Hello from Barafu Camp,
We are at our high camp and ready for our summit attempt tomorrow! The team did great again today and everybody is excited to be here at 15,000'.
Today was a relatively short hiking day, climbing about 2,000' in just under three hours and reaching camp before noon. This is another great benefit to the Machame Route. Having a short day right before summit day allows us plenty of time to rest, hydrate, pack and get to bed early all in preparation of tomorrow. We'll have dinner at 5:00 and then hopefully be in bed by 6:30 at the latest. Most of us probably won't sleep much, but our bodies will get enough rest we need for the long day ahead.
The alarm is set for 11:45 pm, and the plan is to be walking out of camp around 12:45. About seven hours later, we should be standing on top of Kilimanjaro. Wish us luck and we will try and give a call tomorrow from the summit.
Best regards,
RMI Guide Jeff Martin
Jambo from the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge,
After enjoying a hot shower, our celebration dinner and a good night's sleep we departed the Dik Dik Hotel for our first day of game viewing in Tanzania's National Parks.
We left at 9 a.m. and made a quick stop at a local grocery store for drinks and snacks. We stopped in a town called Mesquito River where we purchased some local bananas before entered Lake Manyara National Park and spending four hours following the herds of elephant and giraffe. The cloud cover made for a nice temperature for us and the animals and we were excited to see warthog, dik dik ,superb starling, hippo, baboon, blue monkey, bush buck, impala, cape buffalo, zebra and wildebeast.
We continued our caravan to the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge located on the crater rim. We arrived in time to see the sunset across the plains of Africa and are enjoying the views from our big picture windows looking down into the crater.
We have a full day of game viewing in the Ngorongoro Crater on tap for tomorrow. We have planned for an early morning start with hopes of seeing the sunrise over Tanzania as we descend onto the crater floor. We are keeping our eyes out for the elusive rhino.
Everyone is doing well and enjoying our continued adventure. It should be a great sunrise!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
BIG NEWS OF THE DAY (Dave Hahn to Mark Tucker via radio)
Our sherpa team carried everything needed for Camp 3. Tendi and the boys made it up in two hours from Advanced Base Camp (ABC) to Camp 3. We watched other sherpa going all the way to the South Col. The two halves of our team, the climbing members, met at Camp 2 for breakfast before Casey's team of four returned to Camp 1 for their final night. My four ventured up to the base of the Lhotse Face for exercise.
We reached 22,000 feet in our acclimatization effort. I was stunned to see such dry conditions on the upper section of the Western Cwm. The weather continues the normal pattern of clear in the morning and snow showers in the afternoon. We are excited to have the entire climbing team sleeping at ABC tomorrow night.
Our string of good days continues. We made good use of this one as well, climbing in good style to our 12,300 ft high camp. We were up at the crack of 11:15 AM as usual for low camp... waiting for the sun. But then it was a big flurry of activity for us as we ate brunch, knocked down the tents and packed up our packs. Spikes were on and we hit the trail at 1:30 PM. We made great progress today, with everybody feeling strong and enjoying the limitless scenery. Likely we are getting the benefit of having already climbed most of the way on our carry two days back, and certainly yesterday's rest didn't hurt. As we got higher on the fixed lines, it did seem like we were able to see for hundreds of miles... the horizon couldn't actually have been that far, but when it is ice as far as the eye can see, it does start to feel global in scale.
We were lucky to have calm conditions as we exited the ropes and made our way up the last 500 vertical feet to camp. We managed it all in a respectable six hours, pulling in at 7:30 PM. Everybody was in a pretty good and optimistic mood, as they should be. If the good weather continues we could be on the summit tomorrow afternoon.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Mark Tucker checking in from Camp 2, the Shira Plateau, about 12,200 feet. We had a nice breakfast and a leisurely pace. A bit of an ascent from our Machame Camp. But a step at a time, a break at a time, and a traverse through a very mystical-kind of environment in and out of some riverbeds. A pretty enchanting walk and everybody's doing very well. I'm very pleased with the performance of the team. We're all happy and healthy. We just finished a fabulous 3-course meal and people are crawling into the tents. We're having this moon interrupt a little bit of our star gazing. It's a little bright because no clouds, clear skies. There was a bit of marine layer type sea of muck below us, but not a cloud in the sky today, perfect conditions. A little bit dusty on the trail but a little handkerchief over the nose at times worked out just fine. We're having a gas. One of our team members, Alberto, wanted do a shout out to his Pops. So, "Hey to you." He's having a good time doing really well. It will be another 6:30 up, and hopefully breakfast at 7:15, hitting the trail by around 8:00. Great day tomorrow, break some altitude records. We are hoping to go just over 15,000 feet and then back down to 12,800' for the night. Very great opportunity for acclimatization. Climb high, sleep low. It is just setting us up for success. So all is well. We'll check in tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
RMI Guide Mark Tucker checking in from Shira Camp.
