Follow the footsteps of Mountain Madness client Sarah on Mount Kilimanjaro

Have you ever blessed the rains in Africa? Nev­er in a mil­lion years did I think I would and one Sun­day night, we were on the Moun­tain Mad­ness web­site pour­ing over the numer­ous expe­di­tions and moun­taineer­ing trips they had list­ed. We decid­ed right then and there we had to book Kil­i­man­jaro – the tallest moun­tain on the African con­ti­nent. Just like that, we had the first of our Sev­en sum­mits booked! While Kil­i­man­jaro is by no means a tech­ni­cal climb, it def­i­nite­ly has its own chal­lenges which make the rewards that much sweeter!

We count­ed down the days until we could hop on a plane and fly to Tan­za­nia but in the mean­time, we had to get our bod­ies ready! We made sure to stay in shape and con­stant­ly train for the 19,310’ beast of a moun­tain. It is true that almost any­one can climb Kil­i­man­jaro with the prop­er ded­i­ca­tion, fit­ness lev­el and the moti­va­tion to do so. Our train­ing con­sist­ed of run­ning, Stair­Mas­ter, cir­cuit train­ing, and most impor­tant­ly pack train­ing. Pack train­ing is also known as ​“the dev­il” in our house­hold because while it is so ben­e­fi­cial for climb­ing it is also exhaust­ing! Throw­ing 20, 30, or 40 pounds into a pack and either head­ing up to the local trail­head (or dur­ing the drea­ry win­ter months in Seat­tle, an inclined tread­mill,) can seem daunt­ing but in the end, it will land you on the sum­mit! When we actu­al­ly climbed Kil­i­man­jaro our pack weights dur­ing the dai­ly treks nev­er exceed­ed 15 pounds thanks to the amaz­ing local porters that are with you every step of the way, and hav­ing trained with a 40-pound pack at sea lev­el made all the dif­fer­ence when tak­ing step after step at high altitude! 

Final­ly, the day had come when it was time to head to Africa; it was so hard to believe that we were actu­al­ly going on this amaz­ing jour­ney. Moun­tain Mad­ness had all the logis­tics laid out and the infor­ma­tion pack­et pre-climb had every­thing we need­ed to know from Visa infor­ma­tion down to the best type of undies to wear while climb­ing! Any addi­tion­al ques­tions we came up with dur­ing our prepa­ra­tion for the trip and climb were answered with­in a few hours (on occa­sion with­in a few min­utes) via email or phone calls to the office. I was so stoked to trav­el abroad with a com­pa­ny that is just as Type A per­son­al­i­ty as I am in regard to plan­ning and orga­ni­za­tion. We board­ed our plane at Sea-Tac with peace of mind and zero stress know­ing that once we arrived in Tan­za­nia the Moun­tain Mad­ness team would be there to greet us and take care of us until it was time to return to the States! 

After a very long trav­el day (and night) we caught our last plane from Nairo­bi to Kil­i­man­jaro air­port. The morn­ing was over­cast and all we want­ed to see was a sneak peak of the moun­tain we were about to tack­le. We sipped on some South African wine (yes it was 9:30 am but hey, it was vaca­tion, right!?) and had our eyes glued to the win­dow wait­ing to catch a glimpse of Kili (evi­dent­ly once you climb Kil­i­man­jaro you are allowed to refer to it as Kili). The clouds broke for just a split sec­ond as we came in for our land­ing at the air­port and we could see a huge snow shroud­ed sum­mit in the dis­tance. I can­not describe to you the feel­ing of but­ter­flies and excite­ment that made my stom­ach do som­er­saults once see­ing that! Let’s do this!

We stepped off the plane and were embraced by warm weath­er and gor­geous back­drops of Tan­za­nia. We could not stop smil­ing and still could not believe that we were there. We snagged our lug­gage and stepped out­side and wait­ing for us was my all-time favorite sign with the Moun­tain Mad­ness logo on it and we met two of our guides that would be with us for the next two weeks! We hopped into the sweet­est ride I can imag­ine; a con­vert­ed SUV that was per­fect for the rugged ter­rain in Africa and which would also be our escort post climb when we head­ed off on Safari! 

Our first day in Tan­za­nia, as we head­ed to our lux­u­ry camp, we could not believe our eyes – we imme­di­ate­ly saw baboons run­ning across the road, warthogs and meerkats run­ning around in packs (I lit­er­al­ly could not believe I just stepped onto the set of Lion King), as well as col­or­ful spec­tac­u­lar birds! Dream come true! Once we arrived at our camp we were blown away by the accom­mo­da­tions. I had heard rumors of the lux­u­ry tents that Moun­tain Mad­ness clients stay in before the climb, but I could not believe it until I actu­al­ly saw it. We had our own pri­vate tent that looked like a huge can­vas room from the out­side but once you stepped in you were trans­port­ed to the most incred­i­ble African themed hotel room. Queen size bed, tables and dressers, even our own pri­vate bath, and the loveli­est décor. I could stay in this tent all week!

