We’ll it’s hard  to believe but a week from now, our group of 4 climbers should be on the ground in Tanzania preparing to start up the Lemosho/Western Breach route toward the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  The whole idea of this trip began for me during a holiday dinner with the Klotsche’s last year.  “I’m planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro next fall! What do you think?” Al asked about halfway through our entrée.  It seemed to me like a great physical challenge.  A “bucket list,” type of trip.

I quickly learned that Thong Phan, whom I’d worked with earlier in my career and Gautam Grover, whom I hadn’t met, had agreed to the challenge as well.  It looked like a great team. I was easily sold on the idea and became the fourth in the group.

Early in our planning for the trip, we felt we ought to add a few days to our venture and do some type of service work.  It filled a need we had to give a little back to the communities in an area that we suspected was going to make the trip of a lifetime possible.  Schools seemed to be a logical place to look.  Very quickly, we learned that getting an ample supply of clean water to the students of the Uraki Village School was one of the largest health/educational issues they faced. The four of us were soon consumed with how we could be of some help solving the problem and much of the proposed solution is now articulated on the pages of www.summit4water.org.

With that as a brief background, I’m sitting at my desk at home both anxious and excited about the trip.  19,340ft is a long way up there.  Getting water 5 kilometers down the mountain to the deserving young children in Uraki Village is also a big challenge.  At the same time, I realize how much fun it’s been working together with Al, Gautam and Thong over the last 7-8 months preparing for the trip both physically and working together to solve the water problem.  It’s been a great opportunity to re-establish old friendships and to make some new ones.

So here we go!  An eight day hike up the mountain has already provided almost a year of great experiences.  There are undoubtedly more to come and we’ll certainly keep you posted.

Article source: http://www.summit4water.org/?p=315