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Amanda and Jared Howe reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro after hiking more than 40 miles. Once at the top, they had their photo taken and within less than 30 minutes began their way back down.
Jared Howe, a Farmington Middle School science teacher, along with his wife, Amanda, recently returned from completing what most people would consider a pretty impressive item on their bucket list — a hike up Mount Kilimanjaro, a dormant volcano in the United Republic of Tanzania.
According to Jared, the idea for the couple’s hike up Kilimanjaro began six years ago at the middle school.
“It was our principal, Dr. Dorothy Winslow’s, last year at the school, and she had a thing she called ‘One Book,’ but it just meant that the whole school read a book,” he explained. “We read it during advisory, and the students all kind of had a common theme we could all talk about. Well, the last one that she chose was this book called ‘No Summit Out of Sight,’ and it was by Jordan Romero.
“At the time, he was the youngest kid to climb all of the seven summits. I think he climbed Mt. Everest at 16. He climbed the mountain that we did — Kilimanjaro, I think it was the first one he did — at age 12. As I was reading this book, out of all of these seven summits, Kilimanjaro is the fourth highest mountain in Africa at 19,341 feet. But because it’s at the Equator, it’s the only one that’s not unbelievably snowy where you have to use ropes, and it starts to get dangerous — not just because of the altitude, but the weather and everything else becomes dangerous.”
As Jared read the book, it became clear to him that, of the seven summits, Mount Kilimanjaro was the only one he considered to be “doable.” He was also intrigued by the fact that, because Kilimanjaro is on the Equator, hikers begin their trek in the rainforest and end it in the glaciers.
“There’s no other one like that,” Jared said. “There are like five different zones you go through, and as I’m reading this, I’m like, ‘This sounds awesome!’ I’d never hiked before that. I used to run half-marathons and marathons but got injured, so I was looking for something new to do anyway. After I read the book, I said, ‘Amanda, we’re hiking Kilimanjaro!’ And she was like, ‘Okaaaaay.’ It was totally a joke at the time. We like to travel, but we’ve never been that far to Africa.
“The next year, I mentioned to a buddy how we just got into hiking a little bit. He mentioned hiking Pikes Peak. So, then, for the next five summers, we’ve been going out to Colorado and trying to do what they call ‘fourteeners’ which are [hikes] above 14,000 feet. Amanda came with me one time last summer — I think a little bit in training for this. We hiked Quandary, which is in Breckenridge, but that was the only big training we had — just going out to Colorado when we could in the summer and trying to hike once in a while.”
As the year progressed, Jared and Amanda decided to start making some of their bucket list trips become reality while they still could. Hiking to the summit of Kilimanjaro was on his list. The couple booked the trip a year in advance through a company called Monkey Adventure.
“We highly recommend Monkey Adventure to anyone wanting to do something like this,” Jared said. “We got our flights in about February, and then we headed out the last day of June.”
After flying from the United States to Ethiopia, the couple took a two-hour flight to Moshi, Tanzania.
“Our guides were waiting for us at our hotel when we checked in,” Jared said. “We don’t have the highest of standards, but it was a wonderful hotel. They called it ‘four star,’ and I would say it was as nice as I could expect for a hotel in a third-world country. It was very nice accommodations-wise. Then we got a briefing from our guide, Francis, and then from what Francis called our ‘stomach engineer’ — our cook. Why this mountain is doable, when it comes down to it, is you have guides and porters.
“It’s just amazing — we had a guide, an assistant guide and six porters who carried everything, [including] our tent. We had three hot meals every single day we were on the mountain, so that’s kind of why it’s doable. It was a seven-day trip. There are shorter ones. I believe the shortest one is like five days, but the longer you’re on the mountain and the different routes that you take, they all had different success rates. We took one called the Lemosho Route. It was 42 miles long, but we did it over seven days.”
Jared and Amanda Howe stop for a picture on day four at 15,000 feet, with the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background.
Prior to leaving on their journey, the couple met with their guides to go over what gear they brought and what additional gear they would need to have before heading out.
“We also had to rent some gear — like a sleeping bag we didn’t bring,” Jared said. “We had to get hiking poles we didn’t bring because we didn’t want to bring them on the plane. So, we were able to rent all that stuff, so that was pretty easy as well. The next day, they picked us up in the morning, and we headed out. The first day was through the rainforest, and that was pretty cool. We saw baboons and lemurs, zebras and gazelles — that was kind of neat — but then the hiking started.
“Our guides and porters were the last ones to leave, and they always got ahead of us. They’re fast! I think they can carry up to 45 pounds — it’s like a legality thing. But imagine they’re carrying 45 pounds — that’s just extra — and then they can carry their own pack. You’ll see these guys flying right past you. It’s outrageous! I’ve never seen anyone move that fast on that kind of elevation. They were the first ones to show up, and they would have everything set up for us — our tent, the mess tent where we would eat. They had a tent for our toilet that came with us.”
The Howes were quite impressed with the good service they received but hadn’t expected while hiking up a mountain in Africa.
“It was six days of hiking,” Jared said. “I think the shortest day we had was day one, which I think was four miles. The longest one was the day we summited when we hiked 12 miles total.”
Amanda interjected, “It took us six-and-a-half hours on our summit day to only do three miles.”
