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Climber Stories & Advice
By the time I got to 18,000 feet I felt terrible. My head was spinning and my stomach wasn’t too far behind. After Gillman’s Point I threw up after chugging down almost a litter of water. But I kept on going. Another guy in our group also had a lot of trouble, and he trained for the climb by running three marathons. If a guy with that much endurance has trouble I felt okay about dragging myself.
But I did make it. I just kept on fighting and trying not to think about how terrible I felt. I didn’t take any Diamox, but the other guy did. In fact, another guy in our group who took Diamox had to turn back at 18,500 feet, but he hadn’t trained as hard. Kind of seems like success is a mix of physiology and training. I hadn’t run any marathons but I did train pretty hard.
Coming back down was very hard. I had used up all my energy just getting to the summit. I remember thinking that if this was a more technical mountain I probably wouldn’t have made it down. Luckily Kilimanjaro is a lot more forgiving of fools like me than other mountains.
Still, it was an amazing experience to go much farther than i ever thought I could.