The #NowClimbing Cybercast | Live Updates from Nick Symmonds' 7 Summit Adventure

Kilimanjaro Day 8 | The Summit

Well, we did it! So 1:17 p.m. We left camp at 11 PM last night. Hiked through the night and watched the beautiful sunrise right about 17,000 feet. It was just really nice. It was cold. And so I warmed up real good and we pressed on got to the rim and then pressed on from the rim up to. Uhuru peak. Excuse me. Pretty tired. So yeah, it's a long day. So I'll probably just recline. We’re super excited to have touched the summit of Africa. It was just nan absolutely perfect day. Really good conditions. Like I mentioned it's pretty cold but sunny and we just got some epic pictures, which I'll be able to post when I get back down. We’ll have some lunch and then we're actually going to hike out another few miles towards the gate of the park. Have some dinner there and a little ceremony and tomorrow we're up really early to leave the park and then I go on Safari. My family and my girlfriend’s family and my girlfriend they’re all coming to Arusha and we're going to go on Safari.

Kilimanjaro Day 7 | Barafu Camp

Hello from Barafu Camp at 15,331 feet. It took us about 4 hours to get here and it was absolutely beautiful once we got up. Sunny clear skies, very warm.

Kilimanjaro Day 6 | Karanga Camp

Hey there! Calling from the Karanga Camp at 13,231 feet. Just wrapping up our third day on the mountain. Today was really incredible transversing the mountain from Barranco Camp to Karanga following the Barranco wall which is kind of a class 3 to class 4 scramble. There are really beautiful rolling hills in the 3 mile walk to the Karanga. We got in around 12:30 and had a really nice lunch and then the clouds kind of came and went so we got short glimpses of the peak. There’s some really beautiful views of Mount Meru across the valley and we kind of climbed above most of the weather now. The sun went down. Really beautiful sunset and it dropped below freezing. Things are kind of frozen here but we’re warm in our tents. The plan is to get up tomorrow early around sunrise and to climb from Karanga up to Barafu, and Barafu means cold in Swahili. This next camp is at 15,300 feet and it’s going to be cold. We will wake up at about midnight tomorrow to make our summit attempt.

Kilimanjaro Day 5 | Barranco Camp

Hello! Calling from camp two here at Barranco Camp on Mount Kilimanjaro. A big storm has rolled in after we had absolutely perfect weather yesterday. It turned out really nice this morning, but around noon, as we were having lunch, the storm rolled in. It was pouring in rain. Fortunately I live in Eugene, Oregon so I’m familiar with this weather and I came prepared. We hiked all the way through the jungle and into what they call Orland, it’s a high Alpine shrub. By about 3 o’clock camp was set up and we tried to dry out as best we could. We will eat dinner here in an hour. They are taking really good care of us and feeding us really well. We’re at about 13,000 feet and it feels really good. I acclimated really well. Tonight we will try to get a really good nights sleep and move to 13,500 feet tomorrow. Try to traverse the mountain to get to camp three. Spirits are really high even though its cold and raining. The fact that we got good porters helps us out. It certainly doesn’t hurt.

Kilimanjaro Day 4 | UmBwe Cave Camp

Hello! Calling from UmBwe Cave Camp on the UmBwe trail at 10000 feet. We had an awesome day today just absolutely beautiful trek through the jungle. Climbed 4000 vertical feet and found the gates to the national all the way up to UmBwe Caves. The food was fantastic. We had a picnic lunch along the way. Some really beautiful views of the mountain as we climb through the jungle when the tree canopy parted. We have an awesome group of porters. They hiked ahead of us and set up camp and their cooking us some awesome food for a really wonderful meal tonight. Starting to get a little bit cold, but not too cold, and it's not raining fortunately , so we'll have a little camp tonight, and I think it's a plan to get up really early and climb up 4000 tomorrow. Altitude not really bothering us too much yet. But once we get above 10,000 get up to the 13 to 14 thousand it should be definitely more challenging. So the goals night is to rehydrate get a really good night's sleep for climbing tomorrow.