Jared said, “The time schedule’s kind of crazy. On summit night, which was the fifth night, we wake up at midnight because the goal is to try to get to the top by sunrise. We actually got up before that because we ship off at midnight. It’s 3.1 miles to the top, and we’re at 15,000 feet. It’s one of the nice things about the Lemosho Route. You hit 15,000 feet twice. The first time we hit it, we kind of felt the elevation — a little pressure in the head — but then the second time we hit it, we slept there, so we felt a lot better. It gave us a little confidence in the acclimatization process, that we felt better.
Then we have to go from 15,000 feet to 19,000 feet in 3.1 miles. It took us six-and-a-half hours. So, I would obviously say that was the toughest part. It’s in the dark. They call it, ‘pulley, pulley,’ which means, ‘slowly, slowly.’ Anyone who goes up the mountain is going to hear that 1,000 times. You just go nice and slow. You don’t want to overdo and just kind of make your way as you go.”
Amanda said, “It’s one thing to say it was hard because it was in the dark, but it was hard also just because of the unknown. They had given us a little speech about altitude sickness and how you can potentially have a pulmonary or cranial edema. You have no idea it’s going to happen to you. They said, ‘If we think you’re done, we’re going to send you down immediately because it is a life-threatening condition. I’ve never been to 15,000 feet before that day, so you don’t know how you’re going to react to the altitude. For me, I got incredibly tired. I was wanting to give up at one point — you don’t ever know how you’re going to react. We were up there with probably 200 other people. Everyone is doing it at the same time.”
Jared continued, “One, it’s a very popular season — they call it high season. It’s because of all things I mentioned, people find it very popular. The youngest kid we saw might have been 10 or younger. Then we saw people that were probably in their 70s. It’s a bucket list mountain for a lot of people. As we go up, all you see is a train of lights because it’s dark, and the people are snaking up the mountain just trying to get to the top.”
Amanda added, “You have people that are getting tired like me, people who aren’t feeling anything, and you have people violently retching on the side of the trail because that’s what the altitude is doing to them.”
Despite a few bouts of altitude sickness, Jared admitted that there is a high success rate for those attempting to make it to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
“Let’s say there are five to seven people who are having a bad day and don’t make it, but everyone else — the other 195 people — are making it to the top,” he said. “It’s kind of cool. This is a challenge, but it’s definitely a challenge that — if you prepare for it — is a doable challenge.”
Amanda said, “It’s not as much a physical challenge as it is a mental one.”
Jared recalled his “highlight of the moment” as he climbed toward the summit where the couple, like their fellow hikers, would remain for less than 30 minutes.
“The goal is to get to the top, but at Stella Point you start to get a really beautiful view of the sunrise,” he said. “That’s about 45 minutes from the summit or peak. We made it still in the dark. I kind of got emotional there because I’m like, ‘Oh, my goodness! We’re only 45 minutes away!’ We were making great time and were going to make it and take the sunrise from there. Knowing we only had 45 minutes from there was encouraging, but it was still a tough 45 minutes!
“We made it to the top, and the glaciers were still there, but they’re definitely decreasing as the climate is changing. They’re still 200 feet tall. They were way off in the distance — we didn’t go touch them — but I’ve never seen a glacier. So that was neat to go from Africa desert to rainforest, to that. It was a beautiful morning. We got a beautiful sunrise. It was gorgeous. That was obviously the dream come true. Then we had to turn around and then hike another eight miles back down.”
Amanda said, “But we did learn to ‘stand ski.’”
Jared continued, “The route down is not the same one as the one you take up. It’s literally loose gravel. They call it ‘skiing on the rocks,’ so you’re kinda’ skiing on your way down. A little harder on the knees, but a whole lot quicker! You’re tired, but it’s faster, so it’s definitely encouraging. It was an amazing trip. I’m the one who likes to hike and do this a little more than my wife does and the fact that she had a great day each day … We were successful. We had a good time — that was kind of the end-all, be-all, awesome part for me.
This photo was taken on top of the Barranco Wall with a view of the adjacent mountain Mount Meru.
“Conquering the challenge was great. Doing something with my wife as a team — that was definitely a highlight — and then we do like to travel. We’ve been to a few countries. We’ve been to Europe a few times, but this was out of our comfort zone. We felt unbelievably welcome, but we were the only people from America that we met, I believe, so that was kind of unique to be in that kind of situation. All of these people and to be in the African culture, and then having these people from other countries experiencing it as well — it was really neat.”
Amanda shared her final thoughts about the trip.
“You don’t have to love something to enjoy it,” she said with a chuckle. “It was not so much the hike itself, but even the couple of days we were in town. I liked going to different spots. Africa is not what we’ve always thought of it growing up. I feel like we have always grown up lumping the whole continent into one thing.
“'There are starving children in Africa,”' we always heard growing up, but they are their own thriving culture. It was just really great to experience it rather than only know a stereotype.”
Kevin R. Jenkins is the managing editor of the Farmington Press and can be reached at 573-783-9667 or kjenkins@farmingtonpressonline.com
“The goal is to get to the top, but at Stella Point you start to get a really beautiful view of the sunrise. That’s about 45 minutes from the summit or peak. – Jared Howe
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Amanda and Jared Howe reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro after hiking more than 40 miles. Once at the top, they had their photo taken and within less than 30 minutes began their way back down.
Jared and Amanda Howe stop for a picture on day four at 15,000 feet, with the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background.
This photo was taken on top of the Barranco Wall with a view of the adjacent mountain Mount Meru.
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