The Oldest Person to Climb Mount Kilimanjaro with Anne Lorimor Part 1 (of 2)
“Nature spoke to me in a way nothing else ever has.”
YOUR KEY INSIGHTS FROM Anne
Anne Lorimor is not your typical great-grandmother sitting in her rocking chair. At age 85, Anne broke the record for being the oldest woman to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Her record was soon broken, so at age 89, she returned to the mountain to reclaim the record. In July of 2019, she became the oldest person to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, giving her a place in the 2020 Guinness Book of World Records. Anne is a goal setting achiever at heart. She holds numerous degrees, including an RN, “as a backup career choice,” and never stops pushing her limits to achieve what others see as impossible.
humble roots
“I was born at the beginning of the Great Depression. People who live today cannot imagine what it was like, no one could find work unless they were lucky enough to be with the government or the railroad. And it was very, very tough. I was lucky that my parents had parents that they could go to from time to time. We were homeless at times, and many things like that. But always people were kind and somehow we never lost hope. We always knew that things were going to get better. And we were going to do something.
My parents and my grandparents were both philanthropists, my grandfather helped an orphanage and when it folded he took in those kids and brought them up. My father and mother then had a children's home and school. When I was only nine years old, I used to help bathe, feed, and dress those baby orphans. So I've been caring about kids for all my life. And then there's a children's home up in New Mexico, about 7000 feet high way up in the northern part. And it was extremely beautiful. I hiked from the time I was just a little girl. Just every day, we loved nature. Our house was built away from everything except the school and church, which was handy for us. And every day, we had rocks that we climbed, we called it everyday rock. And we hiked in the mountains every single day. And I just thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. Nature spoke to me in a way nothing else ever did. My mother had a great to do that. She had a cactus garden that she loved. And she also has other kinds of gardens. My uncle was the farmer for this organization. So there was a lot going on with nature. And somehow it spoke to me as nothing else ever has.”
how nature speaks to us
“I just know that when I'm there, my heart swells and I just feel good all over and as if nothing could be more beautiful. My mother also loved nature and that helped. My father was the active one he liked hiking and that but my mother was the one who would tell you about the flowers and the rocks and all of the things of that sort. And it was just something we didn't have much in the way of goods, you know, toys or anything like that. But here were these beautiful flowers and cacti and shrubs and bushes and trees all around us. We could just sort of revel in that. I truly loved it. And then later on when I lived in a city some of my life I would always find the parks. Central Park in New York is quite exciting. Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is another place where you're getting back to nature you can get away from Then name trails and you see there a few people and just love what's there for you. And somehow it gives me a boost nothing else does.”
offering a hand-up
“When I was in college, I helped serve Thanksgiving and Christmas meals for the Salvation Army, I always felt that I wanted to help. When I was ready for high school. My second grade teacher paid my tuition at a boarding school in California, and always felt I must pay this forward. It gave me so much broadness in my horizon that I hadn't had before. And then many things, I work for family promise, which is for that transitional homeless, I work my church keeps them for at night, and I'll stay there as a host I'll help serve food or prepare food or whatever they need. I do many things that joy, what I want to do is help particularly homeless Foster and orphan children, know what their options are, get them the tools to live the kind of lives they want to live in their full potential, and then give back and those are the things I'm proudest of in my life. And I just keep going on I helped make sandwiches for homeless employed working men in may sell through my church, they're just so many things to do. And I feel that given them, I don't want to give handouts, I say, a hand up, not a hand-out."
First, in 2004, I started challenged youth fund under the Arizona Community Foundation is an umbrella organization. But then I did want my own organization. So I can do more in the way of scholarships and that sort of thing. And so that was later that was 2016. But but it's all been toward the same cause to help children and youth reach their full potential do what they want to do.
