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| At the start of the climb the Lemosho Gate |
Ajmal Sobhan from Newport News, Virginia, is a retired surgeon, former marathon runner with many treks under his belt. In this guest post Ajmal describes his climb of Kilimanjaro the tallest free standing mountain in the world and one of the seven summits.
-Kilimanjaro: The agony and the ecstasy
Before going to Tanzania, I must have watched a dozen or more YouTube videos on Kilimanjaro. Most of them gave a good packing list, shots optional or mandatory, different routes some tougher and some easier. Not many described the level of difficulty related to age and experience, and none described the sad state of the trails when the rain practically destroys any safe pathways other than using common sense or relying on the experience of the guides.
Practically none of those videos prepared me for what was to come. I had never been to Africa nor had I summitted any mountains. All the experience I had involved trekking not climbing. Most of the treks were in Nepal, Colorado, the AT (Appalachian Trail), and one in India (Green Lakes, Kangchenjunga, Sikkim).
