A 27-year-old woman will salute her grandmother later this year by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest mountain in Africa.
Christina Pilgrim admits she is not a mountain climber, or even an avid camper or hiker, but she will be attempting a feat that 20,000 people try each year. Over half of them fail, but she expects to make it.
Pilgrim is taking part in an Ascent for Alzheimer’s, a project that has been running through the British Columbia Alzheimer’s group and is now in its 11th year. Participants must raise $10,000 in sponsorships, and then pay their own way to Tanzania to make the ascent, which will take about two weeks up and back.
Pilgrim said in an interview that last summer, her grandmother, Rita Rudiger, of Georgetown, suffered with
Alzheimer’s disease. She died at Thanksgiving.
“We saw her going downhill,” Pilgrim said.
She said she wanted to do something in Rudiger’s honour, and then she learned about the mountain ascent program. Further, she met Sue Brown.
Brown completed the same trek with the same group about four years ago, and carried a Wellington County flag with her that she unfurled at the top of the mountain.
Both women were involved with seniors in Wellington County. Pilgrim works with the Seniors Day Out program.
When she spoke with Brown, she received nothing but encouragement.
“I talked with Sue this past summer,” she said. “She said it was a fabulous experience. ‘Go for it.’ ”
She contacted the Alzheimer’s Society of British Columbia in August, but it took until the end of November before she was approved for the trek. She said the reason was she wanted all of her money to go to the Guelph Wellington Alzheimer’s Society. The B.C. group finally agreed.
Pilgrim noted that “One hundred per cent of what I raise goes to the society.
She has already started fundraising, and has set up a website and has been gratified to find that donors are already responding. She is planning a fundraising event in May with tributes to Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, as well as a silent auction, and she is currently soliciting donations for that auction.
She is also aware she needs to be in good condition to make the ascent of the mountain. Mount Kilimanjaro is 19,340 feet above sea level.
Each year, only 48 per cent of those climbing reach the summit. The Ascent for Alzheimer’s climb has a 90% success rate of taking climbers to the summit, and Pilgrim added it has a “100% safety rate.”
She found a personal trainer and fitness coach in Heather Ennis, of Elora, and the Guelph YMCA has offered its facilities for workouts until she leaves for Africa in September.
Pilgrim said the climb does not involve sheer rock face or pitons and ropes, but is a very steep ascent, not to mention shortage of oxygen as the climbers near the top. With that in mind, Ennis designed a program for Pilgrim that will strengthen her knees and joints, as well as cardio training for stamina.
There are two climbing teams this year. Pilgrim said one will start in early September, and hers starts climbing Sept. 15.
She expects at some point to meet the first group.
Her personal cost is about $6,500, and that does not include climbing equipment but does include such things as hiring porters.
There is a Canadian guide, Sue Oakey-Baker, and a Canadian doctor making the trip with her group.
“I’m doing this because I appreciate what the Alzheimer’s Society does for individuals and families trying to navigate their way through this debilitating disease,” she said.
Pilgrim works at the St. Joseph’s Day Out Centre with many county residents. She sees many people of varying abilities and with different disabilities, including those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
It was there that she has become familiar with how non-profit organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Society of Guelph-Wellington provides assistance for those people and their families.
She hopes the community will help her in far surpassing this amount.
She added that she believes the people she knows and works with from Fergus, Elora, Alma, and Arthur will be thrilled she is making the Ascent for Alzheimer’s.
Anyone wanting more information, or to donate to her silent auction fundraiser in May, or to make a cash donation should visit her website www.myclimb.ca.
To learn more about the climb, people can also visit http://www.alzheimerbc.org/ascent.php.
