President Barbara Jean Morris: Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro

Dr. Morris:        My heart rate was up and that's exactly what you don't want your heart rate to go up because you don't have that much oxygen. And I'm expended a lot of energy. I hadn't slept cause we left at midnight. People were getting sick, there were life flights, helicopters coming, picking up people. And so I was daydreaming about how I could get my life flight helicopter, come get me. So, and how can I stop doing this and what a stupid thing to do on my birthday.

Host:                Welcome to my Oneonta life, a podcast about everything Oneonta. I'm your host Jared Stanley. On this show we discovered the stories and experiences of the people who make SUNY Oneonta the place we like to call home [inaudible].

Host:                Most people can agree there's nothing better than a great vacation, whether it's time on a beach, a weekend in the city, or a trip across the world, it doesn't really matter where you go as long as it's time away from the daily grind. Dr. Barbara Jean Morris is Sunni Oneonta's eighth president and she just started her second year in the position in July. Her summer vacation was a bit unconventional. She decided to travel to the country of Tanzania and spent eight days climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa. While many people wouldn't consider this challenge of vacation. Dr. Morris is an outdoor enthusiast and she is an avid skier, surfer and hiker. She attributes her love of the outdoors to her family outings. As a child,

Dr. Morris:        I was raised, uh, essentially outdoors. I always like to tell a story. My dad, um, uh, taught my sister and I to be survivalist. And so when we were in elementary school, when we would go camping, whether it's the mountains, the desert or, um, beach camping, whatever it is, we would, he would place us somewhere and he would say, fine tin things and find your way back to camp. It was just, uh, a way that we learned how to, um, look at the surroundings and understand our surroundings and, um, be able to, to think about where you were and how you could survive, uh, at any given time. So outdoors was always part of our life.

Host:                You may be wondering why Kilimanjaro, what was the draw to this particular mountain?

Dr. Morris:        Yeah, so Kilimanjaro it's been on the list for some time and partially because it's one of the big mountains, but it doesn't have a lot of the mountaineering technical side. I mean I have done technical, um, climbing and I've done rock climbing, but it wasn't Everest or that type of commitment that you're going to have to be there for months. So, um, Kilimanjaro just is, has that more accessible way. They call it a walkup. But, um, I didn't really think it was a walkup. It was harder than a walkup.

Host:                Climbing Kilimanjaro requires hikers to be an extremely good shape. Dr. Morris is a regular at the campus gym at 5:30 AM but she realized that her workout routine needed a boost. Come to find out the Hills of Oneonta were the perfect match.

Dr. Morris:        So I had this, uh, kind of walk, run, um, loop that I did. So it starts over by the tennis courts. There's a very steep Hill to the Memorial Hill and to the upper, um, soccer and rugby fields and kind of come down and go down, um, the cow path. And then we'd go all the way into town. Then we'd do the Hartwick stairs and come back and then go up Clinton street and then come back up that, um, that other Hill. So those, because they're such steep grades, um, both going up and down and that was really the mimic, um, many of the steep grades, um, throughout the eight days of, of tracking. So, uh, I would say Oneonta is a very good place because of the, the Hills and where SUNY Oneonta is situated is, is great. So all of our students that, um, do the cow path, uh, on a daily basis that they're ready to go to Kilimanjaro

Dr. Morris:        first four days. You start actually at, um, a rain forest and then your, the route I took, you're kind of always going around the mountain. So the day before when I saw the camp, you look up and I asked my guide, I said, we're not going on that wall our way. And he said, yeah, that's her going. I said, well, where, where's the trail? I'm afraid of Heights. So, uh, so it adds this layer of, of anxiety, um, on there. So there's this place where he called the kissing rock because you are kind of just moving across and there's um, very little ledge there.

Dr. Morris:        The first summit is when you hit the REM, it's over 19,000 feet. You go through this time period. So the sun was just a, um, coming up. So I started, um, summit day at midnight and most of those hours of it was a clear night watching the moon. Um, you know, on one side kind of go over and that was my to, you know, looking how, how long am I getting closer? Am I, am I getting there? Um, because it was very cold and it was about 10 below zero. And um, you couldn't stop at all because of the cold

Host:                at this point in the Trek. The exhaustion and sheer enormity of the physical and mental challenges she encountered started to set in. Dr. Morris continued to push through

Dr. Morris:        that very beginning of summit. I was afraid because I'm afraid of Heights. I knew that it was an exposed area. Um, so my heart rate was up and that's exactly what you don't want your heart rate to go up cause you don't have that much oxygen. And um, expended a lot of energy. I hadn't slept cause we left at midnight and so I get past that section and I'm just exhausted. I'm just, Oh my gosh, I'm so tired. And my upper back started to hurt part of the time, that first kind of hour, hour I was daydreaming because people were coming down. Um, people were getting sick, there were life flights, helicopters coming, picking up people. And so I was daydreaming about how I could get my life flight helicopter, come get me. So, and how can I stop doing this and what a stupid thing to do on my birthday.

Dr. Morris:        So I was all this and I came up with a plan of altitude blindness cause I figured I could fake altitude blindness and then they won't know and they can come get me and this will be great. And then I spent, you know, another hour debating the ethics of, you know, faking altitude, um, blindness. So then I was wondering, is this worse than childbirth? And I think it is. And so, I mean, your mind does all these kinds of things as you're, you know, going up out the toot and the fatigue and the mental, um, versus the physical and say, son, getting closer to that first REM of the volcano, that first summit, and you could see it and it was there and you're going, there it is. You know, there's the first, and then you had this very loose scree and it's like quicksand and you're just, every step you take is your, you know, your boots going into this, you know, just very loose gravel and you're pulling yourself up and say you get to this first REM and it's, that's when the emotion hits.

Dr. Morris:        You just have this kind of just outburst of emotion that you've made it to this place. But then you have 220 meters to go and it's still an hour. And that's the kind of remarkable thing is it's only three miles from summit camp to the summit, but a 4,000 foot elevation change. Oh, you'd get finally to summit and then you take a picture. I mean that's the kind of thing that's like, okay. And then, then you go down. Um, they, they don't let you stay up there very long because you're at such high altitude. So essentially I had a guide and then I had another um, guide, take each of my arms and we ran down the mountain and in this kind of very loose scree and you know, I would either be sliding or her running and then I would be yelling rock. There's a rock ahead.

Dr. Morris:        And then I'd be jumping over rocks. And at that point in time, um, I had frostbite on my toes and a little bit on my fingertips. And so the pain of the, my toes was starting to kick in because they were fine out. So by the time I get to summit, I still have eight miles to go that day down to the next camp and another eight miles the following day. And last day kind of hiking out. I couldn't even wear my hiking boots and I had TIVA sandals and socks and it was very muddy. And the vertical grades and um, that you'd go both up and down were, were very steep. So that was, those were the painful days.

Dr. Morris:        it was great. It, it reminded me of my first real, um, vacation and forever, I mean a really long time. This was, uh, just a chance to kind of be in nature, um, you know, see, uh, different landscapes, but um, be quiet and have that, um, both a physical, um, push of pushing my physical limits but also that kind of space to think and reflect and digest. I mean, being here for a year and the role and, and, um, everything that being a president of such a great university entails and means, uh, I was able to kind of process that and think about the future. So that really just then energized me and, um, invigorated me.

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Host:                that's all for today's episode. If you want to learn more about Dr. Morris and see photos of our hike up Kilimanjaro, check for a link in the show bio. I'm Jared Stanley. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of my Oneonta life.