On July 17, 2013, Crown's global team of "Kili Climbers" Audrey Muir, Chantelle van Zyl, Chris Davis- Pipe, David Lam, George Matthew, Jay Varghese, Kobus Jacobs, Guy Houbart, Nitin Alex, Norah Franchetti, Robin Swiegars and Stuart Mansbridge began their Kilimanjaro adventure. After six months of hard training, the team were ready for their six nights and seven days trek to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain on earth and return back to sea-level.
The team were in extremely good hands, their six guides had together already summited the mountain over 500 times, and throughout their climb were there for our team to advise, support and encourage them.
The team faced many challenges during their climb, including, nightly temperatures falling to well below zero, the potential for acute mountain sickness due to thinning air and lack of oxygen, severe tiredness, and not to mention the final part of the trek being pitch black. Andy Marshall, who was based on the ground after suffering an injury, provided huge support to the team throughout and passed on motivating messages from colleagues, friends and family as well as keeping everyone updated of the climb progress.
On July 23, 2013, the team reached the summit after five long days of trekking leaving the final camp at midnight in order to see dawn breaking over Africa as they got closer to the summit. Their feelings of achieving their goal were summed up by Chantelle who said: "Just for a little while, I touched the sky."
The Kili Climbers were determined to reach the incredible 5,895m altitude in aid of CHOC (Childhood Cancer Foundation). This charity is an extremely worthy cause and the team has received fantastic support. So far, donations have reached USD31,000 - an incredible effort from the team. Well done! If you'd like to add your support to the team by donating to the charity you can do so here.