East Africa '99
January
11, 1999 - "Sitting here on a bench at the
Chogoria Gate to Mt. Kenya National Park at 9900 feet. It's calm
and very beautiful. Haven't seen any elephants, but apparently
they come by this area quite often. It's been only 40 hours since
we arrived at Seatac Airport to begin our adventure."
The photo on the right was the view I had when I jotted down those words in my journal. It was the first full day that I spent in Africa with Terry Mataya and Mitch Hungate.
Six months earlier, we began making plans for a climbing trip to East Africa. Terry wanted to climb Mt. Kenya and Mitch wanted to climb Kilimanjaro. Since Terry had climbed Kilimanjaro a decade or two ago, we decided to make Mt. Kenya our primary goal, and Kilimanjaro our secondary goal, time permitting. Terry and Mitch were only able to get away from their jobs for two weeks, so we knew it was going to be tight.
The following stories describe these two climbs.
