10 Days on Kilimanjaro's Northern Circuit: A Couple's Training Story

​In this episode, I interview Summit Strength graduates Karen and Charles, who have just come back from 10 days and a successful summit of Kilimanjaro's northern circuit. Inside, they talk about their training, preparation and experience on this amazing mountain. 

Training For Kilimanjaro 

At 74, Charles had spent over a decade climbing Colorado's 14ers. Karen an internal medicine physician, had never hiked before meeting him. Together, they set their sights on Kilimanjaro's Northern Circuit, a 10 day trek with a summit night elevation gain of roughly 4,000 feet, and trained through Summit Strength's online personal training for hikers to get there.

In this episode of the podcast, Karen and Charles walk through what their training actually looked like: adding strength and conditioning built specifically for hiking, tackling balance work for the first time, and staying consistent through a week in Italy, a family emergency, and a full year of preparation. They share how a personalised, flexible program helped them arrive at basecamp capable and confident, and how neither of them was ever out of breath on summit night.

This conversation is a real look at what it takes for an older hiker to take on a serious, bucket list adventure without leaving strength, balance, or confidence to chance. If Kilimanjaro, or any big trek, has been sitting on your list for years, read on to hear exactly how two everyday people got there, and what they would tell you before you go.

Mentioned in the episode:

• Thomson Treks ​

Episode Transcript:

Q: So to kick things off, do you just wanna give us a bit of a background? Um, where each of you from, what do you do, and what are your backgrounds in hiking?

Karen: I am from South Louisiana, which is below sea level. I am an internal medicine physician. I teach residents internal medicine, how to practice internal medicine, associated with LSU Medical School. I have zero hiking background until I met Charles, who took me up a few hikes in Colorado for a couple of hour hikes.
Charles: Thirteen five. I'm 74 years old. I'm a general surgeon, and also from Louisiana, so a sea level guy. My hiking experience probably goes back about 10 or 12 years, when I started with some buddies climbing 14ers in Colorado. I've done about 12 of those over the last 10 or 12 years. That's pretty much the extent of any of my significant altitude hiking.

Q: Before we started working together, what was each of your typical approach to training, whether that was hiking related or just general life related?

We had been in this routine of walking every day. We weren't really doing anything that got our heart rates into like zone three. We also weren't doing any balance work at all, and we weren't doing any significant weight training. So it was basically walking, on flat ground below sea level, at a comfortable pace.

Q: And then what was the big goal that you'd set for yourselves, and what was the instigator of this particular goal?

Charles: I had gone to Africa about 13 years ago on a safari, and I had seen Kilimanjaro at the time and really started to think, "I'd really like to climb that." The buddy in Colorado who I started doing the fourteeners with had also summited Kilimanjaro, and that really planted the seed for my interest in doing it. It took 13 years to get to the right point and the right time and be able to have the time available to train and then to actually get the hike done. We committed to this with Thompson Treks, or Thompson Safaris, the outfitter, last July. So we planned the trip almost a year in advance. Then we sort of just piddled around with our training all through the end of 2025, until I was just searching online for someone who could help us with training, because I knew that left to our own designs, I didn't think we would really be able to keep up the motivation for getting it done. We needed the stimulus of somebody overseeing us, and a logical planned program that included all of those things we were previously leaving out, like the weights and the strength and the balance, all things we really needed for the hike but weren't doing. I found Summit Strength, and the rest is history.
​
Karen: And I was just trying to keep him alive. I wasn't gonna let him go by himself, 'cause we just got married in September of last year. So I was like, "I'm gonna go up this mountain to keep him alive one way or the other."

Q: So tell us a little bit about the training that you did do through Summit Strength. What did your program look like? What type of sessions were you doing? Talk us through that.

We had your app, and the recommended program was there. The flexibility was really nice, because on a day where it was raining, we could do the balance and the weight work inside and we wouldn't really get out of sync. We flipped the long hikes in, which were great, and typically did those on a weekend. We had access to a gym, so in inclement weather we could get treadmill time and StairMaster time. We also accessed a parking garage near us to just do stairs up and down, because we really didn't have any other way to do any sort of altitude work. The plan, the flexibility of the plan, and the fact that it encompassed all the components, the cardio part, the weight part, the balance part, all the things we recognized that we really needed and weren't getting before, really worked great for us. Summit Strength was perfect for us. It was flexible too. We spent a week in Italy back in March and had to adjust our training there. We had some family emergencies that required Karen to be out of town, and she was able to adjust with that. It really worked out great for us. It was the perfect fit.