Nature is, as I said to you, it just speaks to me and the way nothing else does. You get out there and you feel your whole heart swell. The whole beauty of it all comes to you and you want to share it with other people. I have been a mentor mentor for some children. And I always tried to get outdoors and hiking in with them as one of the things that I gave them when we were together. I think you have to experience nature. I once read James Herriot who was the that in England that was so in love with nature. And he said, ‘it's not the same to think of it from afar. When you're there, it speaks to you in a way it never does just when you're remembering it.’ And I feel the same way. And that's why I wanted to get them actually out on the mountains and managed to do that several times.”
the record-breaking climb
“I'm not a professional. I am absolutely not a professional climber, but I've just always loved it. When I read about Kilimanjaro, when I was in high school, I was kind of excited. But I didn't speak to me particularly, I just thought it was wonderful that people do these things. And then back in about 2007, my nephew said, ‘We're going to climb Kilimanjaro.’ And I said, ‘Let me go.’ I thought they'd laugh at me. And they said, ‘Well, sure, why not.’ So I kept on doing climbing to get my keep myself in shape.
I belonged to CEO Space. It's a business educational and mentoring organization for entrepreneurs. And a man came, who was the oldest person to have climbed all of those Seven Summits. And he was going to lead an expedition up Kilimanjaro. I thought, this is the man to go with, because he'll understand the problems of older people. So I got back in touch with my nephew, but he wasn't ready to go. And I went ahead and we were all set to go. I had put out my brochures and everything. I thought, I can just make this something to help my cause.
And then just the day after I printed the brochures, he said, ‘We're not going to go this year, I didn't get enough people.’ So I stayed. And then I thought, well, why not make it something big. Next year, I can be the oldest woman to do that.
We did it. And I didn't do any personal training that time. I just kept climbing, we went up north up to Mount Humphreys, which is about 13,000 feet high. I did anything I could do to get myself in shape. And I went, and I did it. And we were trying to get myself a Guinness World Record for that. And within four months of the time that I climbed, a Russian woman went, and she had the title. I said to myself, I'm doing this again, I want to help my kids and I want it to be striking and dramatic. So I began to train. And just before I was going to do it at 88. And just before I was ready to go, Dennis went, who was a little older than I would have been when I did it. And I didn't want to be just the oldest woman I wanted to be the oldest person. So I said, Well, I'm going to put it off one more year. If it doesn't do that, I'll just go and climb and do the best I can. But no one else did it. And I did make it. But it's a little more dramatic. When were doing our Safari before the climb, it rained for the first time in two months. The steps are slippery. There was no handrail. It was a 10th camp, it was staying and I went down. And I really hurt and I hurt and it hurt. And I actually climbed that mountain with three broken ribs.”
I think it was two or three nights before we do go up. I was having terrible pain. And I woke my nephew up and I said we've got to do something. Because I am hurting, I can hardly breathe. I can't turn over. I said, I have to do something. So actually, he said prayers for me. And that certainly helps as far as I'm concerned. And I said I cannot not do this. Because there are too many people counting on me. I now had a documentary crew that had come along, said nobody wants a documentary of a failed climb. I've got to do this. And it was I think probably the most challenging thing I've ever done. Because I was in pain, but nothing was going to stop me. And I didn't want any artificial aids. I don't think I was supposed to have any. I had no oxygen and I wouldn't let anybody else be up. If I slipped and fell. I got myself and I managed to make it up there. And I thought this is got to be something for the kids and we're still going to do things with it. That will help the kids. What I've done is given them scholarships to a youth camp that CEO Space does where they make connections they have for life.”
paying it forward
“I’ve taken a number of kids who are underserved. As I said, I focus on homeless, foster, orphan children, but any underserved kids or low income kids, we take to this wonderful teen program that CEO Space puts on. The people get to learn things like networking and brainstorming. They make contacts they have for life. I just so pleased with what some of them have done.
And I have done other things, I've done a youth program for Toastmasters. Because I think no matter what you decide you want in your life, if you can speak well, and comfortably, it helps you. And we had some really good results from that. I myself went to a diabetic meeting and talked to them about what they can do to make themselves speak well and present their own cause. I also have bank accounts, because a lot of people don't know how to handle their money. We try to give individuals financial literacy and they're given some literature and a very low balanced bank account. And they're also given some some training along with several things that I think would help them live better lives.”
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