Rainbow Brite on the Mountain

We had this trip booked by November and promptly after receiving our package of information from ClimbKili, I started an Amazon wish list of items.  This allowed me to be obsessive watching prices drop on items while overloading my senses on reviews.

Buying things on sale was key for me.  I hate paying full price in general and with the sheer volume of stuff that we had to buy, I was very picky about what I bought and aimed for items on sale. Where it gets weird is that sale items are often discontinued or really unpopular colors that they couldn't sell. And by weird, I mean perfect for me. My choices in clothing have been referred to as "safe," "boring" and "appropriate." Frankly, I find those comments compliments.  Well, compliments in that I am being safe and no one is looking at me wondering what possessed me to combine a particular pattern with another one.  I like solid colors. They all go together and I feel less pressure dressing myself. So, all of these simple, bright, discontinued solid colored items were right up my alley.

My first trip to REI to start the buying frenzy was for one purpose - water bottles. In my reading, people recommended insulated water bottles since they tend to freeze at the the top and REI had them on sale.  So, on a Sunday afternoon I ventured into REI in search of these bottles. Well, there were bottles on the shelf, but no sale sign, like other sale items, and it looked like a lot of bottles had been purchased.  While I was confirming that they were on sale online, a manager approached me.  I told him I wanted the insulted bottles that were on sale and I needed 4. I dismissively waved him off when he asked me which color I wanted since the sale was only for discontinued color.  I told him I needed 4 and I didn't care about the color. Ten minutes later, after I am sure he had a good laugh with some co-workers, he brought me the last 4 bottles they had. Day glo yellow would be the best description. And they were discontinued because they are no longer on the website. But fear not, they are still online, so I snagged a photo and they are called citron in color.  (I bet the Hydro Flask employee who came up with that name got a raise).

These are super popular water bottles and every time I see people with them, I chuckle at the ridiculous amount they paid compared to my sale price.

So, if you are doing this trek, be open minded about the gear. You will save a ton of money and will take ribbing only from your spouse or co-trekker until you tell them how much money you saved.

The Boot Saga.... The Final Chapter.... I hope

So.  Two blisters walk into a bar...

Except, blisters aren't funny. At all. Ever.  What is funny is when you realize you handled a whole situation incorrectly from the start and it cost you several weeks.  Yea, no, that's not funny either.

The REI in Tysons has been there for a long time and I first set foot in it on July 18, 2017 and it quite literally changed my life.  I put my boots and all of my socks and sock liners in a bag and trudged into the boot fitting class, bound and determined to fix my boot issues.  It was a small class - only 6 of us were there - but the 90 minutes went by way too fast.

Did you know that there are people in the world who hold certifications on boot fitting? I kid you not. These people are able to assist you with the right size and style of boot and they possess a piece of paper that shouts it out to the world.  I also believe that they may be wizards, but I digress.

Wes taught us how to measure our feet, a pretty important step in selecting footwear, and gave us the best advice on how a shoe should fit - the widest part of your foot should be in the widest part of the shoe.  So, the salesmen pushing on your toes to find them - not a good way to determine fit.  My mind was blown.

Wes also showed us different ways to tie our boots, different benefits in boots and we chatted about sock wear. He explained why our packing list for an 8 day hike said to bring only 4 pairs of socks. I promptly returned half of the socks I bought.  The man is a genius. For his final act, he took me out to the shoe area after class and in less than 5 minutes had me in a pair of boots that fit perfectly.

THEY WERE ALSO THE BOOTS THAT I HAD NOT BOUGHT ORIGINALLY BECAUSE I AM CHEAP. 

Shame is a real thing.  But so is the internet where I found the same boots for less than the cheaper boots I had purchased in a cute, discontinued color. (Thank you Campsaver.com).  So, I wound up with the boots I originally researched at a discounted price. Shame got back on the bus out of town.

So far, I have logged about 13 miles in them and no blisters.  I even walked through a puddle very slowly to confirm they were waterproof.  Insert a happy face.  But also insert a lesson.  If you are going to buy boots for the first time, go to REI and see a certified boot fitter.