We unpacked a bit and napped before being called to an ear­ly din­ner where our chef pre­pared more food than we could pos­si­bly eat (but we man­aged to lick our plates clean; I mean nutri­tion for the moun­tains am I right??) We stayed up sip­ping wine and talk­ing with our assis­tant guide for our climb, Tim. Tim has the most amaz­ing back­ground and is a very tal­ent­ed climber, ski­er, and ice climber. Orig­i­nal­ly from Tan­za­nia but speaks 4 or more lan­guages flu­ent­ly and we found out that evening his father had even climbed with Scott Fis­ch­er him­self (swoon). We looked for­ward to spend­ing the next 2 weeks with Tim and could not wait to meet the rest of our group for the climb the next day. We retired to our tent and wel­comed the long night of sleep after our days of trav­el, but lit­tle did we know how many ani­mals would be wan­der­ing around our tent that night! Mon­keys were howl­ing and run­ning right next to our tent in addi­tion to water buf­fa­lo and baboons. It was just magical. 

The next morn­ing, we met the oth­er clients in our group as well as our lead guide, Ben. Ben has been guid­ing on Kil­i­man­jaro for decades and knows the moun­tain inside and out. He was by far the most jovial per­son I have ever met. His smile is infec­tious and the amount he cares for his clients far exceed­ed my expec­ta­tions for the climb. He gave us a his­to­ry les­son about the region, the peo­ple, the tra­di­tions, and the moun­tain. The more he talked the more every­one in our group became excit­ed about the climb that start­ed the next day. We did a day hike around camp to begin our acclima­ti­za­tion and came across gor­geous water­falls and majes­tic trees, I kept hav­ing to pinch myself that I was actu­al­ly out there and able to take all of this in! 

The next day was the begin­ning of the climb. We packed up and drove through the coun­try­side and saw vil­lages you read about in his­to­ry books. We made sev­er­al pit-stops to allow cat­tle and goats to cross the dirt road as we tra­versed clos­er and clos­er to Kil­i­man­jaro. We arrived at the gate of the moun­tain (one of the many entrances and trails that one can use to climb Kil­i­man­jaro) and hopped out of the car and geared up for the climb! 

Final­ly, it was time to head back down the moun­tain, it is amaz­ing how fast you can descend 9000 feet in one day! The descent was very enjoy­able because it was dif­fer­ent from the way we came up, so all the ter­rain was new, and the sights were dif­fer­ent. We had one more sleep on the moun­tain and Doc cooked us a hell of a cel­e­bra­to­ry din­ner. We crawled into our tents one last night and rel­ished all that we had accom­plished that day. 

Our final morn­ing on the moun­tain was the most mem­o­rable for me, there was a cel­e­bra­tion with the team that is hard to put into words, you have to expe­ri­ence it for your­self. After that, we trekked out to the exit at the base of Kil­i­man­jaro. Just as when we had arrived at the moun­tain, the crew had a fan­tas­tic lunch (and sur­prise cham­pagne) wait­ing for us pri­or to hop­ping into the car to head­ing to a show­er! in addi­tion to the cham­pagne the shop at the gate also sells the infa­mous Kil­i­man­jaro beer (which we thought would be bad luck to drink pri­or to a sum­mit, but now it was time to drink up!). 

We said ​‘bye to the team that had tak­en care of us for the last 8 days on the moun­tain and head­ed to the hotel for some well-deserved show­ers!!! Every­one was still on cloud nine after the adven­ture we had just been on. We had one final cel­e­bra­tion with Tim and Ben, and I did not want to say good­bye to every­one! Jere­my and I were head­ed on safari the next morn­ing, but our two bud­dies we climbed with were head­ed out on flights that night and Tim and Ben were head­ing back home to their families. 

Trip of a life­time is an under­state­ment. I will cher­ish every moment. I would write about the safari por­tion after the climb but that might take up 100 more pages … I will let you know that going on safari is a must. It is the per­fect way to relax after climb­ing up that moun­tain! Jere­my and I felt as though we were in an adult play­ground for the next three days. 

It is safe to say that we blessed the rains in Africa (will that song be for­ev­er stuck in my head? I have no prob­lem with it if it is!). Imme­di­ate­ly after this incred­i­ble jour­ney we were quick to book our next trip with Moun­tain Mad­ness – Rus­sia any­one?? What’s next!!??

- Sarah Lee