{"id":6464,"date":"2012-03-05T10:18:17","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T18:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/?p=6464"},"modified":"2012-03-05T10:19:09","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T18:19:09","slug":"kilimanjaro-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/05\/kilimanjaro\/kilimanjaro-wrap-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilimanjaro Wrap Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 5, 2012<\/p>\n

All members returned to the US yesterday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Flights home are long \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at least 2 legs in the 8-9 hour range.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re tough but maybe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a good thing.\u00c2\u00a0 We had time to catch up on sleep and time to reflect on the previous two weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 I was fortunate to have a team of 12 very prepared, very strong, very motivated and very friendly climbers.\u00c2\u00a0 They demonstrated all those attributes daily.\u00c2\u00a0 From the moment we started the climb, I knew Sue and I would be shaking hands with each one of them on the summit.\u00c2\u00a0 Even a summit day which brought perhaps 10 cm of snow and then stiff breezes all along the crater rim, did nothing to slow or deter even one of the team.\u00c2\u00a0 Their strength, resolve and cooperation never wavered.\u00c2\u00a0 What a team.<\/p>\n

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Kili Team on Safari (Photo: Phil Ershler)<\/p><\/div>\n

Safari was simply a continuation of the teamwork on the mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 We drove out to Ngorongoro because everyone wanted to see this part of the country at \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcground level\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.\u00c2\u00a0 The good times simply continued right to the Crater.\u00c2\u00a0 Beers en route, shopping and gin and tonics at the Crater kept the smiles coming.\u00c2\u00a0 We were at the late end of the season and we got rain each night on safari but that only set us up for some great game viewing.\u00c2\u00a0 The Crater was green and we saw pretty much everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Olduvai Gorge, a Masaai Village stop and bumpy dirt roads put us in position to hopefully get good views of the migration.\u00c2\u00a0 The wildebeest had been hanging up in the Serengeti later than normal because there hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been enough rain.\u00c2\u00a0 I was sweating it because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d planned to stay in the Ndutu area to catch the migration.\u00c2\u00a0 We had a long game drive planned for the next day.\u00c2\u00a0 Wildebeest and cats were the goal.\u00c2\u00a0 Olotu, one of our guides\/drivers, asked me how many wildebeest I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to see that day.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHalf a million\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 was my response.<\/p>\n

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Wildebeest & calves (Photo: Phil Ershler)<\/p><\/div>\n

We drove northwest through Ndutu for about an hour before coming upon one of the more amazing sights I have seen.\u00c2\u00a0 Wildebeest and their calves, in lines, for miles.\u00c2\u00a0 Olotu killed the engine on the stretch Land Cruiser as we started taking pictures.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcStart counting\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 was all he said.\u00c2\u00a0 500,000 wildebeest later, I quit counting.<\/p>\n

Thanks to my team members for trusting IMG to put their trip together.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be traveling with Dan, Meribeth, Jay, Cindy, Ann, Emily, Bill, Linda, Rick, Carly, Brett, Bonnie and Sue before long.<\/p>\n

Phil Ershler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 5, 2012 All members returned to the US yesterday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Flights home are long \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at least 2 legs in the 8-9 hour range.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re tough but maybe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a good thing.\u00c2\u00a0 We had time to catch up on sleep and time to reflect on the previous two weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 I was fortunate to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kilimanjaro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6464"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6473,"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6464\/revisions\/6473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountainguides.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}