One year ago, I was standing on the summit of Kilimanjaro

One year ago today, I was standing on the highest point in Africa and the tallest free-standing volcano in the world: Mt. Kilimanjaro 19,341 ft above sea level.  Below is the write up that I wrote for the Dirtbag Darling blog, and also for my hometown newspaper.  Long story short -- dream come true.  Thanks for reliving it with me...

I had always had this inexplicable love and fascination with this corner of the world and its culture, and felt like a little piece of my heart has always been there. 

Growing up in the hilly countryside of the Mississippi River Valley, I always had a love for the “unplugged” life and the outdoors.  If I woke up and the sun was shining, I was always pestering my dad to take me outside and explore the woods around the English Bench in northeast Iowa.  I was never the typical 4-sport athlete growing up, but I excelled at swimming which made me strong and taught me more about my own strength.  Two months after graduating from college with a teaching degree, I landed my first job as a middle school math teacher in Loveland, Colorado.  It was the best decision I’ve ever made for my life.

The Rocky Mountains lure a lot of Midwesterners out to Colorado, and I was no different.  Two weeks after moving, I went and climbed the highest peak in Colorado.  Even though it's the highest, it's one of the easiest mountains to climb – dubbed a “walk-up” hike that requires no technical skill or climbing, just the ability to walk at an incline.  It takes the body several weeks to months to fully adjust to altitude and start producing more red blood cells, so it was one of the hardest things I had ever done.  Climbing mountains in Colorado is like being part of a club; lots of people try it, but others, like me, get hooked in an addictive sort of way.   Of the 58 Colorado mountains exceeding 14,000 feet above sea level, I have climbed 38 in the almost 4 years that I’ve been here, and almost 10 more that are between 12.000 and 14,000 feet.  

I think I’ve taken to this sport because I can be so successful at it without having been the superstar athlete as a kid, you just need the knowledge and time it demands.  Yes, it really is a sport.  It takes practice and strength, but unlike other sports, there’s no competition in it; it’s a conquering of personal weakness and self-doubt. 

Last fall when I ran across the opportunity to go to Africa and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, it was the easiest yes I’ve ever had to say!  It was a combination of a lifelong love and a more recent passion rolled into one.  I was confident that I would be successful in this climb because of all the “training” I had here in Colorado above 14,000 feet.  It’s no Mt. Everest, but it’s definitely a huge time and financial commitment – and most importantly a privilege to get to have the chance to travel and climb overseas.  The route we took, the Machame route, was about a week long, taking almost 5 days to slowly trek up and acclimatize, and I felt fantastic the whole time because we were at elevations that I was already used to.  It started off rainy, and it was a light mist for the first 3.5 days… I wasn’t having very much fun in those conditions!  It was constantly damp and just dreary.  

Finally by the 4^th day we were high enough that we were above the rainforest cloud layer and dry – yet cold.  Only above 15,000 feet on the night that we planned to summit did I finally notice the lack of oxygen.  From the high camp at 15,000ft, we got up at 2:00am to start the 4 hour trek to the very top.  I don’t have asthma, but now I think I had a good idea of what that might feel like!  Every step was painfully slow, so slow that my body never warmed up from moving.  I was breathing so hard for air and wondered if this is what suffocating must feel like – not being able to take in a full and satisfying breath.  I wanted to hike faster so that I could keep my blood pumping to stay warm, but I was already using all the energy that I had to keep me going at my slow and steady pace.  I struggled to keep feeling in my hands and feet by wiggling them but they inevitably went painfully numb.  I am always naturally a cold person, and I was wearing every layer that I had that night, so I don’t know what else I could have done to stay warm.  

By sunrise, our group was cresting the crater rim, and there were already quite a few people there.  Kilimanjaro is a giant volcano, so where we crested wasn’t considered the true highest point; we needed to keep walking around the rim another 20-30 minutes to the other side of the crater.  The wind was definitely stronger at the top.  While hiking, I had looked down at my feet most of the way as I walked up and didn’t even notice that the rest of my group in front of me had stopped behind a huge rock to take a break from the wind.  When I looked up and didn’t see anyone from my group I figured I was just too slow and that they had all had a sudden burst of energy and raced the last 20 minutes to the other side of the official summit, and I was left in the dust.  This climb was absolutely a humbling experience.  It was never about who could get there the fastest, who was the strongest, or about proving one’s strength and fitness.  I was the caboose of my small group by choice.  I was physically struggling and I was almost at my limit.  I wasn’t ashamed to admit it.  I knew I could still do this and so one step at a time, I’d get there and I’d be proud at what I’d accomplished and I wouldn’t compare myself to anyone else. 

