'The mountain was relentless. It forced us to change the plan and accept what was in front of us.'

A few weeks after climbing Africa's highest peak — in his wheelchair — Jeff Harmon said the Mount Kilimanjaro he had envisioned wasn’t the mountain he encountered in Tanzania.

“It was everything my visioning and dreams were not,” Harmon, 51, said after returning to his Morris County home from the mid-September expedition. “The mountain was relentless. It forced us to change the plan and accept what was in front of us.”

Harmon, a leadership coach from Boonton, led a 32‑member team to Tanzania in September to attempt the 19,341-foot climb. That followed two years of training, in New Jersey parks and on Rocky Mountain passes in Colorado , to help Harmon achieve his goal.

Story continues

See Full Page