My First KiliClimb

A friend whose husband had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro at a much younger age said, “My advice to you is to stay home! ” I’m not a professional climber, but I was determined to summit this highest free-standing mountain in the world to give underserved kids a hand up.

I was climbing with a team, but I had trained on my own. Still, the climb started out well. The first day was a snap. The trail was easy and not very steep, and I breezed along. Porters carried the tents, food, and cooking gear, and camp was all set up when we arrived. Days 2 and 3 were a pleasant journey with switchbacks and lovely flowers, and easy little climbs up a few hundred feet, after we made camp, to accustom us to the altitude.

On Day 4, I hit the wall. I didn’t have the signs of altitude sickness, no difficulty breathing, no headache, no racing pulse. However, I felt totally wiped out. As I staggered along, I said silly things like, “I want my mother,” and “Other countries have helicopters to take you off the mountain when you can’t make it.” But if anyone had tried to take me off that mountain, I would have fought him! That night, I didn’t do the altitude climb. I just tumbled into my sleeping bag and slept till morning.

The next day, I felt fine. I even climbed up to explore a cave before we started our day’s trek. I did well until our last day of climbing when we climbed more than 4000 feet up to the 19,341 foot summit, starting in the middle of the night and going without sleep for about 20 hours. I had layered up, but in the subzero temperature, my core temperature dropped, and I began to shiver uncontrollably. The team held me in their arms as a sort of human sandwich, then piled coats and caps on me, and a fellow climber lent me a pair of ski pants she had in her pack. We sat huddled together in a slight depression in the mountain until the weather warmed a bit, then I labored with my trekking poles on up the trail until I reached Uhuru, the highest summit. I was exhausted and my voice was almost gone, and I felt only, “I’m here.” It was later that it hit me, “I did it!” At the time, I set the World Record at 85 as the oldest woman to climb that legendary peak.

I'm going up that mountain again in July of this year! We will be setting a Guinness Book World Record for oldest person up the mountain and we will draw attention to Creating Exciting Futures cause of helping disadvantaged children!

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