From the Mountain

Guess who found some mobile reception at 13,000 feet! Yes, we are on Day 4 of 7...our hiking is very intense but going well. We have handled the altitude well with only minor headachey-ness from time to time... But we are happily strong. We reached 15,000 feet yesterday on a practice hike...and will sleep at that level tomorrow.

Our support team is really great - our 9 team members consist of a main guide, an assistant guide, a cook, and 6 porters. They are all friendly and work hard and go out of their way to help make us comfortable. The primary language here is Swahili, so we have learned many words, phrases, and even a song!

We have had days ranging from 3 to 7 hrs of hiking along all sorts of terrain. Our hiking poles are invaluable... But not as invaluable as the portable private toilet we have hired to be brought with us! Yes.... the tented toilet is rugged, but it's worth its weight in gold compared with the public outhouses.

Our tent is nice and stays warm...enough. This morning it was 32 degrees F...but warmed up as we got moving. It is our home for now which is perfectly fine.

We usually go to sleep around 8pm... it's dark and we are generally tired from the day. Then we wake up the next morning around 6am...and get ready in the tent... We always make sure we put our clothes for the next day in our sleeping bags... Along with anything with a battery to keep them warm. We also rented sleeping bags for the trip (for 20 bucks a bag) that are incredible....very warm.

So we wake up and get our clothes on, duffle bags re-packed, sleeping bags stuffed into compression sacks, then head out of the tent for breakfast... But we also usually have warm water and soap waiting outside our tent for us to wash up in the morning. Then we have breakfast of porridge, hot chocolate, toast, and eggs. Then we check our water levels (sometimes needing to purify several bottles worth with iodine tablets to then put in our camelbaks), throw on our packs and head off for the day's hike with beautiful, clear mornings in which we can see the surrounding mountains and valleys and Kili's peak and glaciers towering in the background. Quite the sight.

Our guide, James, calls Kate 'boss' because she likes to be in the lead and go at her own pace... Even though the motto here is 'pole pole' meaning 'slow slow.' But Kate is a very strong climber and doing great. I am feeling fine on the hikes...but my knee injury from surfing is back, so I wear a brace which makes it 90% fine. We drink a lot of water, we take breaks, and we have plenty of energy snacks on which to indulge along the way.

So...just wanted to provide a brief update while en route. We are taking many photos... And will continue to do so.

Tomorrow night we will start our summit hike around 12:30am to reach the summit at sunrise which is at 6:30am. We will be wearing every clothing item we have because it supposed to be very cold up there. Using many self-heating packs, too. Hoping it all helps make the cold tolerable. Then we start down for the remaining 1.5 days.

Will provide another update when we have access again!