Ding Ding Ding - Round 2# Kilimanjaro!

Posted on September 7, 2010

Time to go back up the mountain again – with Team 2!

What a whirl wind 36 hours and i’m back at the start! Most of the team arrived on Saturday evening with the rest on Sunday. A few small hiccups – one main bag didn’t not arrive at the airport so after spending the day begging, borrowing, stealing and renting kit it eventually did turned up with the final member of Team 2 on Monday evening! 

Apart from the above, 11/12 had their build up day yesterday with full kit checks, medical discussions, expectations etc etc. Nelson popped in with Anton (Anton was my assistant guide last year) and met the team and said a few things. He unfortunatly mentioned that we would be ’scrambling’ to which some of the team went a little pale…sadly you only get to use your hands on rock for about 2 minutes during the whole expedition!

Very excited, nervous and anxious but ready for a huge adventure the 11 went off to pack thier kit. The team enjoyed a meal together at the hotel and later in the evening the arrival of our 12^th member and the missing bag! Everything was coming together! (Our 12th member had unfotunatly been delayed in transit and missed her conecting flight to Africa)

So they are all here, all packed, and fully briefed! As I type they are all coming down the stairs of the hotel and about to have breakfast before we head up the mighty Kilimanjaro - 6 days macheme route again. As before - this blog will be getting updates DAILY and we also have a SAT PHONE on the mountain which you can send a message to for the team. (Please seea previous blog about how to do it!)

Wish us luck…

The Team!

Posted on September 5, 2010

Down and dusty & the morning after!

Posted on September 5, 2010

So - we made it! 100% to the summit (10 out of 10) which is fantastic, but not without some enjoying the sensation of altitude and the lack of oxygen! The expedition went really well from start to finish and the team were superb – really positive and encouraging all the way. Everyday held its challenges but they took it in their stride and nothing seemed to put them down.

Summit day was great, clear starry skies and a light breeze to start with, and incredible classic African sunrise and the exhausting 7 hour & 1300m accent to the summit! Our incredible summit crew sang us to the summit, and between the leaders we kept an eye on everyone. At 07:00 Nelson (head guide from Ahsante) radioed me and told me he was on the summit with the first part of my team and at 07:50 the rest of us arrived.

Climbing Kilimanjaro is a huge achievement for everyone and they all thoroughly deserved it. Totally exhausted but successful the team began the long descent down the 1300m slope down to high camp. By 10:45 everyone was back in camp and had crashed out in their tents for some well earned rest/sleep. What a result.

A few hours later and we had a small lunch before packing our kit and heading down hill for 1 ½ hours to Millennium camp. As a team we move very fast downhill and managed this 3 hour trek in only half the time. The next morning, still feeling the effects from the day before re rose early in order to reach the gate before midday – again the team moved like lightening and manage new park record for the fastest descent by a team…in under 3 hours we made it to the gate – even over taking porters!! (and to do that you have to be moving fast!)

A quick nip back to the Ahsante office to collect our belongings, sort out some bits and bobs and of course give the porters/cooks/guides their well earned tips. After another singing and dancing session we said thanks for the all the hard work they had done for us and gave them their tips and some trekking gear. We had managed to collect enough items that all of them (24 in total) could have some clothing as tip also.

Back to the hotel for pizza, shower, shave and clean clothes and out to celebrate for the evening! AND WHAT AN EVENING IT WAS……

THANK YOU for all the message we received on the mountain – they were amazing and really kept the team going. If you want to send a message to team 2 then look down a few blogs to the one of how to send a message to the team! (They start on Tuesday)

 

Summit Day!

Posted on September 3, 2010

100% success! Hooray!! Everyone made it to the top - 5,895 m. Wow! We set off at midnight and 8 of us arrived at 7.30, and two of us at 8. It was a long trek, 8 hours and a climb of 1,300 m. The weather was very good, a really amazing sunrise, with only a little cloud and a 10 kph wind. So everyone is quite tired (understatement!) and all did really well.  The reality of what everyone has achieved will probably set in later today or tomorrow - at present everyone is too tired to fully appreciate what they have managed to achieve!  We are now making our way back down to High Camp (Barafu Camp) for a short (couple of hours) rest / sleep and then back down to tonight’s camp.  So we all have another 8 hours to trek!  Making a very very very long day! - probably the biggest day of many people’s lives!  We are going back down a different route - Mweka Route and staying at Millennium Camp tonight. (Have a look at the Kilimanjaro Routes web site!) Then we should be back in Moshi tomorrow afternoon. Send your messages of congratulations!!

