On day 6, after 6 hours of climbing in the darkness, we reached the Kilimanjaro summit (19,341 feet) to see the sunrise on my 50th Birthday. The views were stunning on that cloudless morning, and we were overwhelmed from both the effort and the sense of great accomplishment!
The journey of climbing Kilimanjaro is still baking into our memories, but here are a few thoughts brightly held in my mind. The 7-day journey included 57 miles of hiking and climbing in some pretty rough and rocky terrain. The climb was exhausting physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our climbing guide Noah and the A-Team – 30 additional men – who supported our journey were all fantastic and we couldn’t have done it without them. I even received my African nick-name from Noah: Big Momella. While we drew internally upon our energy and emotional strength, there is one resource that we borrowed from our Tanzanian summit crew during the most challenging times – their spirit. Noah and the A-Team sang and chanted to us in Swahili throughout the final climb. I am certain that their energy propelled us to the top.
The overall experience was wonderful, life-changing, and will continue to expand in our minds. We thank all of you for your support of this effort through your gifts to our targeted educational non-profits. Our plan will be to take donations through March and then to post the final fund-raising results in an update during April.
We are forever grateful and very humbled by all of this – John and Liz
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