An OCU professor climbed Mount Kilimanjaro this past summer.
Dr. Diana Blackmon, chairwoman of Traditional BSN Program and associate professor for the Kramer School of Nursing, participated in a group hiking/climbing journey for about a week.
Blackmon will give a presentation on her journey from 10-11 a.m. Thursday in Room 151 in Walker Center for Arts and Sciences. It will be hosted by the Wellness Committee.
Mount Kilimanjaro is a mountain in Tanzania, Africa. Dr. Blackmon was accompanied by a group of 27 other women and about 90 local porters, guides and chefs. They spent about eight days on the hike, starting Aug. 2. Six days were spent hiking up the mountain, and two hiking down. Blackmon took the Machome route up. She was 65 years old, a few decades older than the other members of her group.
“It was probably the most physically challenging adventure I’ve ever been on,” Blackmon said. “I’ve been on a lot of adventures.”
To train, Blackmon spent six months taking only the stairs, running on elliptical machines, and running up and down ramps and parking garages.
The first day of the hike was spent walking through a rainforest. Blackmon said, starting on day two, the journey involved much more steepness and rock climbing. When the trek became steep, the hikers had to practice acclimatization, moving slowly to make gradual progress.
“It’s not a race up,” Blackmon said. “It’s an adventure. A slow adventure.”
The journey’s last leg ascending began at base camp at midnight. Blackmon was wearing five layers of clothes on her torso, three layers on her legs, two hats, a mask, and a pair of chemically-heated gloves to keep warm. She said she reached the peak of the mountain about an hour after sunrise, despite fatigue from her lack of sleep the night before.
“I did this whole thing on an hour of sleep, two apples and a protein bar,” Blackmon said. “Because you lose your appetite.”
After about 100 meters of three-foot snow, she reached the peak before anyone else in her group. Upon reaching the top, she took out an OCU flag and took a photograph with it.
“She is my hero,” President Martha Burger said. “She and I are almost exactly, if not exactly, the same age, and I have always wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was always a real goal of mine. I am so impressed by her.”
Students also expressed admiration for Blackmon.
“I guess you could say that makes me feel like I can do anything, but right now it makes me feel small,” said Jacob Michael McCoy, music composition freshman. “Like, I can only do the twin peaks over in Colorado.”
Climbing the mountain was a dream of Blackmon’s for a long time, she said.
“Seventeen years ago, I had plans to do it, and I didn’t,” she said. “And I should have. So it was my last thing on my bucket list I wanted to accomplish. Because I’ve done marathons, I’ve done outward bound trips, I’ve backpacked and hiked, and all of that. But this was fabulous.”
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