From Rainforest to Glacier: Motorolan Christine Rolf recently hiked Mount Kilimanjaro and had the Motorola MOTOACTV and the P893 universal portable power pack to help her keep her feat on track. Here are some photos and stories from her trip to the roof of Africa:
After hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu I wanted a bigger challenge. Kilimanjaro was it: the summit is 5895 meters/19,340 feet high. I hiked 62 kilometers in 7 days – first a 4,405 meter ascent followed by a 3,915 meter descent, through a total of 5 climate zones. I also wanted to raise money for Make-A-Wish Foundation where I’ve volunteered for over 10 years. The donations totaled over $2,500!
Hike high. Sleep low. It really helped to have the MOTOACTV so we knew what elevation we were at every day and how we felt. The highest we’d ever been was 14,200 feet – and the summit was 5,140 feet higher (almost a mile). We had great scenery along the way – huge trees in the rainforest, interesting vegetation in moorland, and giant lava rocks at Lava Tower.
The summit push was very challenging – both mentally and physically but I was determined to make it to the top. Once at the summit I felt proud, exhausted, accomplished, exhilarated. The battery on my camera was going a bit crazy (from almost full power to dead after every shot) but I was able to get a few photos of me with the sign and the glacier that sits on top of Africa. While on a flight within Africa the pilot announced that our cruising altitude was 6000m. A week earlier I hiked to 5895m.
One of the coolest things about seeing the sunrise from 18,500 feet was looking down on the clouds as the sun rose, which I’ve only seen from an airplane window.
The only day it rained was day 3 after we hiked to 15,000 ft/4600m for acclimatization. While we were putting on our rain gear another hiker walked past us singing “Always look on the bright side of life”. I needed that.
Way to go Christine. Now how about you? What’s your workout mountain? And how did MOTOACTV help you climb it. Tell us about it in the Comments sections.