Berg

Hear Wally's Call from Africa

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This is a small trip and, if you followed us all season you will see that we have quite a lot larger groups coming up on our subsequent climbs this year, but on this trip it's just myself, and Adam and Jamie Heller, and Elizabeth and Kate Geier. And, of course, Tobias and all of my staff; my Wachagga staff who work with us here on Kilimanjaro—trip after trip, year after year.

I'm calling you now from 9,800ft at the Machame camp at the top of the forest zone on Kilimanjaro. We hiked yesterday for about nine miles and close to 4,000ft through the forest. If you don't know this you'll hear a lot about it, if you follow this season. It's a pretty perpetually rainy, wet zone; the clouds hang in here. It is very beautiful in its own way: very lush, with trees and a lot of vegetation, and it is very, very muddy. We wear gaiters and we wear boots because running shoes don't really give us the purchase, in the steep, muddy slopes, we like, and we kind of tromp through the mud. It seems kind of endless as you do it, especially on your first day on the mountain. But as you'll see, as this trip progresses, by the time we return to this zone, after we summited and we descended Mweka camp, a few days from now, it'll seem very refreshing to be back down in the green and the moist of the forest. We're at the top of the zone right now at camp and about ready to continue up the edge of the Shira Plateau—I'll fill you in on that.

To fill you in a little more on yesterday, we left the Mountain Village which is a lodge out at the edge of Arusha — a beautiful, peaceful lodge, even though it is right in town, or near town. It's on a lake and it's very tranquil out there. We left there about 8:30 yesterday morning with Paul, one of the bushbuck drivers, very skilled Land Rover driver, and also an excellent safari guide—you'll hear more about him as the season goes on. Paul was with us, and Ali, my good friend, who operates... he drives the Land Rover pick-up, the Land Rover truck, that we use to haul gear around when we come to the mountain. We drove out here yesterday morning and, as is often the case in the lower regions of this forest zone, it's been raining as it often has been. We had a pretty slippery, eventful, four-wheel drive trip up to the Machame gate, which is just under 6,000ft, where we started our climb. The clean Land Rovers that Paul and Ali had, that they take excellent care of and maintain very well, were thoroughly splashed with mud by the time we got to the top. And we watched these guys do some pretty good driving through fairly treacherous slime and muddy conditions to get us to the top. That was our first big adventure.

The rest of the trip really was a matter of walking off stiff legs, that've been in an airplane for a few days, and enjoying the movement as we moved up to this elevation here at 9,800ft. Still pretty low on Kilimanjaro, still a long ways to go, and I'll fill you in day to day as I can about how this climb is going.

—Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent