Timing the Climbing



heading for the top of Kilimanjaro, in the dark.



When you summit a mountain like Kilimanjaro, apparently, you start the final quest in the dark.  At 10.30 p.m. the night before, in fact.  That's when the first climbers left the camp for the summit. The last climbers moved out at 1 a.m. 

This is the Dream Mountain Team, including our friends Kelly Hammond and Heather Douglas, who are climbing Kilimanjaro to fundraise for Habitat for Humanity, Muskoka. We've been following their adventure, through the miracle of the internet.

After 8 days of clambering, scrambling, clawing and trying to breathe up this mountain, the top was in sight. At least for a while --  into the evening the temperature dropped and snow flurries arrived.  Climbers worked in the dark and the snow, with twinkling headlights ahead and behind them, in the snow. What an experience that must be!

Sunrise near the equator comes at 6 a.m.  The day began to warm, and the climbers worked their way up to Stella Point.  It's odd to think of snow in Africa, but at those heights, everybody has snow. 

On they climbed.  At 8.20 a.m., the group looked around and discovered that there was nowhere left to climb to. They were at the Summit.  Massive glaciers streteched away on one side, a snowy valley bordered the other.

Photo ops all round -- 19,341' feet up -- and then they began the descent. They are off the mountain now. This climb is a memory that is life changing for each of the climbers. What an incredible adventure, and how wonderful that we could follow them along!

I thought of Kelly and Heather today, flying home from Winnipeg where I spent the weekend.  Airplanes now give you a little map in the back of the seat, with air speed, location, and altitude.  I was looking out the windows, watching this unbelievably country unroll beneath us, the nothern lakes still ice locked, and I glanced at the altimeter.  I got there by Westjet. Kelly and Heather got there on foot.

Here's to them. Wow