Our Digital media guru, Joanna Delaney, spent the last few days climbing Kilimanjaro. Not only did she get the time away, but she had an amazing life experience and SplashMaps‘ customers helped her raise a great 4 figure sum for Stroke victims!
My toughest physical and metal challenges ever
This October, I took on the challenge of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest free-standing mountain in the world, to raise money for the Stroke Association. It was an awesome experience as well as one of the toughest physical and mental challenges I have ever set myself.
From rain forest to Arctic desert
There was a group of eight of us (plus guides and porters), climbing the seven-day Machame route to the summit, which would take us through five different climatic zones, from rainforest, to arctic desert.
Each day we walked between 4-7 hours a day – climbing high, and sleeping low. In order to acclimatise to the altitude, the route to the summit required us to climb up to high elevations, and come down again by a few hundred meters so that we would have the best chance of making it to the summit on the final climb. I was glad of the personalised SplashMap to help me track our progress.
The final midnight push
On summit night, we left base camp (4600m) at midnight, and after six hours of trekking we reached Stella point (5685m) for sunrise. The six hours of climbing in the dark are a blur, it was very cold, the water in our daypacks froze and once above 5000m you can really feel the affects of the altitude (dizziness, nausea, headache, shortness of breath). We had amazing guides who encouraged us throughout; and as soon as the sun rose all our spirits were lifted as the end was in sight and it would only be another hour until we reached Uhuru peak. We reached the summit at 7:15am, and the views were absolutely stunning. We were incredibly lucky to have clear blue skies, so that we could see the volcano crater and glaciers at the top. After our obligatory photo with the sign and guides we rushed back down to base camp, after only spending 15minutes at the top.
Climbing Kilimanjaro was one of the best experiences of my life, its an amazing feeling to accomplish a tough challenge, make great friends with the people I climbed with as well as raise money for charity. I would definitely recommend anyone to climb Kilimanjaro.
Thank you to SplashMaps’ customers
SplashMaps donated enough to reach £1000, but once she was en-route our customers each gave £1 for every order made at www.splash-maps.com. Here’s why she did it and why The Stroke Assocation is close to our hearts. And here’s where you can donate to be as fabulous as our recent customers!
Doing a great climb?
- Check out how SplashMaps were used on Everest by the experts at Adventure Travel Magazine
- Get in contact! Tell us what you’re doing, I bet we can help 😉