Kili Day 4

Posted on September 2, 2010

Thursday. Today we left camp at 7 am as we had a long trek up to High Camp (Karanga Camp). This morning was 100% clear sky with good views of the mountain and the glacier. Really beautiful! Later in the afternoon, it clouded over and we had some slight hail. We arrived at camp at around 3 pm and had an early dinner at 5.30 and then straight to bed.  We will be getting up at 11.30 pm (9.30 UK time!) to trek up to the summit.  We shall have hot drinks and biscuits and then set off to conquer Kilimanjaro!  We should arrive on the summit in time for sunrise at around 7 am. Everyone is keeping well and fit, and I am hoping that we will all make it to the summit. I will try to have this blog up-dated tomorrow morning to report on our success!

Kili Day 1 to 3

Posted on September 1, 2010

Day 1 - Monday

After breakfast at 6.30, we took a bus at 7. An hour later we arrived at Machame Gate.  We are going up to Machame Route (look at a Kili website for details). The porters weighed our kit, we collected our permits and we set off walking around 8.30. We walked until 2.00 pm through the Montane forest (jungle). We saw loads of monkeys. Everyone was very excited.  We had started our trek! Along the way we played games such as 20 questions to guess who a person was and other related word games. We arrived at Machame Camp which is at 2,900 metres. at around 2 pm and then relaxed and drank tea. The guides and porters are really good. We have a team of 23. It was quite cloudy and damp, but no rain. In the evening we went for an acclimatisation walk, leaving camp at 5 pm and going up a few hundred metres and then returning down to base camp. Before dinner, all the porters came over and we had a massive sing and dance for 20 minutes! Everyone joined in, clapping and dancing! Amazing! Bed at 8 pm as everyone was so tired!

Day 2 - Tuesday

We were awoken with hot tea in our tents at 6.00 ready for an early breakfast of porridge and scrambled eggs on toast and more tea/coffee at 7.00. After packing up, we set off at 8. Today was a shorter day but a lot steeper and the paths were quite narrow. There are quite a few teams on the mountain maybe 6 or 7. But Nelson, our chief guide send a runner off each morning to bag a good camp site! A nice quite and secluded and away from the main area.  Today we walked out of the rain forest and into a kind of moorland, with bushes about 10 foot high. It was quite cloudy at first but after a few hours at about 3,500 m we came out above the cloud and we had some fantastic views across western side of Kilimanjaro and over towards Mt Meru, but the top of Kili was still in cloud. We had a hot lunch sitting inside a large tent, so that we were out of the sun, as it was quite hot. We had spaghetti and melon.  The food has been excellent and everyone is enjoying it. In the afternoon, we carried on up to around 3,900 m before turning and dropping down into (Shira 2) camp at about 2,800 m. A few people did have very slight headaches, but nothing that water and a couple of paracetamol did not cure. Again at about 5 pm we went for another acclimatisation walk for about an hour, returning to camp around 6. The just before dinner there was an absolutely fantastic sunset! Absolutely amazing, what everyone had hope for and been waiting for!! Then another sing and dance routine!! And again everyone was so tired, they were all in bed by 8 pm again!

