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SEE ALSO
Greenland '99
Denali '99
Ed Viesturs
Climbs 8K Peaks
Everest '99
Everest Archives
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Monday, December 27, 1999
 Burleson | |
Hear Todd's Call from Africa |
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Hi, it's Todd. We are in the Machame Hut right now at 10,000 feet, and we just got in today or this evening. It was a long day; it poured rain heavily, but all 16 of us got up here. The trail was quite muddy, but the jungle was beautiful, and we saw some monkeys at the beginning of the trip. The millennium is a big deal out here in Africa. They had the minister come to greet everyone before they took off on the trip. We actually left a little early before he showed up so that we could get up to camp before dark.
There's a lot of other groups, there's probably...[Unintelligible]...other groups climbing the same route as everybody...[Unintelligible].
We spent Christmas in Nairobi, and that was great. We went to the Carnivore Restaurant where they serve all types of wild animal and game, and that was a lot of fun. The day after Christmas we...[Unintelligible]...had a nice drive down and saw lots of Masai and traditional people, walking up and down out in the woods, and we had lunch out in the desert and visited with a few Masai there. Then we went up to the Mountain Village, our hotel, which is absolutely gorgeous. It's right by a lake and we live in kind of thatched-roof huts, and it's fantastic.
Everybody's good here; our spirits are high. We're a little bit worried about rain, actually a lot of people got soaked today. The path was totally covered in mud. We were probably up to past our ankles in mud on several occasions, and it downpoured for about three hours. But it's bright and sunny now and most of our clothes are dry and we're looking forward to tomorrow, and we'll give you a call then. I hope everyone's good, and we're looking forward to summitting on New Year's and we're still on schedule. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Bye-bye.
—Todd Burleson, Alpine Ascents Founder Reporting for MountainZone.com
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