Our itinerary

So, with the departure only a few days away, I thought I would post our itinerary, which shows the detail of the Lemosho Route and the altitudes along the way. To say that I am getting excited about this is quite the understatement. Well, until I read how long the summit night/day will be and then I get a little anxious...

Day 1:  LONDOROSSI GATE to MTI MKUBWA
7,742’~2,360m ∙ 3 mi~4.8 km ∙ 3-4 hrs
After a restful night at the hotel, we begin our trek from western side checking in at the Londorossi gate. The trail with gently ascend through the montane forest until you are welcomed into camp under the Climb Kili banner with tents set up and your personal belongings inside. Tonight’s camp is nestled in the Kilimanjaro rain forest at the Mti Mkubwa which in Swahili means Big Tree.

Day 2:  MTI MKUBWA to SHIRA CAMP
11,500’~3,505m ∙ 4.9 mi ~ 8km 5-6 hrs
We continue on the trail leading out of the forest and into a savannah of tall grasses, heather, and volcanic rock draped with lichen beards. In the afternoon we follow the Shira ridge the vast high altitude desert plateau where the first views of Mt Kilimanjaro open on the horizon and the landscape is a magnificent contrast from the departed rain forest.

Day 3:  SHIRA CAMP to MOIR CAMP
13800’ ~ 4206m ∙ 8.7 mi ~ 14km∙ 5-7 hrs
Today we have a full day exploration of the Shira plateau. We trek east toward Kibo's glaciated peak with the option to visit the ancient collapsed Shira cone, the oldest of Kilimanjaro's three volcanoes. We arrive at Moir Camp situated in a huge gorge at the end of a dormant lava flow.

Day 4:  MOIR CAMP to BARRANCO CAMP
13000’ ~ 3962m ∙ 4.3 mi ~ 7km∙ 4-6 hrs
Today we take an acclimatization trek to the Lava Tower at 15,000’~4,500m. Shortly after the tower, we come to the second junction which brings us up to the Arrow Glacier. Following our rest at the tower, we decend upon the enormous Senecio forest reaching waterfall prior to finishing at Barranco Camp. Tonight’s camp is in the shadow of the massive Barranco wall with the breeze often carrying clouds from the Barranco Valley.

Day 5:  BARRANCO to KARANGA CAMP
13100’ ~ 3992m ∙ 2.2 mi~3.2 km ∙ 4-5 hrs
Today the group conquers the great Barranco Valley and up the Barranco wall, and adventuourse stretch that ushers us into the arctic zone of Kili.  We continue the trek on the South Circuit path through the Karanga Valley. We camp tonight at Karanga Camp.

Day 6:  KARANGA CAMP to BARAFU CAMP
15,300’ ~ 4663m ∙ 2.2 mi~3.5 km ∙ 4-5 hrs
Today we take a slow pace to Barafu Camp from Barafu you will have excellent views of Kibo and Mawenzi peaks. Barufu Camp is situated on an exposed ridge, so it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the terrain before dark. We continue to acclimatize, rest, relax and make necessary preparation for the summit day ahead.

Day 7:  BARAFU to SUMMIT to MWEKA CAMP
19,340’~5,895m ∙ 13 mi~21 km (5 km ascent/ 12 km descent) ∙ 7-8 hrs ascent~4-6 hrs descent
Tonight is the night!  A midnight start to conquer the highest point in Africa. This section of the route is considered one of the steepest on the non-technical paths of Kilimanjaro. It is a 6-7 hour hike to Stella Point in order to see the sunrise.  We continue our way to the summit between the Rebmann and Ratzel glaciers. We head in a northwesterly direction and ascend through heavy scree towards Stella Point on the crater rim. This can be the most mentally and physically challenging portion of the trek. From Stella Point you can see the summit; just 1 hour to Uhuru Peak and the rooftop of Africa!  We then descend down to Mweka Camp for dinner and celebration.