Photo: Jon Kedrowski.  Looking back at the summit heading back down

I got within view of the summit and saw the sign that marked the official summit in the distance, and I didn’t see anyone else at all.  Where was my group?  Where was anyone?!  I was hiking with one of the local porters that was accompanying our group, and the two of us were the only two people in sight.  We slowly trudged closer.  I heard someone calling my name from behind me, and our group leader was actually running up to catch up with me.  He had climbed to the top of that big rock that everyone else had taken shelter behind to keep an eye out for me, but when I kept walking past it he didn’t see me and had thought I didn’t make it and that I had to turn back around… I didn’t see everyone pause behind the rock and no one else saw me continue on past the crowd of other people.  I truly felt like I didn’t deserve it, but I ended up being the first person to reach summit that day, out of hundreds of people, just past 6:30am on June 26^th.  

The three of us enjoyed almost 10 minutes all to ourselves on the rooftop of Africa before the others in our group made it up one by one for our group summit photo.  I was more concerned that I wasn’t with my group that I didn’t even realize that I was the first person there that morning.  Talk about a summit high!  This climb will go down as one I will never ever forget.  My first big international climb - of many I hope! 

We still had one week left in Africa after we descended.  We got to go on three days of safaris through Tanzanian National Parks, and spend a few days in the local villages experiencing the real, authentic local culture that I always dreamed about.  The days we spent touring the local villages made me feel like I was on a National Geographic documentary.  I had just summited the tallest mountain on the continent of Africa.  We were driving through a park and had to stop to let an elephant (not a deer, or family of possums) cross the road.

After returning back to the US, it was only one night’s rest before I was back out on another 14er.  I had the rest of my summer in front of me and nothing else on the calendar and I got to live out every day doing what I have absolutely fallen in love with.  I felt so spoiled!  I didn’t go more than three days between mountain summits;  I only spent a total of 6 nights not in a tent somewhere around the world.  I climbed more relatively “easy” 14ers, and even more that were labeled as dangerous and deadly, totaling 16 more after Africa.  I finished up my summer with a bang - two more glacier climbs in the Pacific Northwest, Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams.  I camped overnight on Mt. Adams for my first summit sleepover, and arrived back home on a Sunday night where school started the next morning!  By the end of this summer, I climbed a grand total of 20 mountains. 

Five years ago I never would have pictured myself being where I am.  I keep proving to myself what I am capable of and getting to newer heights that seemed so unattainable for someone like me before.  I will always love northeast Iowa as the place I was raised, but from the start, Colorado has felt more like “home” to me than anywhere else. 

"This is how I train for 8000m peaks!"

I'm so excited to have finally made a second successful summit of Long's Peak, via the Keyhole route on 6/24/15!  This peak and I have a pretty decent history; I have a love/hate relationship with this mountain.

My first experience with this mountain was in 2009.  I was working on a guest ranch in Allenspark and would take guests on guided horseback rides throughout the National Park and surrounding national forest lands.  I remember how excited I was to finally take guests up the legendary Long's Peak trail to the boulder field.  We always got nasty comments from the hikers about having horses on the trail, because it doesn't happen often at all and the hikers dislike our horses pooping on the trail (#getoverit).  I climbed from the boulder field to the keyhole in my cowboy riding boots; I also got a few funny looks for that.  I remember how amazing the view on the other side was, and it got me to thinking about how it's like God's secret.  Very few eyes see that kind of beauty and wilderness -- only the ones that deliberately climb to those spots to see.  Yet, they're always there and unchanging.  Wild and relentless.  Created there for our human eyes to enjoy, but so few people get to.

I had heard all of the stories of this peak -- the deadliest mountain in Colorado.  It's an arduous hike and quite dangerous.  Without experience, the cliffs and drop-offs can scare people.  This front range 14er also literally creates its own wild weather system.  In a day you will see it all.  Hurricane winds, sun, hail, snow, rain, more sun, more wind, etc.  You can be climbing in great weather, a wind and ice storm can literally come from nowhere, throw veriglass on a rock, and a person will either be blown off by the sheer strength of the gust or slip off to their death.  Considering all the factors and its history, Long's remains the most climbed 14er in the state as well.  Moral of this story, I respected this mountain from day one.

In the summer of 2013 I had done quite a bit of hiking.  Leading up to August, I had done 5 other 14ers, so when it came time to try and climb Long's for myself, I thought I was in pretty decent shape; it was going to be my 11th 14er overall if I made it.  Long story short, I woke at 1:00am, started climbing at 3:00am, summited 8 hours later at 11:00am, and was finally back down at the car around 6:00pm, 7 hours after that -- a total of 15 hours pounding on my joints.  I had never hurt so bad in my life.  Climbing Long's was a full body experience -- my core and arms hurt just as much or worse than my legs and knees did because of all the scrambling I had to do.  It was hot in August, but on Long's that day, I was wearing every layer I had packed, and even had to borrow spare socks that someone else in my group had packed to put over my cold, already-gloved hands.  It was so cold and windy, and I had no idea why it was so much colder than all the other peaks I had climbed in the weeks before.  I had made the summit that day, but it was the hardest thing I had done in my life; Long's made me work for it.

