Time: 8:38am
Temp: 72 F
Alt: 4,254'
Ken and I are in the landrover and on our way to Kili!
We will be attempting the summit via the Shira route on a private climb - Just the two of us and our climb team. We will be on the mountain for 7 days.
After the Safari we stayed overnight at the Moivaro Coffee Lodge to rest and do our final gear check.
We just saw Kili for the first time. Grand and all white at the top, it sure looks bigger in real life.
Today it will take us aout 2 hours to drive to the Londorosi Gate. Once there it will be about an hour to sign in, have our gear weighed and then load back into the landrover. Our driver takes us about 30 minutes up a road/path to where we will start our climb from. The anticipated elevation gain today is 3,000'.
We arrive at the gate at 9:51am. At 7,379' Londorosi is the highest entrance point of the multiple routes which climbers can choose to climb Kilimanjaro.
10:35 and we are now at the trail head. Elevation is 10,397' and temperature has dropped to about 70 F.
Here we meet our climb team, an impressive group of 13. Our lead guide is Samson Lauwo, our assistant guide is Leonard Lymo and our cook is Remmy Kamasho. We also have 10 porters to handle all the food and gear.
Samson is going through all the gear. They have set up tents and laid out everything to cross check against a master list. I am impressed at this step so to make sure we do not set off without something critical.
At the gate we were told that there was a strict weight limit on our gear and that additional porters would be necessary to carry any extra weight. Our gear came in 10 Kilos heavy, but apparently this was not enough overweight to actually require another porter which would have cost us $65.00.
We have a terrific view of the mountain here, if the huge cloud was not covering 95% of it, it would be even better.
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