The most difficult and challenging physical effort she had ever undertaken was how Marianne Stewart described her recent climb to the summit of Kilamanjaro. Marianne, a Practice Education Co-ordinator based in ITU, was part of a 19-strong team who raised more than £115,000 for Strathcarron Hospice – their biggest single fundraiser ever.
Marianne said the extreme altitude meant many of the team suffered severe headaches, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, diarrhoea and breathing difficulties. In addition, low temperatures (around -15c) meant painfully numb hands and feet. It was so cold on summit night that water bottles, camera batteries and phones actually froze.
For seven days, the team attempted to clean with an inch of warm water in a bowl or with wet wipes, kept hydrated with sterilised stream water flavoured with electrolyte tablets or squashes to hide the taste, layered up with dust-covered clothes to keep warm and used some of most basic toilet facilities they had ever encountered!
Despite this, 17 of the 19 strong Strathcarron team, including Marianne, reached the roof of Africa, the highest freestanding mountain in the world, after a gruelling nine and a half hour trek.
