![\"Sam](\"images\/stories\/pyle_indiantrail.JPG\")
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I\u2019ve camped and hiked most of my life, and 21 years in the Army as a reservist always reminds me of the best methods for not being miserable while hiking (and the Army being the Army, how to be miserable while doing it as well) and the need for being in shape if you\u2019re going to be walking up and down roads and hills. I\u2019ve also tried to bring up my kids to be as active as possible, and my three sons are pretty fit and used to the deal as well. This time, however, we\u2019re striking out on new territory.<\/p>\n
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Mt. Kilimanjaro is the tallest hikable mountain in the world, with an altitude of over 19,000 feet; 19,330, according to the 2008 Precise Height Measurement Expedition. This is about 5,000 feet higher than the next highest mountain I\u2019ve hiked, Pike\u2019s Peak in Colorado. As I\u2019ve read on the subject, acclimatization to the altitude seems to be the biggest worry, but the trip guides make sure you take your time as you gain altitude, so I\u2019ll leave that to them with the following two exceptions. First, it\u2019s still a long hike, even if we\u2019re taking six days to do about 30 miles, and second, I have a feeling it\u2019s going to be cold up there. Once again, in the wisdom of my advancing age, I hate being miserable if I can avoid it, so practice in hiking, layering, drinking, eating, sleeping and doing all of these in the amounts prescribed to make this enjoyable (or at least not too uncomfortable), are important. Sam and I did a 20 mile hike along the Jordan River last summer in 7 or 8 hours, and that cured us of wanting to do that again from then until now. Sooo, time to get going again.<\/p>\n
![\"pyle](\"images\/stories\/pyle_dietcoke.JPG\")
We chose as our first hike the Indian Trail starting in Ogden and winding for about 4.3 miles into Ogden Canyon. It\u2019s perfect for some ramping up hike training, a bunch of up and down, dirt trail, loose rock in other places, lots of variation for getting going. We wanted about a 5 mile hike, and since we took a wrong turn off the trail for about 20 minutes\u2026 got it! I knew something wasn\u2019t right when we were rock climbing at a highly steep angle, especially as I was having trouble hanging on to my Diet Coke from McDonald\u2019s and maintaining three points of contact. This didn\u2019t seem like, and definitely turned out not to be a normal Park Service trail. So if you\u2019re doing this trail from the Ogden side, and around the two mile mark you come upon what looks like a junction in the trail with lower, middle and ascending branches, don\u2019t be fooled by the middle branch. It\u2019s wrong. 10 steps to the left will also show you that there really is no lower branch, so the upper branch it is! As soon as you have run a couple of switchbacks, you\u2019ll know you\u2019re on the right path. So we made it with no problems, training underway. Sam meantime, is taking a nap. Next week we\u2019re thinking Lewis Peak from the North Ogden Divide, about a 10 mile hike.<\/p>\n
Editor’s Note:<\/strong> Wayne has graciously offered to share his experiences and adventures as he and his son get ready to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. If you have climbed Mount Kilimanjaro please share any comments or suggestions that might be of help. ~ Jeremiah Breeze<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve camped and hiked most of my life, and 21 years in the Army as a reservist always<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9015],"tags":[9825,9833],"class_list":["post-4551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climbing-articles","tag-mount-kilimanjaro","tag-preparing-for-kilimanjaro"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}