Nebraska senators reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro

"Summit," read a one-word text message from Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon that was received in Lincoln at 12:16 a.m. Wednesday. It was 9:16 a.m. on the storied mountain in Tanzania.

A map-tracking site showed Brewer at an elevation of 19,315 feet at Uhuru Peak near a glacier at the summit at 12:32 a.m. Lincoln time.

The peak of the mountain reaches 19,340 feet. 

Brewer and four fellow state senators, Anna Wishart of Lincoln, Justin Wayne of Omaha, Ben Hansen of Blair and Dave Murman of Glenvil, were scheduled to descend on a long journey back down to a base camp after leaving the summit.

That would complete a challenging 18-hour day of climbing and descending the mountain that began with departure from a base camp below the summit at midnight, launching the ascent in darkness. 

Summit night, as it is called, is considered to be the most challenging part of the ascent, cold, dark, usually windy and the steepest part of the journey up the mountain.