Snowcocks

Alumni brave Mount Kilimanjaro with Gamecock flag

After climbing 20,000 feet and sleeping very little, James Dargan, '06, left, and Tyler Ellis, '05, reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya and hoisted a Gamecock flag in the 5-degree chill.

Dargan and Ellis became friends while attending Carolina but were in east Africa for different reasons: Dargan is opening the first American-owned and operated restaurant in Rwanda, and Ellis was working at a medical clinic in Sudan (he's now studying at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston).

“We realized a week or two in advance that we would both be in Nairobi at the same time and met up there,” Dargan said. “The ascent was quite taxing on our lungs and legs because there is only so much training you can do in South Carolina to prepare for the extreme altitudes found in Tanzania. We took three days to get to Kibo Camp (final camp before the peak) before hitting the summit trail at 2 a.m. to reach the top for sunrise.

“Apparently we had climbed the steps at Williams-Brice enough, enabling us to pass all the Europeans and reach the top by ourselves to enjoy the view.”

After a few phone calls to friends they had graduated with, Dargan and Ellis walked the trail to the bottom in one day, then flew to the tropical beaches of Zanzibar the next.

Dargan's Heaven Café will feature Rwanda's first full-scale bar and live music in its goal to attract expatriates, tourists, and locals. And we're betting that any card-carrying Carolina graduates who show up at Heaven Café will get a full-scale Gamecock welcome!