Climb for Hospice

I’m getting lots of emails and messages as Aug 12th comes ever nearer. It’s so frigging cool. People I know and love, people I’ve never met, people wishing me well, people asking me for advice, people telling me that I’m their “hero”. I never thought that this would happen.

I started this blog on January 1st as a way to invite people into my journey, and it has turned out far better than I could have thought. I get messages from all over the world! No kidding! I love it. LOVE IT! So, if you’re reading this, and haven’t ever written to me, please feel free to do so today. I’ve got a couple days on Canadian soil, and would love to have your messages in my heart when I trip the blue fantastic.

I’ve been getting requests about my itinerary, and so thought I’d repost it here today.

My climb starts on Aug 23rd, and we will be taking the Lemosho/Shira route that will take us eight days. I will summit on the 7th day (that’s right, I WILL SUMMIT), and then be back at the hotel for a final night on the 30th of August. It kinda’ goes like this…

Aug 23: Drive to Lemosho Glades and hike to Mti Mkubwa forest camp.
Aug 24: Hike to Shira One camp.
Aug 25: Hike to Shira Two camp.
Aug 26: Hike to Barranco camp.
Aug 27: Hike to Karanga Valley camp.
Aug 28: Hike to Barafu camp.
Aug 29: Hike to the summit and descend to Mweka or Millennium camp.
Aug 30: Complete the descent to Mweka gate and drive back to Marangu.

Shira 2 camp

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So, please feel free to follow along. The time change is pretty big, so be prepared to do a little math if you want to know exactly where I am at what time. Ok, so it’s 10:03am on Tuesday, Aug 10th right now, and so that means that it’s 8:03pm on Tuesday, Aug 10th in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  Got it? I’ll be 10 hours ahead of you all in Ladner. On Summit Day, we are woken up at about midnight, then climb, climb, climb until we reach the peak at about 6am Tanzania time – that would be about 8pm Ladner time on the 28th.  So send your good vibes our way, ok? Thanks!

Now… onto my last To-Do list before I go…

Two more sleeps.

xo

Six days.

In less than  a week, I board a plane that will take me to Amsterdam, then to Nairobi, then finally to Dar es Salaam, where I will sit and recuperate for a few days before hopping a ferry to the exotic and mysterious island of Zanzibar.

After about a week on the exotic and mysterious island of Zanzibar, I will hop that same  ferry back to Dar, then slip onto a bus that will take me to the Kilimanjaro airport. Once there, I will get onto a shuttle bus that is bound for the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I will spend the night at the Marangu hotel, hopefully finding a few hours’ sleep between the anticipation and the fear.

And then… I climb.

Eight days later, I roll down that big dirt mound, and into a shower at Marangu. For the next 10 hours, I try to vigorously scrub the dust and blech from my skin, while attempting to scour the ‘carry-your-own-waste’ memory from my saturated mind.

After one more night at the Marangu, I roll on back to Dar, where I spend the next 5 days lounging in a beach hut, recovering, reading, recharging and reclining.

And finally, I jump on a plane that takes me back through Amsterdam before depositing me back on home soil.

I can do this.