Whitely - Gorge: My Journey Up Kilimanjaro at 300 Pounds

THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME on this journey.

This is a memoir, my truth of my life as a plus-size adventurer. I used documentary footage, journals, interviews, and memory to retrace my steps through childhood and up Africas highest peak. Some names have been changed to protect privacy. Some have not.

Filmmakers Sharon Dennis of Reel World Productions and Sydney Clover, who was a film student at the time, joined us on this journey up Mount Kilimanjaro to document it. In true journalistic fashion, other than a few microphone adjustments and such, they did not interject or interfere in the story.

So please, come along with me. We have amazing places to go.

HAPPY TRAILS,

KARA

GORGE

Copyright 2015 Kara Richardson Whitely

SEAL PRESS

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California 94710

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

978-1-58005-560-4

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover design by Erin Seaward-Hiatt

Cover photo Sally Kidd. After four days of hiking, author Kara Richardson

Whitely and hiking partner Stacey make the final approach for summit night on Africas highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Interior design by Domini Dragoone

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

For Chris, Anna, and Emily, you are the stars in my sky

Table of Contents

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

Sir Edmund Hillary, first man to summit Mount Everest

TANZANIA, AFRICA

I WAS THE FATTEST HIKER on the mountain, and I was in trouble.

It was 3:00 AM on the morning of our Mount Kilimanjaro summit attempt, and our group of four womenall friends, all of us raising money for Global Alliance for Africas AIDS orphans programshad dwindled to three. I wondered if I would be next.

We were so high up that the stars were not only above but also beside and below us. To be among the stars was a wondrous feeling after so many years weighed down by my fears, too scared to put myself out into the world, to be seen.

The headlamps of other hikers looked like constellations moving in formation as they passed us on the gravelly, zigzag trail. We had started at 11:00 PM, an hour earlier than most groups, to get a jump on the summit attempt. But we were already behind on this day of fifteen hours of hiking more than 19,000 feet up Africas highest peak.

With each step, I felt as if I was dying. My lungs seethed and prayed for air. My legs were lead. My heart beat so hard and fast against my ribcage that I thought it might leap out onto the frozen ground below.

Our group took breaks every half hourmore than most othersand I worried that I was the one holding everyone back. We found a spot to pause at Williams Pointan outcropping of rocks at 16,400 feet where summit-seekers can rest for no longer than a few minutes. Otherwise, at ten degrees, fingers and other body parts could freeze. I was too exhausted to be hungry, but in hopes of restoring some of my energy, I reached into the outside pocket of my backpack for a Clif Bar and discovered that it was frozen. I gnawed and gnawed but couldnt even break off a nibble.

I had always relied on food to get me through adversity. Now, when I really needed to eat, I couldnt.

My headlamp illuminated my breath, each exhalation like a frosty jellyfish in the dark, suspended for a moment, and then slipping into darkness. I was scared to let my breath escape, wondering if the next would provide me with enough oxygen to keep me going. Near Kilimanjaros summit, there is half as much oxygen as at sea level. Standing still at Williams Point, with another 2,000 feet to go, I was panting like a chubby middle school student who had just finished the mile run.

You might wonder what a fat person was doing climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. And when I say Im fat, Im not being charmingly self-deprecating. Each of my legs was the width of a century-old tree. My hips were as wide as a Smart car bumper. I had to sit on buckets instead of camping chairs for fear that the fabric would rip and I would land on the ground, humiliated.

I weighed three hundred pounds. I was a glutton, plain and simple, as well as a glutton for punishment. This was my third trek up the mountain.

SECOND SUMMIT ATTEMPT, TWO YEARS EARLIER, DECEMBER 2009: MARANGU, TANZANIA, 6,496 FEET

MY HAIR WAS DAMP THE second I stuck my head out of my window at the Kilimanjaro Mountain Resort. I wanted to have a glimpse of the 19,343-foot mountain before me, but it remained elusive, hidden behind the gray drifting mist that consumed the sky and soaked the red volcanic earth below.

The tour book said the rainy season ended in early December, but here in the week before Christmas, Mother Nature did not seem to agree.

I didnt need to see Mount Kilimanjaro after all. I already knew it looked a lot like my own generous pear figure: boxy and wide at the bottom. I had already trodden to its summit once two years prior to celebrate a 120-pound weight loss.

I thought retracing those steps would be enough to get me back on track. I desperately wanted to return to the one time I felt I had my weight under control. The first path to Kilimanjaro started after tackling Camels Hump in Vermont, a peak that had defeated me during college, on my thirty-first birthday. I had just crossed over the 300-pound mark. I spent a year resisting carbs and starting each day with a two-hour workout. Taking on Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest nontechnical mountain one could reach the top of by hiking, was a reward for finally dipping below 300 pounds to a low of 240 (size twenty-four).

I was feeling my strongest and most in control. People who knew me at my fattest called me skinny. Men held doors for me. I felt as radiant as the first sunrise over Kilimanjaros sister peak, Mawenzi, which illuminated all of Africa below. I could buy shirts and jackets at the Gap, something I could have never done in my plus-size life.

That first time, I bounded to Kilimanjaros Uhuru Peak at 19,343 feet with energy to spare. This second time, I was once again standing at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, but I wasnt in the same place. This time, having given birth to a daughter, Anna, I didnt do the training. I didnt drop the pounds. I didnt deserve to be here. I told myself not to panic. Im really great at high altitude. It was just a very long walk to the top of the mountain.

After gaining more than half of my weight back after the first Kilimanjaro climb, I was there for the second time in hopes of dropping pounds, but I really should have done that before arriving in Marangu, the village at the base of the mountain. This time, instead of taking a hike as a celebration, the trek felt more like a condemnation.

I looked back at my duffle bag, which was just as stuffed as my size twenty-eight jeans. I had packed the same things as last time, ignoring the fact I had gained seventy pounds while pregnant and in the months after life with my daughter.