Apologies to the loyal followers who have been waiting anxiously for the blog to show up again... as luck would have it, we couldn't connect to the internet the last couple of days on the mountain.

So I will backtrack and fill in the gaps tomorrow (it's very late here now), but let me first tell you what I know you are all dying to hear...

WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!!

Above: The Girl Impact team at Uhuru Peak, the highest point of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Missing from this summit photo are Taleisa & Danica... we thought they weren't going to make it, but sure enough, as soon as we dispersed from this photo, they came crawling around the corner to make their victory walk to the summit.

19 out of 19 of us made it to the top of the mountain, to Gilman's Point. 17 out of 19 of us made it to the summit, Uhuru Peak, at 19,334 ft. We lost one along the way to altitude sickness, and one to exhaustion (everyone's fine). There was a LOT of barfing on the way down.

It was hard hard hard.

It was another world.

It was incredible.

We are now back in Moshi at the Springlands Hotel where we each had The Best Shower Ever (you would not believe how dirty we were!)... and everyone is tucked in bed now, sleeping off their hard work.

Please check in tomorrow for the rest of the details from the last couple of days, and thank you again for keeping us in your thoughts and for sending us your messages and encouragement. It made all the difference in the world.


* * * * *

Our first P.S. goes out to Cal (Jane Shaw's son), who turned 10 years old while we were on our climb -- happy birthday Cal!!


And for our second P.S. We would like to send out some very special thank yous:

Nike Canada outfitted each of us with all of our technical clothes for this journey, so we were dry, comfortable, efficient (not to mention lookin' GOOD!) Seriously. Thank you Nike.

Kraft Canada believed in the vision of Girl Impact from the very beginning, and donated the seed money for this project, for which we are eternally grateful. We could not have done it without your faith in us. Thank you.

We're extremely thankful for all the physical training we went through as a team at our summer boot camps -- the effort on this climb was INTENSE, and we were SO well prepared by our trainers back at home, Daryl Devonish and Gillian Frechette.

And we would like to give a big shout-out to our guides on this trip, who kept us safe and took care of our every need for the last 6 days: Chombo, Mzui, Deo, Lucas, Benjamin, and Chef.

Asanti Sana... Thank You.