Wow! I can’t believe I’m finally writing up this post. This will be my final post dedicated to talking about the African Adventures that we recently had. There really isn’t all that much to share in this post either, as the day was dominated by a really long shuttle ride to the airport and then whoosh, we were off! However, it will give me a chance to perhaps close out with a few of my final thoughts on the overall trip. I’m not sure how that’ll turn out yet as it will possibly just make me want to pull out my credit card and charge up my next adventure right away. Isn’t credit great? I’ll try to resist the urge for a little longer, but rest assured, there will be many more adventures by ActiveSteve in the coming year(s). No map to share either, but I can at least point you to a few photographs that were put up onflickr. Read on if you dare for the rest of my tale.
Yearly archives: 2010
Welcome to the final chapter in the story about how Mount Kilimanjaro was conquered on New Year’s Eve by Team Cantrailia. I won’t say it will be the final blog post on Africa, as I will likely write a little post about the final departure as well as some final impressions on the trip, the destinations, and the people I shared the journey with. However, for this post, I owe you all the tale of Day 6 of the Rongai Route. A pretty average day for all intents and purposes, but still one which had quite and effect on my, and stirred up a few emotions here and there. Before I get into all those little details though, I will invite you once again to look at the map of the hike for the day, as well as the set of pictures that are on flickr. I really hope some of you actually look at those damn maps, because I do spend some time on them :-). Anyway, after that, come on back here and read the rest of the post.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog posts from Africa in order to bring you the latest race report from ActiveSteve. It’s been a pretty hectic weekend out in the frigid Ottawa region for me. Although the temperatures barely rose above -20degC all weekend, it didn’t keep me from skiing, snowshoeing, skating, and just generally making the most of what we get here in the winter. It was also my 2010 race season opener, taking the form of a 10k snowshoe race. This was the 3rd of 4 races put on by Mike Caldwell as the Mad Trapper snowshoe race series. The course for Saturday was the ‘combined course’, which meant one lap of the infamous ‘hilly’ route, and a 2nd lap consisting of the ‘flatter’ route. There were actually a few tweaks to the course, which made it more like 9k, but it was still plenty challenging. I managed to capture some pictures and a couple videos, which I’ve posted on flickr, but not many. For the full details of how it went down, read on friends.
Hello again friends. As promised, I’ve split summit day into the climb to the top and the climb back down in the interests of making each post manageable. There was still far too much to relate about my New Year’s eve after the summit, that you are now faced with needing to read a second post in one sitting (depending on your addiction to all things ActiveSteve :-). Of course, the map and pictures are the same as last time, so no need to review those unless you want to. This part of the story now takes you from the summit at Uhuru peak (way up there at 5,896m) down to Horombo Camp, situated faaaarrrr below at 3,700m. Yup, that’s right we’d be descending over 2.1km in one hike! Read on to learn more about that.
Hello fellow adventurers! Strap yourselves in, because we’re finally there. Summit day on Kilimanjaro. Today you will finally find out how Cantrailia fared on the roof of Africa. Now, admittedly, this post is likely going to run long. I’m just going to start writing it up, and see how lengthy it becomes. I may in fact decide to break it into two posts: up to the summit, then descending from the summit. That’s just the way I roll. However, in spite of whether I split it, there remains only one map of the day’s hike, as well as one set of pictures on flickr. But what a splendid map and set of pictures they are 🙂 For in those, you will see that we made it all the way to the top, at 5,895m AMSL. The roof of Africa. The top of Kibo, Uhuru Peak. Any way you slice it, and by whatever name you refer to it, there is no higher place in all of the continent of Africa, and it is the world’s tallest freestanding mountain! Not a bad accomplishment I’d day. Read on to find out more.