Hey all,

We had a really nice summit day today! We rested yesterday afternoon and woke up at 10 PM to get ready to go to the top. After a light “breakfast,” we left at 11 PM.

The first seven or so hours were by headlamp and involved some steep scrambling and lots of switchbacks. Dawn broke as we approached the rim of the mountain, and we were treated to a beautiful sunrise. We topped out on the rim at a place called Stella Point, and once we reached the rim, we could look down into the massive crater on the other side. From there, we followed the gently rising slopes along the crater rim for another hour to reach the summit. There was snow along the trail, but it was old snow and frozen hard, so we mostly hiked on really good trails.

Everyone did great! We spent 20 minutes or so on top taking pictures and taking in the view before descending back to high camp. We’re currently dropping another 4,000+ feet to a camp called Mweka Forest Camp. This sets us up for a fairly moderate day tomorrow to the park gate, where we’ll do a four-wheel transfer to our hotel and some well-deserved showers!

Cheers,
Todd

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