Berg

DISPATCHES

Hear Wally's Call from Africa

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Mountain Zone, I'm calling you from what we call picnic rock at 11,500 feet, on Kilimanjaro, the first full day of this Climb for the Cure/Alpine Ascents Kilimanjaro 2000 ascent of Kili. We have had a good night's sleep, first night camping on the mountain and I'll have to say probably one of the first nights camping in a long, long time, if not ever, for some of our team members.

In the mist at the top of the forest last night it might have been somewhat disconcerting for team members who wonder "Where is that mountain and how long is it going to stay like this?" But as usual, we hiked up through the heather forest, the trees thinned out. And now, at 11 o'clock in the morning, we've reached where we like to have a lunch and, yes, the spectacular view of the glaciers coming off Kibo, or the main summit of Kilimanjaro, has been visible to us as we hiked all morning — really beautiful up here.

While we lounged around, and let our bodies begin acclimatizing to this elevation above 11,000 feet, we had a lot of fun taking photographs with the Chagga guide staff; Tobias, John, James, Mark, and one fellow you'll be hearing more about, a new addition to my staff, but one of the old, seasoned veterans of guiding on this mountain, August, a 48-year-old fellow who's also from the same village as these other guides, who's going to be going with us and lending his experience on the mountain as a guide to help out on my trips, but he'll be picking up and going with Willi Prittie on his Alpine Ascents climbs later in the season. August is one of the real veterans of guiding on this mountain, and he's a gentle, kind fellow whose experience and good nature shows every step along the way. We're thrilled about having his support on this trip.

So, we're all going to have a leisurely lunch here, and then were going to climb up further on to the Shira Plateau, and we're going to call you again, I'm sure, from up there above 12,000 feet. We'll be at about 12,300 tonight.

The entire team, all 14 team members, look great, having a good time together, laughing, noticing the thin air a little bit, but in general this is a very fit and able group. I think we're going to do real well on this climb. We'll report that as we continue.

—Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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