We're so incredibly proud of our latest crew of Kilimanjaro climbers. While most people were sleeping in or nursing a champagne hangover, these 14 adventurous women were enjoying their first moments of 2017 standing on top of Africa's tallest mountain. This was our fiercest Kilimanjaro summit to date (snow, hail, rain...this mountain always keeps us on our toes), but together this group's strength and determination shined through!
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SUMMIT STORY: KILIMANJARO
At 10:30 pm on the night of March 7th, I woke up, crawled out of my sleeping bag and, in the light of my headlamp, put on almost every piece of clothing I had packed. This was the night that I was going to walk from base camp to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I was leaving with the “early group” in solidarity with some of the slower hikers and as an attempt to embrace what was going to be an extremely long climb at any speed. The darkness was intimidating, and I took in what little light I could see as I waited for the others to get ready. Looking down at camp, I could see the soft glow of tents lit up like nightlights by the headlamps of other cold hikers within them. Basecamp spills out into a great valley that contains the city of Moshi over 12,000 feet of elevation and 4 climate zones away.
Read moreWHAT TO WEAR TO UHURU PEAK: A gear guide for your trek to the summit of Kilimanjaro
Having successfully summited Kili a couple times myself, I wanted to share with you all my look for the coldest, longest, most difficult and most rewarding part of the trek...the night of summit! I made this handy dandy pictorial gear guide to give you an idea of what has worked for me (spoiler alert: lots of layers)! All this gear is tried and true and has gotten me to the top safe, sound and toasty (relatively speaking)!
The great part is I just keep adding layers along the way to the top. I'm basically just wearing different combos of this gear all 7 days I'm on the mountain (with a few changes of midweight tops and pants along the way). So, if you have these pieces (or one's that are comparable) it's a good start to making sure you're in shape (gear-wise) for Kilimanjaro!
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