Q: Through everything you were doing, was there anything in there that you hadn't really done before or was kind of new to you?

I think the balance work was really new. I don't think either one of us had ever done any sort of balance work. I hadn't really worked with bands before, the different strength or tension bands, so that was helpful. I did a couple of business trips, and I just threw the bands in my suitcase and did the work in my hotel room, which worked out really well. I'd say the big piece that I'm sure we would never have done on our own was the balance stuff.

Q: And then throughout the process, you know, no training journey's ever, ever linear or ever smooth, as I always say. Were there any roadblocks that came up along the way? And if so, how did you go about overcoming them?

I had a big roadblock with my daughter getting admitted to the hospital, having a premature baby. The baby ended up in the ICU. I noticed there were like 14 flights of stairs at the hospital that I could run up and down a few times. It even had a whiteboard at the top that said you made it to the summit of the hospital floor. So I did that just to burn anxiety, even from the stress she was undergoing, and it kept me proud to report back, "Hey, I'm doing something even though I'm under this situation." But the baby's great now. 11 pounds and thriving.

Q: And so talk us through now. We talked about the training, we talked about the preparation, we talked about the inspiration. Let's talk about the trip itself. You flew over there. How did it all go? Give us the rundown. Tell us the story.

We committed to this in July of '25, and over the ensuing year, or a little short of a year, we got together all the items on the packing list. We did that slowly, made sure we had the things we felt we needed. We pretty rigidly adhered to Thompson's packing list. There were weight restrictions too. Porters can only carry 33 pounds, so you were limited to that in your duffel bag. The trip itself was easy. We initially booked flights on Qatar Airways through Doha, and once the war started, our flights got cancelled, so we had to rebook through Amsterdam, which worked out fine. Getting to Tanzania was easy, the visa process was easy, and we got picked up at the airport. We had about a day and a half on the front end of the trip, where we stayed at a game preserve. We got to see a lot of wild animals, elephants, zebras, buffalo, all sorts of things. Then we started the climb, and we did what Thompson refers to as the Grand Traverse, which I think is also called the Northern Circuit. It was a 10 day hike with a planned summit on the eighth day, which we did, and it worked out really great. We had plenty of time for acclimatization. We did use Diamox, which was recommended. We started at about an altitude of 11,300, and over the ensuing seven days we sort of went up and down as high as 14.5 and back down to 13, doing the acclimatization thing. On summit night we were at about 15,300.

We had about a 4,000 foot elevation gain on summit day, and I have to tell you, neither one of us were ever out of breath. Our training was great. We were never forced to stop because we couldn't go on. The guides paced us in the typical "pole pole" in Swahili, slow, slow, and that worked great. I never felt tired. I don't think you did either. We didn't feel tired out. We didn't feel like we couldn't go on. I never thought that I wouldn't make it. It worked really well. What we don't know how we would have trained for was the coming downhill. We descended about 15,000 feet in three days, and that was a little rough on the knees and thighs. I don't know how to train for that, because it's a very steep grade down, and the terrain is either scree, little small rocks, or big boulders you're stepping over, or slippery mud once you get into the rainforest. But we did it, and it was great. I could not be happier with the whole process.

I had no idea there were gonna be 29 people trying to get us up the mountain, and I was not gonna disappoint 29 people. They were so grateful, and their goal was to get us to the top. A lot of this is mental, and your attitude. The entire team we worked with had a positive attitude, and that was contagious, it bled over to us to stay positive. They never looked at us and said, "We don't think you're gonna make it." They were always very positive and encouraging, which I think is very important doing a climb like this, because you had two people going from sea level to 19,000 plus feet, and there's a huge mental component to it.

Q: Aside from what you've touched on so far, were there any other major challenges you faced on the mountains or issues that popped up or anything like that, that you had to overcome?

