One day, while walking around the neighborhood, Perucca ran into a friend who was planning on hiking Mount Kilimanjaro.
“She told me she hadn’t gone yet and that they wouldn’t be going until next September. She asked me if I wanted to go, and because I had been so inactive, I immediately said ‘Yes, I want to go,’ even though I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Perucca laughed.
She soon put in the hiking deposit and began simultaneously attempting to rehab her knee and train for Mount Kilimanjaro.
“From that point, we continued to do our little hikes. We went to the gym, trying to get full strength on that knee. I invited another friend of mine who is 67, and she had decided to go too. Everything we did was with intent. We started planning longer hikes because we would be on our feet a lot more,” Perucca explained.
After all the preparation and rehab, Perucca and her team traveled out and began the hike up Kilimanjaro. The 19,341-foot journey is the highest single mountain, meaning it is not surrounded by a range. Perucca’s team broke the 41-mile journey into eight days, taking it slow to avoid altitude sickness. Because you can’t go on the mountain without a guide, Perucca and her friends joined a group filled with porters, guides and other assistants to help them safely reach the top of the mountain. As an additional challenge, Kilimanjaro features multiple unique climates, such as a rainforest, a desert and an arctic environment.
Throughout the journey, Perucca had to battle altitude sickness and endure the physical challenges of being on the mountain for so long. Luckily, her knee continued to function and was well-prepared from her training.
