Kilimanjaro Expedition Dispatch

June 8, 2017 – Hiking from Moir Camp to Lava Tower

It’s June 8, we woke up at Moir Camp at altitude 13,600ft. above sea level. I saw Susan as I got up and she was smiling and I remembered it was her daughter’s Ariel’s birthday, a great day to celebrate. Of course at altitude, we had lots on our mind, taking care of ourselves, it’s a beautiful place here and we are concerned about acclimatization.

I was talking with Eric, our chief guide at breakfast, and we were talking about appetite, the biggest indicator of acclimatization, then breakfast time was served and all 10 members showed upon time. Breakfast this morning was French toast, roasted sweet potato, bacon, small plain egg omelettes, fresh fruits of small kiwi, oranges and bananas and pineapples.

I noticed Hanna likes peanut butter on her bananas and Lilia likes to eat Nutella straight from the jar. During breakfast I looked at Jim holding up a half empty bottle of maple syrup, that was a hit, in other words our appetites are doing really well. In fact all other indicators of our acclimatization with this team are fine.

Now we are going to begin walking, we have a big goal today; we are going to reach 15,000ft to Lava Tower camp.

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Still June 8th, now we are at Lava Camp this group walks together, we have a lot of BAI Guides, they are all great guides, friends and companions, we are all having a wonderful time together. One of the reasons we have a lot of guides is to allow the people in the group to split up and walk at their own pace, enjoy some different company, one of the things about this group is that they just like each other, they are evenly matched physically and they walk together, so we are enjoying that as well.

All the way across from the Shira plateau climbing higher and higher along the way towards the great breach wall of Kilimanjaro. We walked today and arrived at Lava Tower camp at 1:30 in the afternoon ascending to 15,000 ft. Beautiful spot we will enjoy the scenery this afternoon. It is warm now, the clouds are moving in and you can count on the cold this evening. We will let you know how this goes, and so far better than could be expected, the Austin adventurists are looking really good at this altitude.

Evening

It’s just about 9:00 pm we have a brilliant full moon rising over Kilimanjaro clear skies with great conditions, the members of the team are doing great, I hate to keep talking about food and appetites are doing well, another new development, Lilia enjoys Nutella on her popcorn! Enjoying our nutritional intake at high altitude, I’m confident everyone is going to have a good night’s sleep, sleeping this high. No one has ever been to this altitude, just the heights of the Colorado mountains, new territory for the Austin Adventurists. As we were preparing for dinner tonight our staff burst thru the dining tent doors singing and presenting a welcome cake to the team, Welcome all to Kilimanjaro. We are in the grove now, the team is adapting well, our routine is continuing to traverse Kilimanjaro day by day.

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