Karen: I was so cold that night. I was worried about frostbite, 'cause I had watched these YouTube videos of people complaining that they got frostbite, but they gave us a hot water bottle. They filled up our Nalgene with boiling water to put in our sleeping bag. But my only struggle was freezing cold nights and peeing outside, balanced on a rock. And I was the only female, and all the men were facing the other direction trying not to look at me. And I'm like, "Hey, I'm sitting here peeing outside for the first time, and I haven't had a bath in five days, but the world is good."

Charles: I'd say the cold, although we knew it was gonna be cold. I knew the summit night and day was gonna be cold, but it was cold every night. It was in the 20s at least every night. Two nights it snowed. One night it snowed and then froze, so the zippers on our tent were frozen. We had to fight the zipper to get out of our tent in the morning. But that was just part of the experience, I guess. I really wanted to enjoy the stars, but I was so cold, I'd look up real quick and think, "Okay, that's enough, I gotta go back in and get back under all these layers." Not the relaxing stargazing, hanging out for hours on end kind of thing.

Q: So talk me through afterwards now. So we've got to the top, we've got down to the bottom, we've come off the mountain. Once you finished up the trip, how did you feel? What was going through your heads, and did you do anything to celebrate?

We were ecstatic that we had done it. There's a tipping ceremony, I'm sure this is true of all the various outfitters that guide folks up the mountain, where you tip all the folks that have helped get you up there, the porters and the cooks and so on. That was really special, we got some videos of that which are really fun. Seeing all these folks get recognized and adequately compensated for the hard work they did was very rewarding for us. We each got a nice certificate from the Tanzanian government saying we successfully summited. We stayed at a real nice property after we got off the mountain, and he got his first massage at the age of 74. We did a couples massage, treated ourselves, and each took about a 45 minute shower. So yeah, it was fun. And he bought me these tanzanite earrings.

Q: And then coming off after all of this, what's the plan of attack for hiking moving forward? Is this like, got the bug, I wanna go do another mountain? Is it like, you know what, I've done that, I'm ready for some more relaxing holidays? Or what's the plan of attack there moving forward?

We both enjoy being outside and we like hiking. We vacation a lot in Colorado, so we're planning to head there in September. I'm sure we'll continue, we'd like to try to maintain the physical fitness level that we've gotten ourselves into by working with Summit Strength and using that program. My hope is that we can continue to do that, maybe not to as rigorous a level, but nevertheless to the point where we can continue to enjoy hiking at some altitude, 12,000, 13,000 feet.

I wanna stay physically fit enough to where I'm not like my mom in her eighties who can't hardly move around. I wanna be able to get myself up off the floor no matter how old I am.

Q: So if anyone was listening to this and they were considering Kilimanjaro or an adventure similar to this, what advice would you give them?

Good preparation. And that's both physical preparation, like we did with Summit Strength, mental preparation, and then get the right gear. I'm sure that most of these outfitters have a recommended packing list, and I'm sure they're all comparable. There are some probably odd things that we either brought that we were glad we brought, or various little small items that turned out to be useful. But I think the biggest thing, as I said earlier, I'm 74, I think if anybody's interested in doing this, if you train for it and you prepare for it and your attitude is right, anybody can do this. It's an achievable goal for anyone, if you do the right preparation. You can't halfway it, because it's not something you can do that way. But with adequate preparation, I think anybody can do this climb.

Looking at the campsites that we were at when there were other companies, if I ever did it again, I wouldn't choose any other company but Thompson, because I feel like we had so much support with that company. Our tents were deemed larger. Our guides would point it out to us, and say the other companies' guests would often ask, "Why do y'all have all these accommodations and tents and dining tent and all this other stuff that we don't?" I feel like that company took really good care of us, and they were also very good to the porters.

Q: Before we wrap up, was there anything else that we kinda haven't had a chance to cover today that you'd like to add about the trip or anything else?

Bring Lume deodorant wipes, 'cause you're not gonna have a bath or a shower for 10 days. We did not stink with Lume, and I have no interest in Lume beyond this, but it saved me from stinking.
​
For anybody that listens, it's an achievable goal. Don't give up on it.

Want to get
fit, strong and resilient
for your hiking adventures?

Check out
​The Online Summit Program