The morning of the summit day, I woke up at 2:45am after a sleepless night. The thin air and the sub freezing temperatures made it almost impossible to sleep. We set off for the final summit push, climbing over 3,000 feet up a steep scramble. Climbing by headlamp, we made it to the summit at 5:30, and waited for thirty minutes beneath the summit in a shielded enclave to protect from the 40mph wind. We headed up moments before the sunrise and I snapped this photo looking out on the landscape.

Mt. Kenya, Kenya (January 2025)