Climb reached Shira Camp at 12,300' on the Shira Plateau today. The team checks in with an update on the ascent in today's video dispatch:
RMI Guides Peter Whittaker and Seth Waterfall
The Kilimanjaro Family Climb began the ascent today, climbing through the rainforest on Kilimanjaro's lower slopes to reach Machame Camp at 9,800'. Check out their video dispatch below.
RMI Guides Peter Whittaker & Seth Waterfall
Best Wishes on a SAFE and super climb! You will never forget this adventure & it brings back wonderful memories of January 2007, when my son & I made the climb. Soak up the sights, smells and sounds!!!
The Kilimanjaro Family Climb arrived in Tanzania and spent the day making final preparations and packing their gear for their departure on to the mountain tomorrow morning. Check out their video dispatch below.
RMI Guides Peter Whittaker & Seth Waterfall
Kikoti Camp was perfect last night. The team was refreshed and happy as we set out on our final day. Our course took us back through Tarangire National Park where we saw three young lionesses, a hunting leopard, a couple hundred elephants of all sizes, a thousand zebras and a heck of a lot of outstanding birds. By midday we'd left the park and were on the road to Arusha. Back at the lush and relaxing grounds of the Dik Dik Hotel, we rested, repacked and got ready to go our separate ways. We enjoyed a last dinner and a few more laughs together before jumping into the bus for the airport. Until next climb...
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Thank you to Mr. Hahn, the porters, and everyone at the various hotels for taking such good care of our climbers. You guys are awesome. I don’t think Eric will ever forget this trip.
Posted by: Mara on 9/27/2013 at 7:33 pm
Congratulations Jeff and Meredith! Well done and safe home from all of here in Toronto.
Alexa
Posted by: Alexa Colenbrander on 9/27/2013 at 12:49 pm
We explored the sixth largest national park in Tanzania today. Tarangire is a year-round, dependable water-source for thousands of elephants. We saw families big and small of pachyderms, but also wildebeest, zebra, giraffe, gazelles and antelope. The birders in the team wee kept quite busy ID-ing "new" flappers. We roamed the savanna for hours with each former climber standing half out the open back of a land-cruiser, looking hard for the next stunning wildlife display. The land we explored is essentially a wide-open baobab forest cut by a number of rivers. Up one of those giant baobabs we spied a cat... upon closer inspection that cat -a large civet- turned out to be dead. This got us looking a bit closer at the other branches of the humongous tree, where finally we discovered a sleeping leopard. We tried to imagine the strength and skill that had gone into this leopard making a kill and then dragging his kill in his teeth while climbing twenty feet vertically up the wall-like trunk of a tree. He'd stashed the kill in a fork well off the ground to keep scavengers from bothering it while he... Or she... Took a well deserved nap.
At the end of the day, we exited the park and made a short drive to Kikoti Camp... A comfortable lodge just east of the park boundary. We watched Maasai tribesmen start a fire without matches and then perform a welcome dance for us. We joined in, eventually, in trying to jump higher.
We'll get a little more chance to see wildlife in the morning on the way back through the park.
Hard to believe that we'll begin our final day together.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Talk about shifting gears... we went from climbing to cruising, just like that. Today we got on the road shortly after 8 AM and briefly toured the outskirts of Arusha before heading out across the Rift Valley of Tanzania. Our goal for the day was a tour of the the Lake Manyara National Park. To get there we traveled in two modified land rovers, gazing out the windows at Masai tribesmen and their animal herds along the highway. We reached the park at about noon and had a relaxing lunch under the big trees, keeping an eye peeled on the surrounding forest for whichever beasts might also be contemplating lunch. As it turned out, there were just a few monkeys and birds checking us out. After lunch, we toured the park's dirt roads, checking out giraffes, baboons, zebras, wildebeest and warthogs. We spied a couple of elephants and plenty of exotic birds, but we didn't see big cats or hippos. There is always tomorrow... which for us is an expedition to the Ngorongoro Crater. Tonight though, is not to be rushed. An evening at the luxurious and tranquil Plantation Lodge. We'll get in our open topped safari vehicles again at the crack of dawn, hunting for big game.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Hard to believe we were at 10,000' in the "Giant Heather Zone" just this morning. We had a big blue sky overhead, which hasn't been exactly common on this trip. It rained at some point in the night, cleaning the dust out of the air and making everything fresh and new. After breakfast, we watched as our 57-man support team sang and danced through an excellent song about our shared adventure. We were once again amazed at the talents of our porters, cooks, guides and camp staff. The morning hike down 4000' to the Mweka Gate of Kilimanjaro National Park was easy, by our standards. We quickly got into the forest zone and the big trees and listened to birds singing as we walked. We reached the end of our climbing trip by mid-morning and were amazed and surprised to sit down to a fine outdoor picnic set up for us at the park gate. The ride back down through Moshi and along the highway toward Arusha kept each of us glued to the windows, gazing at people, shops, farms and Tanzania in general. Coming back to the Dik Dik Hotel was quite relaxing. We were greeted as friends by the staff and made very welcome. It was an afternoon of showers and catching up with the electronic world. Our victory dinner was a chance to take stock of the trip so far and an opportunity to say goodbye to Richard and Kurenai who will fly out tomorrow as the rest of us go on safari.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Your all doing great. Tomorrow to the top. How exciting! We miss you Sam!
Posted by: Terrianne Riga on 10/13/2013 at 12:26 am
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