10. Breakfast at Kikelewa - it tended to be fine in the mornings, but clouded over in the afternoons.



11. A competitive game of cards of an evening.


12. Dawn over the Kenyan plains to the North East.


13. Andy Rubin enthroned  in a Senecio Kilmanjari seat.  These wonderful trees are found in the Heath and Moorland zone of the mountain and are unique to Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya.


14. You can get mobile signals most of the way up Kili - I'm chatting to my wife Wendy.


15. Looking down on the Mawenzi Tarn Camp.  Each afternoon we climbed at least 200 metres above our camp to help the acclimatisation process.


16. The acclimatisation walk with our guide Godson setting a sensible slow and steady pace.


17. I'm having a rest as we walk from the Tarn camp to Kibo.  The Freeflow pack is great for avoiding getting your back sweaty.


17b. Dennis our cook provided some of the best food I have had on expedition.  It was all provided from fresh produce with plenty of liquid - really important for acclimatisation.  His soups were superb.

Click here to find out more about the Kilimanjaro trip>>





Kilimanjaro.

In September I had the pleasure of climbing Kilimanjaro with some of  the Senior Management team of Pentland, which owns some of the  World's top sporting and fashion brands. Andy Rubin, Chief Executive of Pentland initiated the trip as a personal challenge that he wanted to do as he had never done anything like this before. He invited leaders of their brands to join him and then kindly invited me, as Chairman of Berghaus, which is also a Pentland Brand.

We raised money for 2 charities: Rays of Sunshine, which grants wishes to terminally ill kids in the UK and Student Partners Worldwide, a charity working in Tanzania (and other countries) educating students with regard to AIDS. We will have raised about £20,000 in total. Africa Travel organised our  trip very efficiently.

Here's our picture diary;


1. From left to right:  Myself (Chairman of Berghaus), Andy Rubin (Chief Executive of Pentland), Colin Brown (MD of Mitre, Kangaroo and Sourcing Unlimited), Ean Brown (General Council of Pentland), Richard Cotter (MD of Brasher, Lou O'Conner ( MD of Airwalk ) Andy Simister (Brand President of LaCoste) and Barney Rosedale (team doctor and old friend of mine who was doctor on the 72 Everest South West Face Expedition).


It's 12 September and we are about to leave the Kibo Hotel to start our climb.


2. Map of Kilimanjaro (from the excellent guidebook "Explore Mount Kilimanjaro"(click here to order a copy) reproduced by permission of Rucksack Readers) showing the Rongai route which we followed, taking 6 days from road head to summit - you definitely need those six days to get a better level of acclimatisation- trying to do it in less leads to a lot of suffering and a much lower chance of success.


3. Joseph, one of our senior porters weighs our personal bags - we are allowed 15 kilos each to be carried by our porters.


4. Setting off from the road head at Naremoru at a height of 2100 metres - we've a long way to go.


5. Kilimanjaro from just above Naremoru.


6.Our porters racing past us with their heavy loads.


7. We follow at a more leisured pace with our team leader, Ean Brown out in front.


8. Some of our excellent support team from "African Walking".  We had altogether 26 porters, cook staff and guides.

On the far right is Godson, a member of the Masai tribe and Assistant guide:  He was outstanding in every way and led our team to the summit of Kilimanjaro.  On his left is Simon, the chief Guide and sitting in front of Simon is Camp 7, named after the Brand of sleeping bag given him by a satisfied client.  At the end of the trip  we replaced it with a much warmer Berghaus bag, so from now on we hope he'll be called Berghaus.


9. Kilimanjaro from Kikelewa Caves Camp.  We shall be going for the summit up it's left hand side.