Vaccinations and Wee bottles: Pre-Kilimanjaro Preparation

And we're off!! Anita and I are flying out today to our next big adventure, with a goal of summiting Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, around Feb. 12th. The months long lead up to today's departure has been a mixture of fear and anticipation, of gear shopping and vaccinations, and a strange debate about whether to use pee bottles (so one can wee in the comfort of your tent, as opposed to venturing outside in the middle of the night and potentially falling off the mountainside). Wouldn't that be a headline: Hikers die while 'pissing off Kili'. Literally. :)

We had spent all of the past summer training for this trek, scrambling peak after peak, only to have converted every ounce of fitness into fatness in the three months since cold winter weather hit. So while I thought at one point I was going to kick ass up Kili, I fear now it'll be Kili doing the kicking, and my ass the recipient.

Anywho, I should probably go do something productive in our final hours pre-takeoff. I'll leave you with these photos from Gusty Peak earlier this summer, the first 3000m summit Anita scrambled. To think that in just over a week, we will be summiting a mountain nearly double that elevation. Here's hoping.




Gusty Peak, as seen from the Chester Lake approach.


Quite a few kilometres in, with the bulk of the elevation yet to come.




Never ending scree and rubble.