This past five days I had the opportunity to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Amazing right!?! Such an amazing opportunity! Once I had found out that I was going to be able to climb the mountain at the end of the month, Kelly, Meghan, and I started something that we called “Kelly Boot Camp”…..Let me tell you – this was tough!
We worked out six days a week. We were on a three-day rotation: the first day we jogged 6-8 miles, the second day we ran sprints uphill for an hour, and the third day we did a video workout such as P90x or Insanity. We repeated this cycle twice every week and took Sundays off to let our bodies recover. Working out and me have always had a love-hate relationship: I always have hated pushing myself during the work-out, but once it was done, man I loved that feeling and I always felt so accomplished. So as you can tell, waking up at 7:30am every morning to do something I both hated and loved was sometimes a task. Kelly was such a great encourager though, and since I had a goal in mind, I went for it.
All month long we trained, and trained some more. We were ready for Mt. Kilimanjaro…or so we thought! Many people had doubts about me making it up the mountain, but I knew that there was no chance that I was not going to make it because my parents have always instilled determination and the importance of reaching your goals. We packed up and traveled by bus to Moshi, which was the base of the mountain. We had a day to “acclamate” and then we were off to the climb….
We loaded a bus and drove to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Honestly, my initial impressions of looking at it, I was even more confident that I was going to make it. It didn’t look that big…..yet. Then I realized that we were not close enough to see it completely. So we got our gear ready and made sure we had enough water for the day and off we went. The first three days were absolutely wonderful! Each day we hiked about 6-7 hours uphill, through different kinds of terrain. It was beautiful! Each night we stopped and stayed in cute little cabins and got to eat amazing food that our porters prepared for us. Then summit day arrived….
We woke up at 11pm to have a little snack before starting the climb at 12am. We only had a few hours of sleep to go on and layered on all the clothes that we had with us. We are World Racers, and we did not pack for below zero weather! All bundled up, we started in the pitch black darkness. We could only see the feet of the person in front of us, and up we went. Up, up, up…..switchback after switchback…..up, up, up some more…..more switchbacks….then climbing rocks…..more rocks…..
As we continued going up, all of the elements started kicking in. The further up we got, the more cold our fingers and toes became. Everyone else had rented heavy-duty boots to wear, but Meghan, Kelly, and I decided to hike in our tennis shoes….smart 🙂 Instead of hiking boots, I decided to use a plastic baggy to wrap around my one pair of socks to keep the snow and cold out.
I kept wiggling my toes and fingers to try and keep the little warmth that they had left. The wind cut into our cheeks, giving us wind-burn. After climbing up for about six hours straight, we finally begin to see because of the sunrise. We reached Gillman’s point which was beautiful!! Many people were throwing up and sick, but honestly, other than being a little bit cold, and exhausted from no sleep, I felt great. So, Kelly, Meghan, and I continued. We arrived at Stella’s Point another 1.5 hours later, which meant more up, up, up and climbing. I was beginning to get a little loopy from exhaustion. Then we continued another 1.5 hours onto the last and highest point. Ahuru!! I had made it! I felt really sick and felt like I was going to throw up because of the altitude sickness, but I had made it…I had reached the top!
After climbing for about nine hours to reach the top of Africa, we then had to turn around after fifteen minutes. Crazy right! We are crazy….but it was so worth it! It took us another three hours to climb down and part of it we had to ski down on the sand. We found out later that the reason we had to climb at night was because the ground was frozen and was easier to climb…
When we got back to the cabin, we were exhausted and so we went to sleep. After an hour, we were woken up and had to hike another 3-4 hours back to the hut we had stayed in the night before. Crazy right! So out of about 17 hours in the day, we hiked about 15 of them!
On our last day, even though we were sore, we made it down the rest of the mountain (only six hours of hiking). It was well worth it!
God taught me a lot through this experience. I learned that if you have the strength and perseverance, you can accomplish anything. Even when you feel like you can’t go on, God gives you just enough energy to make it through. When it was freezing and my body was beginning to shut down because I was exhausted, God gave me the energy and the determination to continue. Countless times I have seen God give people just what they need at the right time. Many of my teammates did not feel good, but with God’s strength they got through and many of them made it to the top.
For one of my teammates recounts of climbing the mountain check out:
Thanks to everybody that has supported this missions trip so far! Only $3,676 left to be fully funded! I have to be fully funded by January 1st!
