Entries from Kilimanjaro

Ngorongoro Crater was worth getting up early for. We were on the road by 6:30 AM. It was cloudy and as we climbed up to the rim of the old collapsed volcano, we were in thick fog.  This did not prevent us from seeing a handful of elephants in the forest up there though.

Our first hours in the “crater” were actually a little cool and drizzly, but we were seeing abundant wildlife and so we didn’t really care.  We saw everything from Cape Buffalo to Jackals. The giant herds of Zebra and Wildebeest were a big hit. During the course of the day, we crisscrossed the valley floor and saw eight lions (beating yesterday’s total). We got to see a number of happy hippopotamus pile-ups in the mud and shallow waters. 

By mid-afternoon we were climbing out of the bowl to visit a Maasai village on the crater rim. We danced with the villagers, and they showed us some of their traditional methods for building fires and living in the wild.  The team got back to the Plantation Lodge in time for a sunset swim in the pool before dinner.

Tarangire tomorrow!

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

What a difference a day makes!  No more camping and no more climbing.  Today we woke to rainy skies in Usa River, but we woke in comfy hotel beds and got into nice, dry Toyota Land Cruisers.  Our Safari guides: Jakob and Ng’orongo took us west through Arusha and out of the rain into the Maasai country beyond.  We made it to Lake Manyara National Park by midday.  Things started out slowly… a few baboons.  A bird or two.  The odd bushbuck.  At our picnic lunch, the mountain guide on the team suggested there was nothing much remaining to be seen and that we should call it a day and head for the hotel swimming pool.  Nobody listened.  Our safari guides then found a lion asleep under a tree.  Which turned into seven lions when we looked a little closer.  Which turned into seven hungry, hyper, and hunting lions when a cheerful, clueless zebra came strolling along.  Our guides kept us alongside a protracted hunt as the zebra got smart and began to move away along the lakeshore.  The lions - actually five lionesses and two lions - finally pulled the trigger and sprang after the zebra.  We couldn’t quite see that but somehow, they switched prey in the middle of the attack, coming away with a couple of warthogs in their jaws.  The mountain guide on our team admitted that the swimming pool idea had been a poor one and that in ten years of visiting Manyara he hadn’t seen one lion let alone seven making multiple kills.  To drive home the point, we then saw Cape Buffalo, giraffes, and elephants at close quarters and in quick succession.  And THEN we went to the pool.  We were at the Plantation Lodge for sunset and an excellent dinner.  Safari Day One, in the books and exceeding all expectations. 

Best Regards,

Dave

At breakfast this morning there were plenty of our team singing the praises of Mweka Camp and 10,000 ft living. The sleep was sooooo much better than at 15,000 ft. Food went down easier as well, and we put away plenty of it before hitting the trail at 8 AM. Within a few minutes of walking, we entered the rain forest. The day was dry and clear but as we descended, the trail was wetter and more muddy. We had to drop 4000 ft without slipping. This was made a bit more exciting by the hundreds of porters from various teams trying to get down the slippery track with big loads at high speed. We finished the journey at 10:30am and signed our names in the National Park registry at the Mweka Gate. We then enjoyed a final lunch with our staff, after which we were treated to a spirited song and dance session with all 46 of the men who helped us. We expressed our gratitude with tips for all and then shook hands to seal the deal…and to bid farewell.

We loaded onto the bus and made the two-hour ride back to the Rivertrees hotel. It was then a comfortable afternoon of showers and gear sorting. The adventure continues tomorrow with safari, but we took the time this evening to eat and drink together in celebration of our successful climb of Kilimanjaro. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Sunday, August 13, 2023 - 7:24 am PT

We had an extremely nice day for going to the top of Africa. Waking at 11 last night it was dead calm and when we unzipped the tents and looked out, the lights of Moshi and a hundred other towns and villages in Tanzania were winking up at us.  The ever-present cloud deck wasn't present. Overhead, the Milky Way dazzled us.  We ate a quick "breakfast" and got climbing by midnight. The cold temps were a challenge, but less so without wind. We marched up through the night, taking quick hourly breaks in the lava, gravel and pumice.  We were at Stella Point on the crater rim when the sun rose at 6:35 and magically it was still calm on the mountaintop.  It was a beautiful walk in the morning light over to Uhuru, the summit of Kilimanjaro.  We celebrated up top and took plenty of pictures. We'd just begun walking down when one of the remaining summit glaciers calved with a thunderous crash into a pool of meltwater. We were stunned by the action, but also by the fact that a sizable pool of unfrozen water existed at 19,000 ft. We slid down the rock scree of our ascent route, reaching high camp just after 10 AM. Our staff sang and danced to give us a memorable and fun welcome. We finished the day with a rugged hike down to Mweka Camp at 10,000 ft, arriving at 3:30 PM under sunny skies. The team is getting set for a final night on the mountain. Our team did well, placing seven of nine climbers on top and crucially nine of nine safely down afterward. Our support team blew our minds with the quality and quantity of help they provided as we pursued our dream summit. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Sunday, August 13, 2023 - 1:10 AM PT

A quick check in from RMI Guide Dave Hahn with the photo above to let us know the team reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro at 7:15 am local time.  The team has safely descended back to High Camp, Barafu, as of 10:15 am local time.  They will continue their descent to Mweka Camp, their final mountain camp of the trip.

Congratulations team!

We are at high camp! 

