One Blood Expedition
In 2008 Branndon wanted to kick off his launch of his non profit One Blood Initiative by attempting to climb with his brother Greg, the three tallest mountains in Africa: Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mt. Kenya in Kenya, and Mt. Stanley in Uganda. Their goal was to use only human power to move from mountain to mountain. They climbed Kilimanjaro with a team of 9. Everyone summited including their most amazing team member which summited with one leg, and became the first amputee to summit Kili’s most difficult route, Umbwe. They then biked from a town outside of Mt. Kilimanjaro to Mt. Kenya with a vehicle support crew. They made it to Mt. Kenya exhausted. They quickly climbed to 15,000 feet then made the technical climb to the summit of Mt. Kenya’s highest point, Batian using the North Standard which is 17 pitches of climbing. After 40 hours of non-stop climbing the brothers had to turn back only 150 feet from the summit. They then huddled on a ledge 1,000 feet off the ground waiting for sun to come out. They made it back down safely and drove to to Lake Victoria, (the largest lake in Africa). They transfered to a foldable canoe and spent a week crossing the lake. After severe waves and tough conditions they made it to Jinja, Uganda. They put their bikes back together after having paddled with them across the lake. They loaded up their bikes with their PakBoat Canoe, and climbing gear and made their way to Kampala, Uganda. They spend a week in meetings with various malaria NGO’s then made there way to the last mountain, Mt. Stanley. Unfortunately due to logistics they were not able to climb the last mountain.
To read a detailed account of their trip with blog entries go to the One Blood website listed below.