Making base camp 15,000 feet.

Mount Meru (14,997 ft), Kilimanjaro's sister in the background. 

At some points during the trip, you felt like you were right under the mountain and that you could summit that day.  At other times you would feel like you had covered miles and it still seemed so far away and no matter what our elevation gain, it still seemed like thousands of feet above us.

The cloud cover blanketed the valley around the mountain for most of our trip.

A group shot with the team and the guides!

Right behind Mike is the the ridge that we would be climbing up during our summit.

The temps would change on us as quickly as the clouds would.  One minute it was sunny and warm, the next clouds would be socking us in and it would be cold.

This was our guide Theo (holding the red water bottle).  He was born and raised in Moshi (a town at the foot of the mountain) and was a very competent and experienced guide!  The other three were his assistants,  these guys spent most of their time with us, hiking with us and helping us each step of the way. Theo divided his time between the team and supervising the rest of the porters. 

At the end of each day, we marveled at how many miles and terrain we would cover!
This stretch was so barren of any plant, I likened it to hiking on mars.  

Here we are at base camp (15,000 ft)!  The three squatty potties you see in the back
were built over a cliff.  Needless to say, you don't want to spend a lot of time in there,
especially when the wind picks up!

Summit night!!

 Getting out of the tent was difficult.  We woke up at 11:00 pm and wanted to start climbing by midnight. It had been snowing/raining right up to the time we woke up,
so the tents were frozen over with ice.

 Warming up with cookies and hot water before we go!

 The sunrise was amazing!!  We had been climbing for six hours straight with only a few minutes of rest every hour.  In the dark with little oxygen, freezing temps, 40 mph winds, and only a headlamp to light the way, your mind goes into almost a subconscious state.  The guides were watching us closely and would often shout out making sure we wouldn't fall asleep while walking!!  There is a great book called, "Zombies on Kilimanjaro" where the author talks about the subconscious state climbers are in at high altitude.  For me, it was that state just before drifting off to sleep, or when you are trying your hardest to keep awake.  

 We had just reached the crater rim, Stella Point!

 From the crater rim, we followed it up to the Summit; Uhuru.

 My standard announcement to the boys.

Dad and me at the summit 5895 meters, 19,340 feet!  The winds and temps were very bad that morning so we could only stay a few minutes.  After we got back to base camp we heard that many people from a British group didn't make it and several climbers and porters had to be brought back down for Altitude Sickness and Pulmonary Edema.   Our entire team and guides had respiratory issues for a few days afterwards.  

Hiking out; our last night.

On the way down we found several of these rescue litters.

A great view of the mountain through the rainforest.

The rainforest was so dense.

You can see the many plant variations in this picture.

Our last night on the mountain!

A monkey up in the tree. 

Coming through the gates at the resort.  

Most places had walls, gates and guards.

The two bookends.  My dad (60) and Grady (13) ...a giant 13 year old.

Back to Nairobi

There were a lot of little market place shops everywhere.

Traffic was terrible.  Often times it would take a couple 

of hours just to drive a few miles. 

Maasai Tribe

Women from the Maasai Tribe

They would often try and sell you some of their jewelry. 

It was fun talking to them.

Kilimanjaro Song