Fastest known times (FKTs) are the most popular type of record thru-hikers and endurance athletes are trying to set these days. People now run the Colorado Trail end to end in less than a week, hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail in just 46 days, complete calendar year triple crowns faster than ever, and the list goes on.
Lorrie Hess took a different approach when she set her sights on bagging an FKT on Mount Kilimanjaro. The Texas native had caught the thru-hiking bug on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in 2017. Then, she started pursuing the U.S.’s highest points in each state — a goal she’s still working toward. She had traveled to Tanzania last year to hike Kilimanjaro for training, for the experience, and to test how she’d fare on such a big peak.
That’s when she learned about the Kilimanjaro “Sea to Summit” trail. It had been established by a local Tanzanian guide named Isack Igenge in 2019. Only a few people had ever completed it, and not one of them was a woman.
“I thought, ‘Where can I go as a 59-year-old woman and get the fastest known time or be the first woman … [hiking] somewhere everybody’s heard of?” Hess told GearJunkie. “This was is it. I said, ‘I need to do it.’”
Hess summited Kilimanjaro around 7:40 a.m. on July 27, 14 days, 19 hours, and 16 minutes after she started almost 250 miles away. She was the first woman to complete the Sea to Summit route and claimed the supported FKT in doing so. And she says she can’t wait until another motivated woman steps up to the plate to challenge her record.
“I want other women to go, ‘If this 59-year-old woman can fly solo, can’t find a friend to go with her, nobody wants to do that, so she goes by herself, hires this guide to take her across [Tanzania] — if she can make it happen,’ I want them to say ‘I could make it happen, too.’”
Mount Kilimanjaro Sea to Summit Trail FKT
Hess said she wasn’t sure what to expect when she arrived in Tanzania for the Sea to Summit hike, even though she had summited Kilimanjaro the year before. But from the moment Igenge picked her up from the airport, she knew she was in good hands. They drove straight to the Indian Ocean, where they’d start their hike the next day at noon in a light drizzle.
While many FKT attempts require break-of-dawn early mornings, long days pushing extreme miles, and late finishes, Hess said this one was different. The pace Igenge set was pretty casual despite the nature of their endeavor. That first day, she said, they only covered 14 miles.
“I was a little disappointed,” she said. “But I said to myself, ‘You know, Lorrie, it doesn’t matter. You’re gonna be first, so you’re gonna be fastest.’”
After day one, they picked up the pace a little bit, hitting about 20 miles a day after that. But the hard cutoff was always nightfall — Igenge didn’t want them hiking after dark.
Hess said they probably could have gone faster, but they were stopped in almost every village by curious locals. People wanted to visit and take pictures with Hess and Igenge. The sight of a white woman backpacking through their villages was a rarity.
She was overwhelmed by how friendly and welcoming people were. But they still got strange looks when Igenge would tell them what they were doing.
“They would look at me like, ‘No …’ And I knew enough Swahili I would just say, ‘I love walking,’” she said, chuckling. “And they’d smile real big like, ‘Okay. She really is doing this.’ Because it’s an odd thing in Tanzania to do that kind of walking for fun.”
‘So Different Than Backpacking Alone’
Because Hess was pursuing the supported FKT, she and Igenge had a sag wagon that carried all their gear and supplies and met them at each destination on the way to Kilimanjaro. Igenge would cook breakfast, which was their biggest meal of the day, Hess said. He’d make lots of eggs, porridge, sausage, and toast every morning before they set out.
“And if you didn’t eat it all, they thought you weren’t well, so you ate it all,” Hess said. Aside from that, she carried snacks like nut packs and Bobo bars as they hiked.
Hess had also brought her tent, expecting to sleep outside a lot. But at most locations Igenge insisted on booking a room. There were only a handful of nights she ended up using the tent.
“It’s so much different when you’re supported than when you’re backpacking alone,” Hess said.
Much of the trail leading from the ocean to the base of Kilimanjaro was on roads and along highways. There were some trails and walkways, but Hess said the biggest challenge for her, along the entire trip, was the traffic — 18-wheel trucks, cars, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, and many other forms of motorized vehicles streamed by for many miles of the hike, Hess said.
But when they got to the foot of the mountain and started ascending, the familiar peace and quietude of nature engulfed them again.
Bagging the FKT
It took Hess and Igenge three and a half days from the base of Kilimanjaro to reach the summit. When they did at 7:40 a.m. on July 27, Hess was elated — even though she was struggling to express it.
“I had no breath, but I was super energetic inside,” she said. “Oh, it was so awesome … you would not believe it.”
Hess had completed the Kilimanjaro Sea to Summit Route. She not only claimed the title of the first woman to have done so, but she also bagged the supported FKT in the process. The website Fastest Known Time recently verified her accomplishment.
Hess is under no illusion that she’ll hold the FKT for very long. In fact, when I asked her if she was worried someone would come to take it from her, she responded without hesitation.
“If you wanted to do the fastest known time and beat my record, probably anybody could if they just said, ‘That’s what I’m doing,’” said Hess. “I’m really hopeful they will.”
She said she wants this adventure to inspire others to pursue their own — even if that means dethroning her as the FKT holder.
Kilimanjaro Sea to Summit FKT: The Gear
Hess was upfront when we asked her about the gear she used on this trip.
“This hike is unusual for gear because the days leading up to the summit are regular hot weather and low elevation climate,” she said. “Then suddenly, you are in the Arctic zone hiking from 16,000 to 19,341 feet and need cold, potentially severe weather gear. So, I had to pack for both even though I only needed the cold stuff for a day or so.”
Here was what she packed and carried with her along her journey.
Hiking to Kilimanjaro Basecamp
Summit Day
So You Want to Hike Kilimanjaro, Sea to Summit?
Hess couldn’t say enough good things about her guide, Igenge, when she described her journey to GearJunkie. The ultramarathon runner, thru-hiker, and mountaineer is a native of Tanzania, but he lived in Vermont for a while. He told GearJunkie that he fell in love with the trail systems, the freedom to just go hike when you wanted to, and the community that the AT fostered.
Igenge started playing with a vision of establishing something similar in his home country. He saw what kinds of positive effects the AT had on the communities it passed through and on the people in them. That’s when he got the idea to try and establish a Sea to Summit thru-hike route for Mount Kilimanjaro.
He first attempted the route in 2019, completing it in just 12 days and 5 hours. He has since guided several other hikers on the same route, Hess having been his most recent.
Igenge said that he’s working with local governments and reaching out to communities to better define this route, build more trails so there’s less road walking, and turn this into a thru-hike that might draw more tourism to his country.
“We’re building it,” he said confidently. “That’s the plan.”
Igenge also said he’s game to lead others on FKT attempts on the same route. And he said, hiking isn’t the only way it could be done.
“I can provide logistics for either running, biking, or just hiking,” he said. “I’m also getting a master’s degree in African wildlife ecology and conservation … I really like the aspect of learning and teaching about the ecology along the way.”
Igenge does not have a website for his guide company, yet. But, he told us he was comfortable having his email included in this article. If you’re interested in hiking the Sea to Summit route with him (for an FKT attempt or not), shoot him an email at [email protected].
