Although it isn’t as technical or difficult as ascending the High Peaks of the Himalayas, making it to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro — the highest point in Africa — is far from a comfortable experience, said a climber who recently did just that.
“You have to go up at a snail’s pace,” said Jenni Barnett, a woman with ties to the Virgin Islands who climbed Kilimanjaro in August. With about 1,200 feet to the summit of the nearly 20,000-foot mountain, Ms. Barnett said she felt so ill from altitude sickness that she and her group could only move about ten steps before taking a break.
“It was snowing, like a blizzard,” she said in an interview earlier this month, adding that temperatures often dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius [minus four degrees Fahrenheit] during the five-day trek. “I had a headache. I just kept thinking, ‘How am I going to manage this’?”
When she finally did reach the summit, Ms. Barnett pulled something from her pack and held it up as one of her friends took a photo: a VI flag.
For more information see the Oct. 18 edition of the Beacon.
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