We made it!

We made it. We made it! We made it.

On September 10 (my husband’s birthday), we realized our goal of summiting Mount Kilimanjaro. At 19,341 feet, it’s Africa’s highest peak. It’s also one of the Seven Summits: a grouping of the tallest mountains on each continent.  We took seven days to hike up to the top and two days down. That’s nine days of sleeping in a tent, surrounded by huge duffel bags of gear & clothing, not showering or enjoying any sort of electricity or connectivity. We faced so many challenges, including altitude that made us light-headed & headachy and ever-present dust that I’m still washing out of our clothes (and blowing out of our noses).

And it was AWESOME! Following the example of one of our hikers, this was our response to the daily question “How are you?” AWESOME! Sometimes it was true, sometimes it was a fake-it-until-you-make-it kind of thing.

I learned so many lessons from the trail:

Trust your tribe
Before we left, I’d read a lot about the guides and porters who accompany trekking groups. Every article made them seem like angels on earth, shepherding hikers up & down. Man, are they ever the most incredible people – miracle workers who aid & abet, coerce & cajole, support & cheerlead; whatever it takes to get us safely up and down the mountain. As I made my way through the trail, I often realized that I was doing so well because I believed our guides when they told me I could do it.

Singing was a big part of their support strategy. Here’s a clip of our group reaching Stella Point, about 500 feet from the peak. Many people don’t make it past this point even though it’s so close to the actual summit; the altitude takes a big toll. Our crew gave us a little extra boost by singing to each one of us as we climbed up.

Keep moving
One of our guides shouted Keep moving!! whenever we approached a particularly challenging section of trail. It was his way of making us leap before we thought too much about our next steps. This came in super-helpful as we scaled the Barranco Wall, a section of the trail that doesn’t get a lot of press in the marketing materials. It’s straight-up 800 feet of pure rock scramble, including a memorable little ledge that required a 180º turn while wearing a backpack so you could get a better foothold. Probably the only way I got up it was hearing Snoop yell Keep moving!! every ten seconds.

Sometimes the best man for the job is a woman
My personal porter was a 28-year old single mom named Violet. I can’t think of anyone more perfect to help me on this adventure. I would have been happy with any of the porters, but once I learned there were two women employed by the company, I requested one of them for me. Violet had the strength to carry my big pack on her head and her pack on her back. She had a mother’s instinct for when I needed something, often appearing at my side before I realized I needed more water/a snack/gloves. And when a girl needs to find a good bathroom rock, she turns to a fellow female. Am I right?

It took us a year of hard work to get there, and it was absolutely worth it. I don’t always want to work that hard to have fun, but I’m glad we did it. I’ll have this little adventure in my back pocket the next time the going gets tough, using it to remind me how tough I can be.