Earlier this month a team of 8 friends from Alltech set out to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Their goal was to raise $24,000 for sustainable agriculture and education in Haiti. Now the dust has cleared and the climbers are safely back to work. The donations are still coming in and so far, over $48,000 has been raised for Haiti including a matching donation from Alltech. To contribute or learn more about our Haiti project visit www.alltech.com/haiti.

This entry from Max Purser describes part of their climb.

Another day on the mountain. The closer we get, the more it seems we have to climb. Our one casualty is significantly better and we are on course. We head off about 8.30 and are quickly ascending what is known as the Barranco Wall. It is really a steep narrow trail more suited to chamoix or mountain goats. At points it is slightly precarious and knowing where your centre of gravity lies with your rucksack on is a distinct advantage. All cleared the hurdles with flying colours.

Thereafter we in effect traversed around the mountain. The landscape here is low brush and primarily rock, gravel and sand dipping in and out of one valley to the next. We finally catch a view of our campsite which looks incredibly close but a steep descent and ascent stand in the way. A jovial argument breaks out with Samson, (perhaps the unspoken favourite of our guides) who as we left promised a short day, an hour and a half up the wall followed by an similar amount of time onto the camp. We were already 4 hours walking at this point.

Alltech Team with a Haitian flag on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro
From left: Paulo Rigolin, Matthew Smith, Pat Charlton, Max Purser, Jorge Gotuzzo, Robbie Walker and Ty Yeast

A feast awaited us and many drifted off to bed. John (a South African living in Belfast) and I headed on up tomorrow's trail gaining a bit more altitude to further help with the acclimatisation. The clouds rolled in and we quickly lost sight of the camp. What was bizarre was to be above the thunderstorm that was looming over Moshi town below. Tomorrow is really when it starts to get serious as we head to a 4800m camp before we make the final assault late tomorrow night early Friday morning.

This video was shot by the climbers as they worked their way up the mountain.