In April 2002, we summitted Mount Kilimanjaro - Africa's highest mountain.  Initially we were planning to climb up one of the ice routes and began our trek up from the West side, however on seeing the state of the ice, we decided to traverse around the mountain to where the crater rim could be more easily reached.

Trekking into the mountain was very different from most climbs due to the different climate zones that you pass through.  One moment we were hiking through a rain forest complete with monkeys squawking as we passed through, and the next we were walking amongst misty alpine meadows.  The climb itself is not technical and so many groups seem tempted to move towards the summit quickly and then suffer from altitude problems later.  Our own local guide wanted us to leave our high camp the same night that we arrived, but we insisted on waiting a day to be properly acclimatised. 

On summit day we left at around midnight and slowly made our way to the lip of this enormous volcano.  Seeing the sunrise slowly as we continued around the rim to the highest point was amazing.  We arrived on the summit at around 7:00am and admired the brilliant landscape of ice features, low settling clouds and majestic colours from the morning sun (despite the freezing temperatures). 

The trip down was a very long day.  We walked back down to the High Camp, rested for an hour or so, and then set off again to get back down to town that night.  Several hours of this were spent slopping our way through ankle deep mud! 

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