While never a fan of the bucket list approach, I’ve long thought it important to knock off a big personal challenge every few years.
Serious mountaineering has been a long deferred desire. I do think this desire permanently derailed after hearing firsthand a colleague’s miserable tale of tent bound weeks waiting for a summit shot on Denali. But a mellower trip to altitude remained a draw.
Perhaps that’s why I hastily volunteered to spend a month as a surgical preceptor at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania in September 2014. Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,341’), one of the technically easier of the famed Seven Summits, was a mere 45” flight away.
Rotation complete I joined Red Door Adventures guided climb in Moshi in early October. Led by the inimitable adventurer, Sunniva Sorby and ably assisted by Canadian mountain guide extraordinaire Maria Cashin, our motley crew of North Americans scaled Africa’s highest peak without incident with a 100% summit success rate. Yet, it’s unlikely the group would have reached 10,000’ without the stellar services of Godlisten Mkonyi and his assembly of family and friends, our Tanzanian climb leaders. For our expedition of nine tourists we were served, serenaded and supported every foot of the way by a team of some twenty cooks, porters and assistants. The experience was intensely absorbing and physically punishing, the views stellar but the utter sense of satisfaction and accomplishment topped everything and made the trudge so very worthwhile