Day 8:  MWEKA CAMP to Exit Mweka Gate
5,400’~1645m) ∙ 6.4 mi ~10.3 km ∙ 3-4 hrs
A morning walking to Mweka gate reflecting of the past weeks experience with our Climb Kili vehicle waiting to transfer you to your hotel for a very welcomed shower at the hotel.  Overnight at Summit Safari Lodge.

The Boot Saga... part 2.

Just as I was diligent in reading everything I could about buying hiking boots, I read as much as I could about breaking them in. Step 1. Wear them around the house.  Done. That was boring, so I didn't do a lot of that. Plus, I was worried I was going to fall down the stairs, which, truthfully, is always my concern living in a four story townhouse.

Step 2. Go for a walk. Awesome. On a (hot) Saturday morning, I put on my wool socks, my hiking shorts and my new boots and walked about 4 miles to meet Joey for lunch.  Yup 4 miles.  And my feet felt fine, although I could tell there was a little area on the back of one foot that seemed a trifle irritated. But, when I pulled off the boots for flip flops, the back of my heel was just a smidge red. But it was hot and I had walked 4 miles, so I wasn't super concerned.

Step 3. Go for a hike.  Um, what? A hike? I realized that I was going to need some help here.  So, I logged onto REI and magic, they had a day hike in Shenandoah National Park. I had already signed up as a co-op member after realizing that I was going to buy a ton of stuff from them and paid $60 to spend a day hiking Bear Church Rock.  I was practically giddy about going. I packed all the gear they said I needed to bring, laced up my boots and headed out very early on a Saturday morning to meet the group.  I even packed a band aid in case my pesky heel acted up.  I was proud of myself for being prepared.

I'll spare you the blow by blow, but here are the highlights:

          - We hiked 8 miles on three different trails which went from easy (green), hard (blue) and difficult (black diamond).
          - I learned what poison ivy looks like.
          - I got a blister on my left foot and when I tried to pull out my band aid, the guide pulled out a big first aid pack and fixed it.
          - The bandage on my left foot moved off during the hardest part of the trail and I didn't want to say anything to the group to make them stop.
          - While the bandage was coming off my left foot, I developed a blister on my right foot.  Again, during the hardest part of the climb.
          - My sandwich from Panera was disappointing.

We also ran late getting back, so I had 30 minutes upon my arrival home to get showered, into a dress and out the door for dinner. I left my feet taped up, despite wearing sandals.  Because they hurt.  A lot.

After I gingerly pulled off the bandages (the next day) and inspected the damage, it really wasn't as bad as I thought. The skin had just been pulled off - no big bubble blisters.  So, I bought sock liners and allowed the back of my heels to heal up for my next hike - the Billy Goat Trail with my friend AJ.

AJ was kind enough to offer to take me for another hike and brought walking poles for me to try. I used the sock liners, filled up my water bottles and felt excitement over another hike and this time without blisters.   So, again, I'll spare you the blow by blow, but here are the highlights:

      - I felt like an idiot for never exploring this trail before. The park is beautiful and there are a bunch of trails.
      - Everyone who says the Billy Goat Trail is fun is lying.
      - I got a blister on my left foot, same spot. This time, I had brought some good second skin stuff with a squishy square thing that went under a bandage.  So, we stopped and I put that on.
      - The bandage over the blister came off. We had to stop and I had to use some of AJ's duct tape to cover it.
      - I got a blister on my right foot. We skipped the other stuff and just used duct tape.  And they both hurt.

I was so grateful for AJ's patience with me but I was so disappointed in the blisters. I mean, I had done everything right. The REI guide even told me I had great boots.  So, I reached out to my friend REI and they had a boot fitting basics class in the Tysons location that Tuesday.  I immediately signed up, packed the boots and all of my socks and sock liners in a bag and became determined that my boot issues were going to get fixed one way or another.

