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