As some of you may know I am in the process of training for a charity climb up Kilimanjaro.... Here is my 3rd training hike....
Start of the hike....
A two-day desert-mountain training hike took several drastic turns for the worse! What should have been a simple 30 minute hike up and down the base of a mountain to get a better look at a route, left us unable to safely come back down to where we had left our backpacks with all our supplies and emergency gear.
No way we were making it back down this way...
From the 1,600m peak, I was told by the 50-year-old Monk who lives in a cave on the mountain, it would only take 5 hours to hike down to the base of the mountain along a different route that would be safe to descend.
1,600 meters.
Not an issue when it's 7am and you have food and six liters of water. It does become an issue when it's 120*F and it actually takes 28 hours and you soon run out of water. We spent 13 hours without water or food and an additional 15 hours drinking the minimum to keep our mouths from feeling like we had had a cup of superglue and sand shoved down our throats; because that how it felt the whole time! Dehydration and extreme exhaustion quickly set in; every step was a struggle to maintain any sort of composure and I was constantly out of breath regardless of how slow we were moving!
Father resting under the sun after I tied the sole of his shoe back on using his shoe lace. The sole had had completely fallen of.
It was impossible to walk more than ten minutes without collapsing under the sun onto the hot desert floor to regain the strength to even stand up again and try to take another step. After laying on the floor to rest it would take me 10 second after I sat up to regain my bearing, like 20 seconds with my head at waist level and then another 20 seconds before I would take a step and not fall over from being dizzy!
Half way down. From here it took another 10hr of hiking and an overnight rest.
Ultimately, I was rescued by a search and rescue party of two Jeeps that the father had run into when he raced ahead to get help. The Egyptian search and rescue helicopter making final preparations to take off just minutes after they found me.
After over six liters of re-hydration liquids and a visit to the hospital for an IV, blood, urine, EKG, and ultrasound test, along with a head CT scan, the doctors confirmed there would be a full recovery!
The longest 28 hours of my life! Amen!
AEGS
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