Physically preparing

When we received our folders from ClimbKili, there was stuff included about preparing ourselves physically and there's a lot out there on the web about it. One website suggested that you become a marathon runner since it is boring and requires you to be in good shape. Seriously. It actually said that. Other websites were pretty nonchalant about it and what you needed to do, but suggested that you be in shape enough to walk the distances each day.  Many also suggested that you do interval training to get your heart rate up into the higher zones.

We joined OrangeTheory in November and that seemed to fit the requirements of most recommended training programs (other than the nutjob suggesting marathons). With cardio, strength training and a keen eye on getting my heart rate up, it made sense.  I was going 2-3 days a week and feeling pretty proud of myself. When I started, I couldn't do a single burpee. By late April I could do five in good form - including the push up - and could eek out 5 more that were less than perfect, but manageable.  And then.... And then the pain started.

When I did I push up, I felt pain in my left shoulder. Pain that seemed to indicate that I had pulled a muscle.  Fortunately, I had a conference in May and I assumed that the pain would improve while I was there since I wasn't going to work out.  Unfortunately, it did not.  After 6 weeks of pain, I went to my orthopedic surgeon who had operated on my other shoulder a number of years ago. He too thought it was a bad muscle strain and gave me a course of steroids and told me to refrain from doing any exercise at OT that made my shoulder hurt.  Despite an awesome week on steroids and modifying my exercises to avoid the pain, the pain steadily got worse.  Fast forward through an MRI (in an open machine which had a picture of Matthew McConaughey taped to the wall over Joey's head that I got to admire for 20 minutes, but I digress) and I have been diagnosed with tendinopathy in my rotator cuff tendon in two spots. This means that I have damaged the tendon and, unless I take steps to fix it (and preferably whatever is causing it), I could tear it.  Awesome. Great news. Did I mention that I am climbing Kilimanjaro??!!

So, last Friday - a mere two weeks before we head out - I had two PRP injections into my shoulder.   The shots are own platelets and it causes inflammation intentionally to jump start the healing process.  Notably, it also causes pain every time you move, swelling (wedding ring stayed on all weekend) and lethargy.   And, my doctor said no exercise at all for a week, no Advil or anti inflammatories for as long as I could tolerate and no upper body working out until after I check in with him 30 days after the shot.  Grudgingly, I put my OT membership on hold. Thus ended my cardio.

So, being a week out now, I am trying to walk every day at least 4 miles in my boots. While it isn't perfect, it doesn't hurt my shoulder and I feel like I am preparing my legs for back to back day of hiking.  Plus, with the boot saga, I really need to get some miles in before we go.

Hopefully this works.

The Boot Saga.... (part 1)

A number of years ago, Joey and I went to Raleigh for an NC State football game.  It had rained and while we were season ticket holders and had an assigned parking lot, we were not the big spenders and our parking lot required trudging through hill and dale to reach the stadium. So, Joey thought that I needed hiking boots to deal with the mud we were surely going to face, and we stopped at Gander Mountain.   We bought a pair of boots that were fine, but were not waterproof and constantly gave me blisters.  They were also unnecessary since the mud was not that bad, but I digress.

When we decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, I knew I needed new boots. So, I threw the old ones in the donate pile for Salvation Army and began researching. There is a lot of information out there and surprisingly, a fair number of websites that rate hiking gear for women.  I settled on a pair of boots that were rated really well, required little breaking in but were $230.00.  This was back in December/January, so I was convinced that they, like everything else in the world, would go on sale. About every two weeks I would search them and sadly, they were never on sale. Ever.

I am not known as being a "spendy" person. I have khakis that I still wear that I got for our honeymoon, so I will be celebrating 10 years with them next April.  So, I decided that I couldn't buy those boots.  

So, I began researching boots again and found another well rated pair which were the same brand as the hiking shoes I had purchased (on sale) and broke in while we were in Chicago in February. No blisters, no rubbing, so I thought the boots would be perfect.  I recognized that I needed to try them on in person since the sizing could be different and went to REI for the first time to buy boots (and the water bottles that were on sale because they were a ridiculous day glo yellow.  I think the manager was relieved when I asked for "4 of those water bottles on sale - color doesn't matter" so that he could clean out the inventory.).

