12 months ago, on a free at last fundraiser (the Oddball Run), Steven Quance and I decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free standing mountain in the world. Little did either of us know the extent of the journey we would travel, or that it would become a journey shared with 6 other amazing people – Nikky Brand, Naomi Spencer, Nigel Evans, Alex Evans, Stuart James, Ollie Cooper
Being the lover of mountains that I am, I felt prepared for everything that we were about to face, with my only concern being my reaction to altitude. On arrival at the first camp I had a splitting headache and shivering, thinking the worse that I had altitude sickness and would end my journey here. It turned out to be a shortage of caffeine and a release of adrenaline from finally starting this epic journey.
Everything was going fine until an hour into day 3 when I stepped up onto a boulder, and as I stepped down the other side I landed awkwardly on a smaller stone and went over on my left ankle. I heard 2 cracks and again presumed my challenge was over.
If you know me well, you will know I am very stubborn and with a mind over muscle/matter mentality I walked Pole Pole (slowly slowly) to the next camp. Steve and Stu helped me get my boot off and realised this was not a simple sprain. Nevertheless, I had no intention of turning around and with grit, determination, stubbornness, team support, prayer and an awful lot of ibroprofen, I made it to the summit of Kilimanjaro with my awesome team.
I climb mountains because I love being surrounded by God’s creation, and I climbed Kili to be at over 4000 metres before I’m 50 and to raise funds for free@last. With your continued support we are heading towards an amazing amount of money, to which I am truly thankful.
The things we do at free@last require us to be visionary, committed, passionate and stubborn, which reflects my life on the mountain. But we also need a huge amount of help, which we received from the team and our new G Adventure family. You can still be involved with our Kili experience and sponsor my insane journey of summiting Kilimanjaro with a fractured/broken/sprained foot (the hospital are dealing with any blood clotting first before they unearth the true damage of the ankle).
Please continue to financially support us: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/john-street-kili
One of our sponsors, Plan {b} Creative has also written a short piece about the climb, have a read here.
Thank you for all you have done. Enjoy the photos and please share this post as much as you can.
John 🙂
