Shary and Bob's Excellent Adventure
by
Teresa Flatley
Founder of 
In your early fifties and looking for a challenge? Take a deep breath and consider climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s jewel, one of the world’s highest free-standing mountains and possibly the most breathtaking mountain imaginable.
That’s
exactly what Shary Seltzer of Laguna Beach, California, and her brother-in-law,
Bob Shages of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, decided to do last fall.
Their trip turned out to be the adventure of a lifetime. The eight day trek began at the base of the African plain, leading them upward through forested slopes and the mountain’s barren "moonscape" to the 19,340 foot summit.
As a result of their adventure, Bob and Shary learned more about themselves and proved, as Baby Boomers, that they could still do this.
Shary’s decision to climb Kilimanjaro came after she experienced several major "Life Events," as those in the psychology field would call them: a heart attack three years earlier, the death of her father, and a divorce after 30 years of marriage. At age 54, when her son Stacey called to ask if she wanted to join him and his girlfriend, Helen, on the climb, "I said yes. I said no. I said I’d consider it." Shary remembers every answer.
Thinking
about it now, she says, "I decided that what I really needed was
a challenge to help me regain my balance and self-confidence. So I called
the kids and said that although I wasn’t really sure what would
be in store for me, I would like to go with them." Shary would be
the oldest female in the group of 27.
Bob’s decision to join them came quickly. "This was something I always wanted to do," he says, adding that Shary’s relief that he was going along helped cinch the deal.
"I had done a lot of hiking and camping," Bob admits, "but still I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect."
Both of them worked out and trained before they left, which they were grateful for once they began six days of steady hiking up the mountain, which is made up of one extinct volcano (Shira) and two dormant volcanoes (Mawenzi and Kibo).
Things went pretty well for the group, Bob says, even though the climbers were diverse in age, ranging from 20s to 50s. "I got the feeling that some of the younger climbers were worried that we old folks would hold them back. But we decided that old age and treachery could beat out youth and vigor any day."
All the climbers were "pretty intense" individuals, he says, coming from high-powered jobs back home. But each had his or her own style and brought something different to the group.
One
woman wore pearls every day on the mountain to maintain some sense of
propriety during the adventure. But it was the climbers’ inexperience
that held the group together. "If we weren’t all novices, the
trip would have been a lot worse," Bob says. As it was, the climbers
worked well together, despite the fact that most of them suffered from
altitude sickness, even though they ascended the three-and-a-half-mile
high mountain slowly to adjust to the thinning air.
Mt. Kilimanjaro is dry, getting very little rain annually. But Mother Nature has been known to change her ways. When their group had hiked to between 12,000 and 15,000 feet, the skies opened and it rained, sleeted and snowed, the worst storm on the mountain in ten years. Shary says, "We had a day of eight hours of walking in the storm, which really tested our endurance."
Everyone was soaked, as were their gear and sleeping bags. When the sun went down that night, it was close to freezing, a dangerous situation for the wet climbers. But the group pulled together, shared any dry clothing they had, and slept three each in two-person tents to provide more warmth.
On
the sixth day, the group left camp at about 11:30 at night to climb to
the summit. "We saw a steady stream of humanity slowly (one cannot
go fast at that altitude) ascending the steep scree slope toward the moon-glowing
glaciers and the rim of the volcano. The wind was fierce. The moon was
very large and white; we didn’t have to use our headlamps. The ascent
was very steep. My son describes it as doing stairmaster for seven hours
in the dark."
As the dawn light began to glow, Shary, Bob and Stacey reached Mt. Kilimanjaro’s peak.
Bob, admitting that he was "lucky," did not experience as many altitude symptoms as others in the group and was able to linger at the summit for a little while. "I felt drunk at that point," he says, "and not able to think clearly. I don’t remember the summit in much detail," but he does recall that "you had to stand in line to get your picture taken next to the sign," which congratulates all who make it to the top. About 150 people a day make it to the summit during the climbing seasons.
Several members of the group didn't reach the summit, having been sent back down the mountain with guides before they reached its peak, due to disorientation vomiting and headaches from altitude sickness.
That’s when Shary learned that the guides and porters had made wagers on who would and would not make it to the summit. "I also found out that I was a complete wild card to them, being the second oldest climber in our group and the oldest female they had ever taken up the mountain. No one bet on me."
They should have.