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Many people can lay claim to summiting Africa’s highest peak. But until now, none could attest to doing it barefoot.

With a few callouses, toe stubs and grazes, six local mountain climbers reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro barefoot on Saturday afternoon.

They are all members of Barefoot Impi and took on the Old Mutual Barefoot Kilimanjaro Expedition to raise funds for the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.

According to the Barefoot Impi website, those who join can attempt or establish a barefoot challenge, with the emphasis on personal achievement – and to the benefit of a charitable cause.

One of the climbers, Matt Botha, said he had always wanted to climb Kilimanjaro – a climb on “a unique African landmark that every proud African should aspire to do”.

And the crew decided to climb barefoot to attract attention and interest in their endeavour to raise funds for the children’s hospital.

“We wanted to do something cutting edge so we had to find a balance between the possible and the impossible,” said Botha.

It took the crew about five days to reach the top and two and half days to descend.

No serious injuries or irreparable foot damage were experienced during the expedition.

Reaching the top was an emotional feat for the climbers.

“We all burst into tears,” said Camilla Howard, the only woman in the team.

The crew trained for months in advance – hiking up trails on Table Mountain without shoes and spending several hours in an ice chamber in –15ºC temperatures to ready themselves for the challenge.

The team included six barefoot climbers, professional mountain guides, one of SA’s top mountaineers, Sean Disney, and scientist Dr Ross Tucker from the SA Sports Science Institute.

Tucker did extensive research to help the team prepare for the challenge.

“We didn’t go on this expedition irresponsibly; we went in there with a watertight plan,” said Botha.

David Russell-Rockliff from Old Mutual, which sponsored the team, said they had decided on Red Cross as the beneficiary because as a company they had a keen interest in people’s futures and the hospital had a similar vision in that they were looking after children.

Botha added: “Our number one goal was raise funds for the hospital and summiting the mountain was our second goal… So even though we had a big undertaking, it was nothing compared to some of the mountains these kids (at Red Cross) have to climb.”

natasha.prince@inl.co.za - Cape Argus