After a couple days of travel, a couple hours spent on Africa time, and a couple of persistent vendors trying to sell us small Kilimanjaro souvenirs, our dream team was finally ready to tackle 8 days of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro!

If you haven't read my previous post setting the scene, you can check it out here!

Daily Routine

Each of my first six days looked something like this:

• 6:30 AM: Wake up
• 7:00 AM: Breakfast
• 8:00 AM Africa Time (So really 8:15/8:20): Begin hiking
• ~1:00 PM-2:00 PM: Finish hiking
• 2:00 PM: Lunch
• 3:00 PM: Nap
• 5:00 PM: Work out
• 6:00 PM: Health check and daily briefing
• 6:30 PM: Dinner
• 8:00 PM: Journal
• 9:00 PM: Bedtime

Sights of Kilimanjaro

While the hike on day 1 was mainly in a dense forest without scenic views, the remaining days brought us some spectacular sights of Kilimanjaro and the surrounding area.

I found day 2 and day 5 to be especially beautiful. The second day provided us with sweeping views of the mountain and a backdrop that looked like it could be the flagship postcard for Africa. The fifth day brought us, after 90 minutes of scrambling, the single most stunning view we had of the mountain during the entire trip.

Each day brought us different angles of Kilimanjaro and it never got old.

Each night was relatively cloudless, and being far removed from any light pollution, we were privy to a majestic view of the Milky Way.

Now that really never got old.

One sad thing about the mountain was the pollution. I came from previous hiking expeditions with a rule to "leave no trace," but unfortunately, Kilimanjaro did not get the memo.

While it is a heavily trafficked National Park, it was sad to see the ground riddled with toilet paper and empty wrappers whenever you stepped off the trail.

My Mood on Kilimanjaro

Strangely enough, I was in a really sour mood at the beginning of the trip. I definitely didn't vocalize it enough for anyone to catch on, but I recognized it within myself.

I knew it wasn't going great when I impatiently checked my watch on day 1 to see how far we'd gotten.

It had been 23 minutes.

The fact that I was pissy for an extended period of time made me even more frustrated.

First, it was extremely unlike me to be in a bad mood in nature.

Second, how could I be so ungrateful to be blessed with this opportunity yet be so sore about it?

I tried to analyze the root causes of my mood and how to fix it. A few factors seemed to enable this negative mood:

• Me taking this for granted
• Internally comparing myself to others on our trip
• The first day and a half having no views of anything but rainforest
• My shoes not properly being broken in and causing me pain
• Walking in silence
• Uncertainty about hitting my workouts on the mountain

By the end of day 3 though, I'd figured out a bunch of solutions to work past this awful mood and into a positive one!

• Mindfulness and breath work
• The natural progression of us moving out of the rainforest
• Stuffing extra socks in my shoes to alleviate the pain
• Chatting up people during the hikes. Human connection is powerful.
• Finding consistency within my daily routine to do my workouts

It required some effort, but I eventually got myself back into a mindset that left me excited to reach the top!

Mountain Shower Thoughts

A great thing about being in the wilderness for a week is that you have plenty of time to think.

Consequentially, a great thing about journaling is that you can write down shower thoughts as they come, which gives me an excuse to relay a couple of my biggest conclusions from being on mountain time.

1. Inflection points vs gradual growth: There are two types of experiences that we can all point to as helping us become better versions of ourselves.
   
   The first are inflection points: times in our lives where one decision, one action, or one event can fundamentally help you grow in unexpected ways.
   
   The second is gradual growth: times in our lives when we level up daily, but it isn't fast or necessarily sexy. However, over months, years, and even decades, the progress shows itself.
   
   Many might point to doing an event like a marathon as an inflection point. However, I'd argue that the single moment where you decide to commit to running a marathon, in retrospect can actually be the inflection point.
   
   That decision changed the trajectory of your growth because, without it, there wouldn't be the subsequent months of training that put you in a position to complete the marathon.
   
   While the race itself can also be an inflection point when considering that most marathoners run at least 20 miles once in training, one could argue that going from 20 to 26.2 miles falls more under the gradual growth category.
   
   Everyone has experienced gradual growth on some level, but inflection points are what frame our story. They're often unique to us, and looking back, we wouldn't be the same person without them.
2. Adult role models: Against all odds, I have so far made it through my life unscathed by the world telling me to do something normal with my life.
   
   I continue to want to do unconventional things, despite many older people in my life either not wanting me to, having no experience in the discipline, or both.
   
   I realized on this trip that a core reason why so many young people choose to give in to societal pressure to be normal is that there are frighteningly few adults (people 5-45 years older than us) in our lives who continue to encourage us to dream big or inspire us through their own pursuits.
   
   It's no secret that it is far more difficult to blaze your trail when there is no one to emulate in doing so, and this was a big reason why I loved our group so much.
   
   I met people just like me, but older. We shared similar interests, even beyond Kilimanjaro: mindfulness, journaling, endurance sports, travel, and more. For one of the first times in my life, I found a large collection of people older than me who had walked (and are still walking) the same path as me.
   
   It was amazing to hear their stories, learn about how they are still pushing their limits, and draw comfort from knowing that I'm not alone in my pursuits.

Summit Day Eve

The eve of summit day (day 6), was similar to the rest with a couple exceptions. We had an earlier dinner than normal, concluding around 6:00 PM, and then we were instructed to go straight to bed.

Our wake-up time was 10:45 PM, so I'm not sure if you could call what we did "sleeping."

More like an evening nap.

It's safe to say no one fell asleep right at 6:00 PM either. In asking people how much they slept I heard answers ranging from 3 hours on the high end, to "I didn't sleep at all," on the low end.

Nonetheless, waking up at that time, consuming a couple bowls of porridge, and readying our gear set us up to begin our climb to the summit shortly after 11:30 PM.

From 15,300 ft all the way to 19,341 ft.

Here goes nothing.