Hey there, this is Adam and Andres checking in with the "Family style West Rib team". We are camped at 14,000’ on Mt. McKinley.
Today we enjoyed another wonderful rest day. The weather on the upper mountain is still unsettled with some high winds and light precipitation so we opted to go ice climbing on a small serac at 15,000’, halfway up the notch camp on the Upper West rib. Then we came down and had a great lunch and have many visitors stopping by for some nice conversation. We anticipate a heated Blackjack tournament tomorrow with our neighbors here in camp. We will have another full rest day tomorrow and we will update you on the losses our team will incur during the card game.
Until then all is well here, everyone is doing great and feeling healthy while waiting for a potential window to open on Monday. That is the news for now, we will talk to you tomorrow.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
Hi family style. I love that the weather wasn’t great so you decided to go ice climbing. You realize that is not an obvious alternative for most of us mortals right? Here in Golden, Colorado we have been playing naked in the paddle pool and eating yogurt off our tummies(just the under 4 set). Thought you might appreciate the contrast. :) Susannah, Cassidy, Kindell and Scout
Posted by: Susannah Thompson on 6/6/2011 at 11:26 am
Just heard from Peter that the team is going for the summit tonight/tomorrow! We are all hoping and praying for a successful summit bid, but more importantly, your safe return. GOOD LUCK, love and hugs to Peter.
Today is a much deserved rest day, after yesterday's trip to Guanacos Camp (Camp 2) at 18,000'. The team slept well despite last night's wind, which wasn't quite as strong as the night before but was still strong enough to keep the tents flapping and creaking throughout the night. We woke this morning to more beautiful azure skies and golden sun, which quickly warmed the tents and our spirits. We had an impromptu team meeting during our breakfast of oatmeal and cocoa to discuss the upcoming legs of the climb, and everyone is ready to keep moving towards the top! We're spending the remainder of today indulging in delicious lunch foods and conserving energy for tomorrow's move to Camp 2.
Today's stoke meter remains high, with an average of 8. Stay tuned for more details as we move higher on the mountain. Cheers!
RMI Guide Gabriel Barral and the Aconcagua Team
Nice pictures. Quick message for John Shadid, ardent Packer fan. Since you’re out of touch, some breaking good news/bad news on the NFC championship
game against the Bears on Sunday.
Bad news: Aaron Rodgers says he’ll miss the game.
Conflict with a Sarah Palin rally he wants to attend.
Good news: Brett Favre says he’s available and
“stoked” to help the Packers out if needed.
Good luck on the final ascent. Don’t wear
your cheesehead on Sunday if winds are high.
5:52 a.m. PST voicemail
Hey guys, it's Jeff. It's 5:00 (p.m.) our time. Calling to let you know that about 2:00 today we all went to the top of Mt. Elbrus. A beautiful day- No clouds, warm temperatures, no wind, total bluebird day on the summit. All are safe and well. We'll be in touch later today
Jambo from 10,000 ft on Mt Kilimanjaro. The start to our expedition went just as smoothly as it could possibly go. We were up and eating breakfast at Rivertrees by 7 AM and on the road by 8:15. Traffic on the main highway wasn’t too bad and we made fine progress, reaching the Machame gate to the National Park by 10 AM. There, at 6000 ft, we made final preparations for walking and we waited while the finishing touches were made on our climbing permit. By 11 AM, everything was set and we set out walking. We followed VV -one of our four local guides- into the rain forest. The weather was cloudy and humid but as we walked, there was enough clearing that we had occasional blue sky and sunshine through the big trees. Gradually the trail steepened and we began to make real progress. We stopped for snacks and rest breaks several times over the course of the five and a half hours it took to reach Machame Camp. Just out of the rainforest, we’ve graduated to the Giant Heather zone. Our support team established a fine camp and welcomed us in late afternoon. The blue skies were gone by then and the clouds had thickened up again. We got settled in for dinner in our dining tent at 6:30, just as it got dark. In the end it was a big day from start to finish and nobody lingered for very long following dinner. Between lingering jet lag and all of the hard work, the team was quite ready for a first night in the tents.
Hello everyone:
It was a pretty mellow day here in Cheget. The team spent the day resting after our big climb. We mostly just relaxed around town doing a little shopping and catching up on some emails at the hotel. Everyone is packed up and ready for our trip to St. Petersburg tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Today's stoke meter remains high, with an average of 8. Stay tuned for more details as we move higher on the mountain. Cheers!
RMI Guide Gabriel Barral and the Aconcagua Team
Sarah,. . . this is a totally wonderful and thrilling achievement! Congratulations!
We can’t wait to hear all about it. Love Dad & Susan
Posted by: Richard on 2/16/2014 at 10:28 pm
Way to go! Good work, Sarah and team! Thank-you for the blog, comments, etc. Sarah, you have the genes!
Love,
R&C
Posted by: Rondi Saslow on 2/16/2014 at 9:00 am
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