Just before we went to bed, the Tanzanian guides had to evacuate a second climber.   Once again, a bad sight to see prior to beginning our climb.

We went to bed at 8:00 pm and we were woken three hours later to get ready (11:00 pm on Dec. 10).   We got our gear on and made our way to the mess tent for midnight.  Adam had Cameron do a small repair job on his heal and we had some warm water and plain cookies.  We left camp at 12:20 am.

The weather was really great.  We had perfect conditions.  We could see 1000s of stars across the sky and we had a ½ moon to light the mountain.

We hiked for several hours before we had a light snack (hot tea and biscuits).  The climb was long, longer than we imagined.  Through the night we had to pass other climbers (ours and others), who were being taken down the hill.  In our case, we had several climbers who could not reach the summit due to exhaustion, the freezing cold and some minor symptoms of mountain sickness.  All of these people deserve much credit.

We hiked through the night; we had to wear our headlamps until 6:00 am and we were able to watch the sun rise over Mawenzi Peak.  It was beautiful.

Well the news is that we made it!   It took us nearly 8 hours to get to the summit.  We stayed there for ½ hour and took another 2 hours to get down.  We feel pretty good.  It was a long night, we are glad it is over and more importantly we achieved all the personal goals we set out to achieve.  We are healthy, we left some personal items on the summit and we got to the roof of Africa.

We have to walk for another 3 hours today to get us to 12,000 feet and then out of the park tomorrow afternoon.  The first thing we plan on doing in Arusha is taking a shower.    

We are back to school next Monday.  Our Dad has some meetings over the next several days in 4 different towns here in Tanzania.  

We would like to thank our sponsors (our parents!); we look forward to seeing our friends and family back in Ottawa.  Hello to all of our relatives (the MacDonald and MacPhees).   Thanks for following our special trip to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.