(Some friends and I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in February of 2010 and this in an excerpt from a journal I kept.)

Step, breathe.  Step breathe.  I stopped to rest and looked carefully down over my right shoulder.  The view was both wonderful and dizzying.  I was somewhere between 16,000 and 18,000 feet on the western breach wall of Mt. Kilimanjaro and I felt like I had been there forever.   Even though it was only about noon we had been climbing already for nearly six hours with the same uninterrupted rhythm.  Step, breathe.  Step, breathe.  There simply was not much oxygen in the air and even though my friends and I were fit we were not at sea level any longer.  We had started our trek up to the summit of Mt. Kiliminjaro five days earlier, allowing time to acclimatize to the altitude and today would be the hardest climb.  Once we reached the top of the breach wall we would only be 900 feet from the top.  But we had to get up the wall first and it was proving to be very challenging.

As we settled into camp the evening before we stared at the 2500 foot wall that was the result of an explosion eons ago.  At some point in time the wall of the volcano had blown out leaving a hole in the rim of the caldero and a pile of boulders, rock, and ice spilling down the side of the mountain in a steep uneven slope.  We knew that the next day we had to climb that collection of boulders, some the size of a small house and others merely small enough to sit on, to get to the plateau that would lead to our summit attempt.  Standing there looking up I could not imagine how we were going to scurry up that near-vertical slope in one day.  I did not even see a path that we could follow; it just looked like a jumble of rocks all laid over each other, end over end, with snow and ice providing a frosted look to the landscape.  Victor, our guide explained at dinner that night why we could not see a path.  There was not one.   His job was to make one.

Since the lower portion of the wall becomes impassable once the sun melts the snow and ice, turning the path into dangerous slush, we woke early to break camp and get started while it was still dark.  Starting the climb  on a gentle rise we soon reached the steeper slope and settled into mind-numbing forward motion taking one step after the other with a pause for a breathe in between and for Victor to carve another step with his ice axe.  The world narrowed to the footstep in front of you.  Looking up brought no comfort as it always appeared, no matter how far we had gone, that we had not noticeably made any progress;  the end was never in sight.  Breaks were welcome, not only to gather what little oxygen we could, but also enjoy the amazing views down the mountain and across the valley.

I had always wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.  It seemed like something that would be a challenge (little did I know how much) and  a chance to see the world from a different vantage.  Certainly it would be an adventure!   It turned out to be as much a mental challenge as a physical one.  The physical toll of dealing with the altitude, lack of oxygen and the climb itself were expected.  What I did not expect was the sheer act of will that it required to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.  It truly was a mind over matter moment.  After experiencing what it took to get to just over 18,000 I can only imagine the strength of will the climbers who conquer Mt. Everest must possess.

But here we were, somewhere between 16,000 and 18,000 feet,  slowly making our way up, with plenty of rest stops.  The porters started passing us after only about four hours nimbly strolling by with their burdens not much bothered by the slope, the lack of oxygen, nor the extra baggage they carried.  It was both awe-inspiring and discouraging at the same time.   They were to meet us at the top of the wall, preparing the camp for our arrival.  We finally made it to the top after somewhere between 7 and 8 hours of climbing.  Camp and our porters were waiting for us and as we staggered in, one by one, they started singing a welcome song in Swahili.  I felt like I had just run a marathon- tired, fatigued, but happy because I had faced a daunting task and got through it- I had been up to the challenge.

Can you ask more of an adventure?

(In a subsequent blog I will relate the story of the actual summit.)