Barafu -which means ice in Swahili. We got here nice and early, just after 11 AM.  It only took about three hours to gain the two thousand vertical feet from Karanga Camp.  The team came in smiling and all together and excited to finally be here, in place for a summit bid.  The day ended up a little cloudy, with a snowflake or two in the air but that hasn’t bothered us.  Benson treated us to a nice lunch and then we sat down with Naiman -our lead guide- to talk in detail about the summit and how we’ll prepare for it. 

We are resting and organizing this afternoon, getting used to the altitude and catching up on our hydration.  An early dinner is in order -Spaghetti at 5:30- and then we’re going into the tents for a rest.  It will be an Alpine start; we aim to be walking at midnight. 

Wish us a little luck, please. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

The conclusion of a climbing trip is always a bittersweet affair. We're looking forward to getting back home to loved ones, yet we're sad to end a great adventure with some new friends. 

Our last day saw the group split up with Mike and Heidi flying out from an airstrip near our lodge in the park and the Corcorans needing to beat feet for an early flight home. Plenty of animals were seen on this half-day safari, with Mike and Heidi seeing another leopard! Our day rooms at our nice hotel back in Arusha were key for us to be washed and rested for our long flights home. 

As I reflect on this trip from the modern Schiltpol Airport in Amsterdam I'm reminded why we do this stuff. Cool adventures, physical challenges of the type 2 fun variety, and most importantly, climbing (and safari-ing) with a special group of folks that I look forward to doing stuff within the future. 

Thanks for reading these posts. See you in the mountains! 

RMI Guide Brent Okita 

This morning at Barranco, the clouds were lapping at the mountain just a hundred feet below us, but it was crystal clear up above.  We were out of camp just after 8 AM and doing battle with the Great Barranco Wall. Climbing through this section requires hands on some careful holds and feet on some well-chosen ledges in the lava.  We cruised it. We pulled over the top of the wall (at 14,000 ft) in about an hour and forty minutes.

Somehow, Benson, our chef, had beaten us to it and had a picnic table set up with refreshments. We lounged about in the sun and took pictures with Kibo’s impressive south face as the backdrop. Then we traveled on, traversing several shallow valleys.

Finally, we dropped down a steep hillside into the Karanga Valley and then up the just-as-steep opposite side of the valley. This climb took us into Karanga Camp where we ate lunch and rested and told each other tall tales for the afternoon.

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

Land of elephants. Tarangire National Park has one of the largest concentrations of elephants in the world. And we saw plenty, along with most every other animal to be seen on safari. It was a great day of wildlife viewing in a park very different from the Ngorongoro Crater. This park is huge. A vast savanna broken up by a few river systems that provide much need water in this very parched environment.

Eric's big objective was to see a leopard, and our guides Chacha and Jacob didn't let us down. High in a leafy tree, camouflaged so incredibly well, was the cat! How our safari guides can pick these critters out of beyond me. We can only see it with binoculars, but there it is, with part of a carcass it had been feeding on. 

The animal sightings continue regularly as we make our way to our luxury tent camp in the park. We celebrate our final night together with another wonderful dinner and a few glasses of nice South African wine. 

We're off to get in a few more hours of wildlife viewing before having to get back to Arusha where we'll enjoy our day rooms for a few hours before our evening flight home. 

Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and get into the big cats again on our way out. 

RMI Guide Brent Okita and Team

The team had a fine day of climbing to reach Barranco Camp at 13,100 feet.  When we woke and ate breakfast at Shira Camp this morning, there was a mean looking lenticular cloud on the summit of Kilimanjaro.  It looked like it would have been a very difficult day to summit.  Luckily, we had different plans for the day.  We set out at 8 AM walking toward Kibo (the central peak) and gaining altitude gradually.  Before too long we passed 14,400 ft and shattered the previous high altitude records for everyone on the team.  We cruised right on up to the Lava Tower at 15,200 ft and rolled down the other side to where our amazing chef Benson had prepared a picnic lunch for the team.  By this point the clouds had cleared and we had full views of Kibo’s ice fields and massive cliff faces just above.  We got walking again after lunch and made fine time hiking down into the gardens of Barranco Camp.  At 3 PM we cruised through the last of the Giant Senecios and into our camp.  We switched to relaxing with tea time followed by a nice dinner in our colorful dome tent.  Tomorrow we take on the great Barranco Wall. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Wednesday, August 9, 2023 - 9:16 am PT

The drive to the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater brings you to well over 6,000', and on this day clouds obscured the views until we had descended most of the way to the crater floor. But this didn't get in the way of seeing the animals we had come to see. 

This area is truly one of the greatest wildlife habitats of the world. And we weren't disappointed today. There wasn't much we didn't see, and we got up close and personal with many animals. Well, from the safety of our Landcruiser. 

Lions, of course, were the highlight of the day and we were lucky enough to get multiple sightings. The list of animals we saw covers most of what you'd see in a National Geographic special, but the sheer numbers of animals continues to impress. Thousands, and this is not even prime season, according to our wonderful safari guide/drivers Chacha and Jacob.

We ended the day visiting a Maasai village where we were entertained with some dancing, a fire starting demo, view of their traditional living space - the boma - and their school. Yes, it was all a little staged, but it was also nice to know that we were helping support the village financially.

We're now enjoying the comforts of this wonderful lodge after a long day. Doesn't get any better! 

Tomorrow, Tarangire National Park. Can't wait! 

RMI Guide Brent Okita Lion PC: Mike Tully