I brought my orthotics and the socks I planned to wear on the hike and tried on the boots in my regular size (8) and a half size up. My interaction with the salesperson was limited. He fetched the sizes I asked for and told me to take my time and walk around the store in them.  I took his advice, walked around the store, walked up and down the fake plastic rock and even read the REI article about how to buy boots. I settled on the 8s, happily.  

I have to admit, I was kind of excited about the boots. I always thought that chick in Jurassic Park looked cool in her khaki shorts and hiking boots and now I could do that.  The next step was to break them in and I will cover that in my next chapter of the boot saga. I don't want to ruin the ending here, but this was a saga of my own doing....

Planning the trip - the route, the timing and the tour operator

The first major decision you have to make is which route you want to take up the mountain because this will drive everything else. There are several different routes with very distinct characteristics.  The prevailing opinion is that the longer the hike, the more likely you will make it to the summit.  According to people smarter than me, the reason why is that when people have more time getting used to the high elevations, they are less likely to suffer from elevation sickness and can make it to the top of the mountain.  Below are the statistics that are floating around online about the success rate based on the length of the climb.

• 5 day routes 27%
• 6 day routes 44%
• 7 day routes 64%
• 8 day routes 85%

 So, here's the problem with this (no, I never take off my lawyer hat).  How do they know? How do they know that someone who did the 8 day climb successfully couldn't do the 6 day climb successfully? Plus, did the people who did the shorter climbs drink enough water? Take elevation sickness pills? Do something stupid like run? Yeah, I take these statistics with a grain of salt.  But, being a non hiker, we picked an 8 day route - the Lemosho route.  My lawyer brain saw some logic in the statistics and frankly, we really wanted to do everything we could to improve our chances of reaching the summit. (Yes, I did just argue both sides of that issue.... mad lawyer skills)

So, once we picked the route, we had to pick the time of year we wanted to go.  Mount Kilimanjaro has five major ecological zones including a rain forest. Temperatures don't fluctuate much, so there will be snow at the top and rain on our way up.  As I envision it, the fact that I can't shower for 8 days, have to sleep on the ground, pee standing up (more on that later) and deal with elevation sickness as a possibility, the last thing I wanted to deal with was rain so we picked a dry time to go. However, in light of my prior statements, I'm not sure it's going to make a difference....

Here's a link to a website with the weather information.  

https://us.worldweatheronline.com/moshi-weather-averages/kilimanjaro/tz.aspx

As you can see August has very little rain, so we thought that would be a great time to go. Plus, the with summer vacations, sometimes there is a little slow down in my work, which would make taking time off in August less burdensome for my clients and my colleagues who need to cover me. 

So, with August picked, we had to narrow down the tour operator.  To say that there are a lot of choices would be like saying there are a wide selection of paint colors.  You can go into town and hire guides to take you up or you can literally spend tens of thousands of dollars for tour operators that pull out all of the stops and have really high success rates.  I read all of the reviews on Tripadvisor,  blogs from people who had taken the trip and various websites online to try and track down the right operator for us. It was a little bit of information overload.  No, it was a lot. The good news was that the reviews included information about the actual climb, so even reading them gave me more information than just the tour companies. 

 Ultimately, I selected ClimbKili. First, the reviews made me feel good about the company. Second, they have local US representatives so it was easy to send an email or call them for information (and, by the way, they have been super helpful and responsive). Finally, they have a lifetime guarantee deposit, so if you have to cancel, the funds carry forward and you can do the trip another time.  

Once we sent our deposit, ClimbKili sent us a packet of information, which started the frenzy of purchasing that has consumed my life since the day we received it.  Everything I have shared in these initial posts is the same stuff you would find online after a quick search and probably not terribly compelling. However, I anticipate that my future posts will be more personal and, well, weird, as you get a glimpse into my head and how my prep for the climb has unfolded.