Greg Hornig '68 climbed and summitted Kilimanjaro this past October, two weeks after his 40th Portsmouth Abbey School reunion which he attended with his daughter Eliza.  The inspiration for Greg's trek?  In 1988 he read Michael Crichton's book Travels, where Crichton described climbing Kilimanjaro as "a great adventure and inner journey."  Also significant to Greg, in 2002, L.G. Thompson in Science, predicted the disappearance of Kilimanjaro's glaciers by the year 2015 and explained that the glaciers, which have existed for 10,000 years, have eroded in the past century, due in part to global warming.  In any event, Greg felt that time was running out for the incredible ice fields atop Kilimanjaro.

While successful, Gregg's trek was made more difficult, because he had fallen and broken a rib on the first day.  His companions, all experienced climbers and feeling the pain of the arduous climb, opined that he must be crazy to do Kilimanjaro a second time (Greg had attempted the climb two years before in 2006 with his daughter Eliza but had contracted viral bronchitis and did not summit; his daughter did).  Greg joked that although some frontal lobe dysfunction helped before and during the climb (resulting from high-altitude hypoxia), he also admitted that a good measure of stubbornness and an equal measure of training (one hour of hard exercise per diem, for at least 4 months) saw him through.  A bit of advice from Greg, "if you break a rib, avoid sneezing and take strong anti-inflammatory drugs!

Pictured below from L to R are Greg on his 2008 climb and his daughter Eliza on her 2006 climb.