Co-founder Vern Jones explains:

If you’re here, reading this, then you’ve been there. And we mean literally there, standing at the very top of Kili’s majestic Uhuru Peak on Kibo Summit. After years and months of dreaming, planning, training, and traveling our group of five (Vern, Jill, Ryan, Justin and Julie) embarked on a week-long journey, one that would forever alter our lives. Mid-afternoon on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014, we set out to reach the Uhuru Peak via the Machame Route, and on Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 7 a.m., we all reached the summit.

A decades-long dream was finally met; an adventure of a lifetime was had; and familial bonds were cemented with each step taken, by each meal shared, and by the (freezing!) celebration on the Roof of Africa. The Kili Summit Club was first borne out of a need for some cool Bragging Gear, but has evolved to become a perpetual tribute to this family’s experience on the mountain, a way to help the hard-working porters of Kilimanjaro, a way for fellow climbers to share their experience with each other, and a genuine need to equip all Kili Summiters with the high-quality bragging gear they earned.