Summit on the Summit Team Reaches Top of Kilimanjaro

On January 12, Jessica Biel along with fellow celebrities on the Summit on the Summit team, climbed to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, Uhuru Point. Each member reached the top successfully.

“The Summit on the Summit team has reached the top of Mt Kili! A great moment captured,” said a tweet sent from the top on the official expedition web site.

Temperatures were reportedly in the single digits during the final ascent, which is not uncommon on the upper slopes of the mountain during nighttime. The team also had to endure low visibility as snowy conditions.

The Summit on the Summit team comprised of celebrities Jessica Biel, Emile Hirsch, Kenna, Lupe Fiasco, Santigold and others climbed Mount Kilimanjaro raise awareness about the global clean-water crisis. MTV is airing a 90-minute documentary about the celebrities’ climb on March 14.

The trailer is overly dramatic and exaggerates the conditions on the mountain, but should prove to be an entertaining film.  The cinematography is appears amazing.

“When I was younger, my dad pointed out Kilimanjaro on a huge atlas. It stood in my mind as one of the wonders of the world,” said trip leader Kenna, who was determined to reach the summit on his second try.

“This climb is dedicated to my father. As a child in Ethiopia, he lost his brother and lost his friends and family to water-borne diseases. A billion people in the world don’t have clean water. I had to do something about it. For me it’s personal. I could have been one of those kids. I needed to come up with something that would command attention. And the only thing I could think of that was that massive was climbing Kilimanjaro.”

Actor Isabel Lucas had this to say about the adventure:

“It was the most challenging thing, physically, that I’ve done. All of us got altitude sickness, or felt the effects of it, whether it was nausea or headaches or loss of consciousness, even. 19,341 feet is really high, and a lot of us hadn’t experienced that sort of altitude, and you don’t know how your body is going to react. I actually didn’t feel the effects until we were on the summit, and then when we were descending, I got quite sick.”

Among the other participants on the climb are: Alexandra Cousteau (National Geographic Emerging Explorer and granddaughter of famed explorer and filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau), Elizabeth Gore (executive director for Global Partnerships for the United Nations Foundation), Simon Isaacs (international development and water expert), award-winning photographers Michael Muller and Jimmy Chin, Kick Kennedy (environmental activist and granddaughter of Robert Kennedy), Bernise Ang (social entrepreneur and recipient of the YouthActionNet Award and Fellowship from the International Youth Foundation), Dr. Greg Allgood (director of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program at Procter & Gamble), mountaineering expert Melissa Arnot and renowned trainer Jason Walsh.

__________

See Jessica Biel Climbed Mount Kilimanjaro