I told myself I would never climb that peak again -- because I already had once, and the distance and suffering just wasn't worth it to do it again!  I went back and did Meeker, Long's conjoined twin, three months after.  In the fall of 2014, I was playing with the idea of going for it again.  My mindset about my hobby and my athleticism had changed and it was now my full-on life style, so to use the excuse that I already had done it was irrelevant - I don't bat my eyes at any "repeat" climbs anymore, it's second nature now.    Three other times, I attempted to climb Long's a second time.  The first time with my friend Tiffiny, I ended up getting food poisoning (which she so hilariously reminded me of just the other day) and we couldn't make it much higher than Chasm Lake (we were going for the loft route).  The second reattempt was on the cables/north face route.  It was just too icy and there wasn't a good route to go up.  Just when we started harnessing up and roping in to try and find a way, a freak snow storm came and scared us down; by the time we got back to the boulder field, it was sunny again.  The third time, we went up the lamb's slide couloir and dabbled with trying to cross broadway and up Keiner's, but it was freshly winter in the mountains and still too icy; we didn't have the right equipment to do it.  We went over and finished up to the saddle through the loft, and instead of getting Long's, the group (who outnumbered me) voted to tag Meeker a second time instead.  That day, the summit was within my reach, so I was disappointed I had to give it up.  Don't get me wrong, I love Meeker and no day hiking is wasted, but considering no attempt on Long's is guaranteed and I had already tried twice again before, I hated knowing I could have had it and didn't take the opportunity.

We had a snowy spring this year, so it's not really even full on summer hiking season on most high peaks because you still need gaiters or at least waterproof shoes for most of them.  It has been hot and sunny this week, and I'm on summer vacation, so I had a crazy idea to ask around for friends that might be crazy enough to say yes to climbing Long's this week.  Thanks Alan, "Moe," Leonard, and Jane for agreeing to go :)  We knew there would still be snow in spots, so we packed our winter climbing gear, and in the back of my mind I was nervous.  I can do exposure, scrambling, cliffs, all that no problem when the rock is dry.  Knowing people have died from one small slip, I was not confident that we could summit this without a hitch; I was even in the mindset that I wouldn't be upset if we ended up climbing most of the way and then might need to turn around if it were too dangerous.  For starters, after having such a rough first time on the keyhole route, it was not my first choice to do that again.  I know there are other routes that are more direct and different that I'd love to try, but the conditions weren't good for any other routes, so we knew the keyhole would be the easiest and safest.

Alright, it's 3:00am my alarm goes off, and I was packed so that all I had to do was grab my breakfast, wash my face, and drive to meet my friends; we planned a 5am start.  We get out of the car at the trailhead, I grab my pack from the trunk, and then I remember:  I left my bag of food for the day sitting on my kitchen counter.  When I'm NOT hiking one of the hardest mountains all day long, I eat almost every other hour.  Now, I had just screwed myself for the whole day by not having vital fuel for such a strenuous day; how could I go the entire day with no food?!  I was kicking myself, because I had grabbed a cutie and half a banana to eat in the car and my bottle of water from the fridge, but left my snacks and sammiches on the counter.  Would I have to accept my mistake and just wait in the car or climb something small nearby while I waited for the rest to climb Long's?  Would I be able to go all day without food and climb safely while fatiguing myself that much?  My second thought was, hey, there are extreme athletes that climb harder things than this and go without food, I'm obviously not the first to have to do this and I won't die from starvation.  "This is how I train for 8000m peaks!"  I said to myself.  Another friend and I make this joke whenever we do any random exercise for no reason, or anything that wouldn't be typical healthy "training" for this type of exercise.  Anything that would test your body's limits and deprive it of something you would normally deem pretty important for good performance: adequate sleep, food, water, or even strenuous back to back to back hard days.

The snow wasn't so bad; we had a little bit of a chilly and windy start up to the keyhole, and shortly after we strapped on the crampons to maneuver through the occasional snow patches.  The trough and homestretch felt like really shallow couloir snow climbs.  It was pretty soft and in a few places we were sinking up to our hips.  I'm still in a little disbelief that I made it to the top in the end, because it's such a privilege on Long's Peak.  Throughout the day, my friends were able to donate me a small cliff bar, a Gu pack, and a few pringles during the day, so I at least had a few bites of sustenance in my belly.  And that view from the other side of the keyhole -- one I'll always love, still will never disappoint:

And I don't ever take selfies, but here you go, my signature "summit jumping" shot.