Day 3 - Wednesday

Today was planned to be quite a big day, so we were woken with hot tea at 5.30 am! We left at 7 climbing from 2,800 m up to Lava Tower at 4,600.  Quite a push but everyone was realy strong. We had lunch there for about an hour. Then we climbed Lava Tower, about a 100 m scramble. There a few people who were rather tired and a few with slight headaches, but overall everyone was good, and everyone, made to the top of Lava Tower. Many of the other groups did not go up Lava Tower - they are not as strong as our team! In the afternoon, we did a long descent all the way down to Barranco Camp (3,900 m). We made good speed going down, having walked slowly in the morning up hill to help with acclimatisation. We arrived at camp around 3.30 / 4 pm for a well deserved rest after a long day. Today was a really good day for the acclimatisation process. Everyone was tired from the walking as well as getting used to sleeping in tents.  Everyone is now looking forward to summit day. Tomorrow we have another long day going up High Camp (Barafu Camp). We should arrive there about 4 pm and then we have to get up at midnight to walk up to the summit so that we arrive on the summit around 7 am.  Thanks for all the messages sent so far.  It is really amazing and people really appreciate them and are glad to receive them. So if you want to send any messages before summit day, send them now so that they are received by 5 pm Thursday (3 pm UK time) as we will all be going to bed really early tomorrow! 

Kili 31 August

Posted on August 31, 2010

Short up-date from Kili. All OK. Weather good. Erveryone in good spirits. More detailed news tomorrow.

No turning back now…

Posted on August 29, 2010

The rest of the team arrived safely last night and for some this was the first time they had met. Everyone was tired – either from a long days Safari or all day travelling from the UK, so after a cheeky beer everyone turned in.

So today is build up day. All the guys have had the morning free to go an explore Moshi, wander around the markets, embrace the African culture and sort out any other last minute things.

At 12 we met up again at the hotel and began the first of the afternoon’s briefings – Kit. Kilimanjaro can be a very cold mountain, especially on summit day the temperatures can drop below -15 degrees + wind chill. So I checked out everyone’s warm kit – down jackets, gloves etc and made sure everyone had enough layers to keep warm. [When you are at high altitude you move very very slowly and because of this your body doesn’t generate much heat so it’s really important everyone has enough clothes to keep warm.]

After kit was sorted we headed to my favourite cafe in Moshi ‘Kilimanjaro Coffee Lounge’ and enjoyed a lite lunch. It was clear the team were beginning to get excited (everyone who does climbing/trekking loves kit!)…for some of them Kilimanjaro has been in the pipeline for almost a year and now it was only 1 day way!

During the afternoon I briefed the team on a whole host of subjects including, the daily routine, what to expect, my team of locals (porters, cooks, guides), all things food, the importance of hydration and hygiene etc etc. A few questions later and we managed to iron out any misconceptions and worries and 9 very excited trekkers went off to pack their bags ready for tomorrow…

So - 6 day expedition, 100km of trekking and over 4500m of accent and descent lies ahead for the team J

Would you like to send the team a message on the mountain?!

Posted on August 29, 2010

If you would like to send the team a message whilst they are on the mountain then you can…it can be for one person or for the whole team.

Its really simple - all you have to do is email this address     881651442227@msg.iridium.com    you get 160 characters (like a txt message)

We are heading up the mountain starting on Monday 30th,  and going for the summit on the morning of Friday 3rd, back down on the afternoon of Saturday 4th. So if you want to send a good luck message to the team before we try for the summit then send it on Thursday evening!

That’s all for now, we look forward to receiving you messages!

Celine Dion, The summit of Mt Meru 4566m & 95 Kilimanjaro summits!

Posted on August 28, 2010

Firstly – Meru – what an amazing mountain! It has to be one of the best mountains I have ever climbed! For 2 days you climb up though Arusha National Park, so in theory at any minute Mr Giraffe or Mr Elephant can pop out of the jungle and say hello. Because of this every team is accompanied by an armed ranger! Sadly as everyone knows almost all animals are more scared of you and therefore run a mile when they hear you, and when you have ears as big as an elephant it’s no wonder we didn’t see any!

So for 2 days you trek up through beautiful forest and jungles, as you gain altitude from 2500 – 3500 the forest becomes much wetter and turns more jungley. Huge trees tower over you and lichens droops down from the branches. We came across lots of groups on monkeys swinging through the trees and a few small antelope type animals zipping across the path  - it was like a walking safari for 2 days!

So Celine Dione – it seems that she is alive and kicking over here! When we arrived in to Read more

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